Poetry

  • November 2017

    An oil painting of the silhouette of a girl rolling a hoop up a street between two buildings. An ominous shadow of a man, perhaps carrying a spear enters the scene from above.
       By J. V. Foix
    Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914, oil on canvas, 69 x 85 cm, private collection My village sits on a circular platform. The gate of every house faces...

  • November 2017

    A pair of bared feet rest on a cloth covered in a non-English script.
       By Robert Bly
      There’ll be no more mother. We’ll have to live nowWith the looks on the faces of our friends,And half-open windows, and lamps that go onBy themselves, and an egg standing on a plate. Last night I dr...

  • November 2017

    Bared feet standing on a cloth covered in a non-English script.
       By Kevin Hart
    Sam Roxas-Chua 姚, Pilgrim, 27 x 51 in., sumi-e and squid ink. www.samroxaschua.com Still of our world, dear father, in your graveOr at my winter window, looking hardInto a life you never kne...

  • November 2017

    Two flowers in a vase sitting between two walls embedded with lights meant represent deportees sent from France to Nazi concentration camps.
       By Nicholas Samaras
    The 200,000 lights in the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation in Paris represent the number of deportees sent from France to Nazi concentration camps. Photo by Zak / Flickr   Martyrs of the Deport...

  • November 2017

    The pink moon rises over a wetland and forest at dusk.
       By Rumi
    Photo by C.P. Ewing / Flickr   "The sky has never seen such a moon”   The sky has never seen such a moon, not even in its dreams,No water could ever extinguish the fire of its light, Look at my body,...

  • November 2017

    A statuary in the extreme foreground with the sea in the deep background.
       By Yoo An-Jin, Kim Seung Hee
    Valery's "cemetery by the sea," Sète, France / Photo by Mathieu / Flickr An Encouragement by Yoo An-Jin “The wind is rising!We must try to live!”So said Paul Valéry.How shall I adopt that Frenchman’s...

  • November 2017

       By Ted Kooser
    For more, read Daniel Simon’s interview with Ted Kooser, “Starving for Order.” The Constellation I was on my way home from a party,ten-thirty, a dark winter night, no stars,a few snowflakes drifting...

  • November 2017

    Two strands of barbed wire stand in the foreground against a backdrop of yellowish clouds in a wine-dark sky
       By Admiel Kosman
    Photo: Ath-Har Saeed / Flickr       I play on the water. It’s not completely necessary or required, but things flow under the treeslike a gentle melody. Day unto dayuttereth more lo...

  • November 2017

    A mixed media image by Mona Nicole Sfeir, the author of these poems.
       By Mona Nicole Sfeir
    Mona Nicole Sfeir, The Maps of Our Making (detail), 2015, acrylic, chalk, collage on canvas. Political maps are human constructs that have continuously changed since the first maps were scratched ont...

  • September 2017

    Snowy roads at a crossroads with trees. Photo: Daniel Ebneter/Flickr
       By Eli Eliahu
    Photo: Daniel Ebneter/Flickr Crossroads All winter I didn’t write a poem, and I didn’t remembereven one dream that I dreamt. I left a houseand a wife, rented an apartment, and everything I neededI fo...

  • September 2017

    Egret flying over blue water with it's reflection beneath it
       By Sasenarine Persaud
    Photo: Daniel Simon Egret The bird was just searchingfor food not metaphors –or taking rest from a day’s flight It was dusk after all and its ancestorswho might have crossed the MiddlePassage, crosse...

  • September 2017

    Satiro della Valle, Capitoline Museums, Rome
       By Maxim Amelin
    Satiro della Valle, Capitoline Museums, Rome Эти бездонные ночи в июле Эти бездонные ночи в июле,            О!Ты вопрошаешь: — Меня обманули?            — Да, — отвечаю, — но как! Лучше не спрашива...

  • May 2017

    Photo courtesy of the author.
       By Kimberly Blaeser
    Photo courtesy of the authorI.A mark across the body. The morning I watched my beloved uncle disappear down the alley. His car left sitting in our yard for thirty days. This tattoo we...

