I’ve always admired poems that take the mundane events of our lives and imbue them with a luster that lingers nearby, but that often goes unnoticed.
Did I dream when we were young and full of hope, we’d always dance all night, work all day without a sign of weariness?
Naomi Replansky was a finalist for the 1952 National Book Award in Poetry and the 2014 Poets’ Prize and Winner of the Poet Society of America’s 2013 William Carlos Williams Award.
“I write the way a tortoise runs, although occasionally, instead of a hare, I pull a poem out of a hat,” said Michael Collier, who recently published a new book of poetry.
THROUGH THE WILDERNESS by Toussaint St. Negritude Through the wilderness of my freedom through territories uncharted for corporate consumption through cogent dreams and cosmic streams I have climbed to find my Star House high amongst the peaks of an ever- … (read more)
Before the wind takes it. Before the voles make a home of it.Or a trunk-borer. Before the orioles weave one nest too many.Or later, in December, the snow weighs heavily for the thundering branchto go under. And looking ahead again to next summer, the tail … (read more)
Late August There is this; the evening falls soonerin late August.In late August there is a chillonce the sun has lowered.The scent of the grasses is burnished,the pleas of the cicadas, plaintive.The cycle, always the cycle;don’t despair, wear what manife … (read more)
Young Writers Project is an independent nonprofit that engages students to write, helps them improve, and connects them with authentic audiences in newspapers, before live audiences, and online. YWP also publishes an annual anthology and The Voice, a digi … (read more)
Language possesses magic.Right now, much of its power is tuned toward harm. So much of the English language has been curled, hammered and molded around colonialism. Our stories are heavy with capitalist urgency and linear processing, our metaphors are thi … (read more)
About the 4thI take the 5thBecause of the 6th Yet on 2nd thoughtPerhaps I oughtDeclare the blameAnd name the names Who tweeted the tweetsWho took to the streetsRiled. Defiled. Went totally wildWho fueled the schismAs patriotismWho left for CancunWho kept … (read more)
How Difficult is It? I wouldn’t have guessed you’d love this form. And take it back into a cell’s darkness. Even the super moon can’t reach you. Unless you dream that light is meant for you. I mean it’s hard for me to think of so many men, green-suite … (read more)
The Usefulness of an Umbrella Few care about this ordinariness that spends summer days in the back of closets until a chiller wind whips in squalls and out of nowhere you are on a city street with the only person you can imagine sharing with, an uneven co … (read more)
Rorschach Test Shoulder blades of a house, one left, one right; both browned by afternoon suns. ~ ~ ~ Mouths of two bedroom windows, opened wide. ~ ~ ~ The outline of my grandparents, my grandma smelling like coffee and lavender soap, their shapes still p … (read more)
Excerpted from September 1, 1939 By W.H. Auden All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State … (read more)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ055ilIiN4 Twenty-two-year-old poet Amanda Gorman read her poem, “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20, 2021.
