Poetry

Two Poems

By Kate Rogers

Spring 2019
Kate Rogers

PHOTO: Siriwan Leowratsamee/Unsplash Lamma Island Tofu-fa On the broken trail to Mot tat a field of white ginger lilies flags us down. We shrug off our packs. Huddled amo...
Two Poems

By Jennifer Wong

Spring 2019
Jennifer Wong

Rainy Afternoon Hong Kong 2018. PHOTO: Joan Pabona @kuochuqu #historyofthebees #gardenwall #blah #sowhat In 19__ I broke an expensive urn. Since then I have been...
Two Poems

By Kit Fan

Spring 2019
Kit Fan

PHOTO: Joel Fulgencio/Unsplash Hong Kong and the Echo What do we know but that we face One another in this place? – W. B. Yeats, “Man and the Echo” HK. I loved my mountains, rivers,...
Rohingya: Collective Voices

By Rohingya Poets

Spring 2019
Rohingya Poets

Rohingya students reading The Blossom in the Community Rebuilding Centre education facility in Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp, October 2018. Photo courtesy of Mayyu Ali. Translator’s no...
Reception

By Crystal Z Campbell

Spring 2019
Crystal Z Campbell

Crystal Z Campbell, Friends of Friends (Six Degrees of Separation), 4x6x72 inches, vintage collection of bacteria slides circa 1940s, steel, LED strips, automotive paint, plexiglas, 2013...
Three Poems

By Xiao An

Spring 2019
Xiao An

PHOTO: Luca Iaconelli/Unsplash Watching the Moonrise Alone Watching the moonrise alone the silent moon is like the person watching They’re alone together No one utters a si...
Incen / diary

By Clemonce Heard

Spring 2019
Clemonce Heard

PHOTO: SkitterPhoto/Pexels considering the Upstairs Lounge Fire We tipped our sticks to the gravel like the bent spines of men groveling beneath trunks of smoke to lure the barbed...
Thinking over Helen Johnson’s Already Much Thought over “‘A Solipsistic Colonial Fantasy’ . . . Impotent Observer” and Unhitching Myself from Kant’s First Moment

By John Kinsella

Winter 2019
John Kinsella

Photo: Casliber/Wikimedia Commons We have been away from Jam Tree Gully – now, reapproaching the name not on the gate. Working the categories, the signs, we fear the raiders? Fifteen minutes int...
Four Poems

By Blanca Garnica

Winter 2019
Blanca Garnica

Photo: Domeckopol/Pixabay 6 His under- wear white Armpits spotless and collar neat From Monday to Monday he is like that because the drainpipe carries off the rest. 12 Before me thei...
Five Poems

By Ennio Moltedo

Winter 2019
Ennio Moltedo

Photo: Bash Fish/Unsplash 1 At what time must the birds lined up in gardens, trees, and cages sing? Look to the law. 2 Let’s appoint the village madman. Chief Justice on the Court of Appeals,...
Three Poems

By Khal Torabully

Winter 2019
Khal Torabully

Photo: Michael Olsen/Unsplash [Carry my metaphor] Carry my metaphor; I touched the sea before waves deceived me. Carry my dream; I saw it all without opening eyes of salt. Carry my soul; I met...
Two Poems

By Sharmistha Mohanty

Winter 2019
Sharmistha Mohanty

Photo: Kordula Vahle/Pixabay * Granaries as long and winding as the shores from which we look at the lit ocean, behind us the fertile land, rivers coming to this sea, silt behind us thousa...
Two Poems

By Namrata Verghese

Winter 2019
Namrata Verghese

Photo: Foto-Rabe/Pixabay Guide to Bharatanatyam Your smile, shredded into silver shards across panes of mirrors lining studio walls. Tuck your sari, tight. Open your eyes, wide. You...
On the Last Day

By Xavier Bordes

November 2018
Xavier Bordes

Photo: Claus Grünstäudl/Unsplash Maybe it will be like the end of a yearwhen you find yourself alone in a deserted roomlike a statue at the end of a public garden pathfaced with bare autumn after the...
Two Poems

By Ashur Etwebi

November 2018
Ashur Etwebi

In the Presence of the Simurg, by Ashur Etwebi How Can You Recognize a Blue Morning? How can you recognize a blue morning?The sea to his right, the desert to his left. What voices does the m...
Five Poems

By Mehrdad Fallah

November 2018
Mehrdad Fallah

Photo: Ria Alfana/Unsplash A Conversation from Far, Far Away * No linedear friendconnects here, where I am,with where you are.Isn’t it strange that I’m talking to you? The question you handed meh...
Excerpt from “My 12-12-12”

By Alice Walker

November 2018
Alice Walker

A garden surrounds the memorial to Celia Sánchez in Cuba. Photo: Clara Sanchiz/Flickr But there we were a small contingentwaiting for Her.A nun showed up first,of course,this being hundreds of years...
Two Poems

By Hwang Tong-gyu

November 2018
Hwang Tong-gyu

Pampas grass on the Han River. Photo: dnlspnk/Flickr Wild Geese At the northern edge of the Han RiverI saw field-cannons marchdown the snowdrifts of the valley. Wild geese flew low.I woke to see mys...
Two Poems

By Kedarnath Singh

November 2018
Kedarnath Singh

Photo: Momoko Morita/Pixabay The Earth Shall Remain I’m surethe earth shall remain,if not elsewhere,it shall remain in my bones;as a wood louse lives in the trunk of a tree,as a weevil lives in a see...
Two Poems

By Ivy Alvarez

November 2018
Ivy Alvarez

Photo: Lizzie/Unsplash Nag-aagaw-dilim Filipino idiom meaning twilight (literally, snatching darkness) Hold the flashlight and I’ll raise my hands, make these shapes for yo...
A Sound Flag in Six Colors

By Eric Ellingsen, Mihret Kebede

September 2018
Eric Ellingsen, Mihret Kebede

Photo: Pixabay / David Peterson A Sound Flag: United States of America by Eric Ellingsen Author’s note: The flag is part of Poetry Jazz: Wax...
Transformations: A Poem Refracted through Three Languages

By Cia Rinne, Nebiy Mekonnen

September 2018
Cia Rinne, Nebiy Mekonnen

Photo: Pixabay / Kaserei Friends and Enemies by Cia Rinne (stockhausen’s childhood) the french were our enemiesand the e...
Tales of Silence: A Poem in Three Languages

By Mihret Kebede

September 2018
Mihret Kebede

Photo: Pixabay / Kaz የጸጥታ ወግ በጸጥታ መኃል…. አርምሞ ለሰማ ጸጥታ ወግ አለው…. ሚኒሊክ እንዳለውአሁን እኔና አንተ… አሁን አንተና እኔ ካወራው ሁላ የትኛው ተወዶ… የትኛው ተጠላ ?፤ይሄ...
“An aria is a weather event” (an excerpt)

By Kevin Simmonds

September 2018
Kevin Simmonds

Bradley Phillips, Leontyne Price (1963), oil on canvas, 127.6 x 92.1 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Ms. Sayre Sheldon, npg.si.edu Weather Event: Leontyne Pri...
Auscultate

By Monchoachi

September 2018
Monchoachi

Jaz Graf, Between What Was, 2018, toned cyanotype and serigraphy on paper, 25 x 33 in. [Listen to the poem in the original Creole] And the musicians played tunes of madness ...