  • May 2017

    Norman Akers (Osage), The Gathering (2012), lithograph, 22 3/4 x 16 3/8 in / Courtesy of the artist (normanakers.com)
       By Jennifer Elise Foerster
    Norman Akers (Osage), The Gathering (2012), lithograph, 22 3/4 x 16 3/8 in / Courtesy of the artist (normanakers.com) Summers we lie out on the hot porchpalms splayed— raising flames from ra...

  • May 2017

    Tony Tiger (Sac & Fox / Muscogee), Intertribal / Courtesy of the artist (facebook.com/tony.tiger.5268)
       By Rain Prud’homme-Cranford, Carolyn M. Dunn
    Tony Tiger (Sac & Fox / Muscogee),Intertribal / Courtesy of the artist(facebook.com/tony.tiger.5268) I Mix cultures of homeWest Africa West Indies disrupted along slave tradeFrench and S...

  • May 2017

    Ice crystals on a car mirror
       By Linda Rodriguez
    Photo: Ruth Ellison/Flickr for someone who’s been delayedon a cold, gray, rainy daytakes me backto that little girl waiting in the cold car with the littler onesas the night took over the skywhile he...

  • May 2017

    Burning flame from a campfire
       By Tanaya Winder
    Photo: David Hepworth/Flickr i pull my brothers from words, stupid injun, shot like bullets. when people ask why my brothers hated school i say: the spirit remembers what it’s like to be lef...

  • May 2017

    Mango. Photo by Jin Choi/Flickr.
       By Craig Santos Perez
    Photo: Jin Choi/Flickr All the mangoes I’ve tastedin California were imported and lost their true flavors in transit. And, even though all the mangoes I’ve enjoyed in Hawai’i were homegrown and ripen...

  • May 2017

    Red water droplet.
       By Heid E. Erdrich
    Photo: Jake Bellucci/Flickr What holds water in a droptension that holds humans in between their sweet skins water holds usher arms baystide of bloodbeat so close  just our skins  betweenhome and oce...

  • May 2017

    A lake reflecting moonlight at night
       By Sherwin Bitsui
    Photo: WerbeFabrik/Pixabay A bottom-lit sea ponders the lake’s questions,their secret conversations thatch howls to whimpers exhaled from an isthmus of drowned wolves.  Its glossary’s cataclysms smoo...

  • May 2017

    Female silhouette, outside in mountain pose.
       By Shauna Osborn
    Photo: Mark Brodie/Pixabay between landscape and the female body:earth   sand   stones   plants   flowers   blood a silhouette  digging molding carving space  visible & tactile  between the body...

  • May 2017

    Lake Thunderbird in Oklahoma
       By Chip Livingston
    Photo: Granger Meador/Flickr Our stuck tongues screamed louder In Alabama, words hung in a rhythm  Reservation hands could basket Tied back rocks rose, picked  Tarnished cigarettes unsupervised Betwe...

  • May 2017

    Marwin Begaye (Diné), Riders of the Storm II, lithograph, 15 x 22 in / Courtesy of the artist (@m.begaye2015)
       By Sy Hoahwah
    Marwin Begaye (Diné), Riders of the Storm II, lithograph, 15 x 22 in / Courtesy of the artist (@m.begaye2015) That day my guardian angel was cast out,she responded, “Fine, your heaven is too bougie,a...

  • May 2017

    Sunrise with pinpoint of light through a tree
       By Elise Paschen
    Photo: HeinerTenz/Pixabay Daybreak After the watch, dorveille,pin-prick of stud in sky,before that six a.m.first warbler wake-up callfrom elm above the deck,in dream a wife no longeranswers...

  • May 2017

    Kim Shuck, Warrior Trout (2016), 15/0 glass seed beads on brain-tanned hide, 9 x 2.5 in / Courtesy of the artist and Doug Salin Photography
       By Kim Shuck
    Kim Shuck, Warrior Trout (2016), 15/0 glass seed beads on brain-tanned hide, 9 x 2.5 in / Courtesy of the artist and Doug Salin Photography Memory spirits give me days full of Words I’ve forgotten or...
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