AudioPoetry

The Empty City

Poetry by Michael Bazzett January 10, 2020

I went to the doctor and found out / there is an empty city inside me.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Milk Teeth

Poetry by Gale Marie Thompson December 23, 2019

I lean my open neck against yours. / The miracle always returns with a hunger.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

indelible in the hippocampus

Poetry by Caroline Crew August 20, 2019

Memory is no solid monument but liquid’s / twins of substance and ceaseless swell.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Auto-Immune

By Destiny Birdsong February 27, 2019

I am destined to infuse / survival with meaning, like honey clotting in syringes.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Etymology.

Poetry by sam sax August 24, 2018

the etymology of gun is hunger

Conflict

AudioPoetry

Poet Wrestling with the Possibility She’s Living in a Simulation

Poetry by Rosebud Ben-Oni June 25, 2018

One simulation to another, am I wrong.

Bodies & NatureTechnology & the Future

AudioPoetry

you’ve always been a border simulator

Poetry by Gabriel Dozal May 7, 2018

you have trouble saying your name and you say it anyway

Deserts ConflictTechnology & the Future

AudioPoetry

[My cadastre of flesh]

By Khal Torabully, translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson April 30, 2018

My cadastre of flesh / dissects me right to the bone

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Edge of the Wild

Poetry by Leah Umansky April 4, 2018

I am so afraid of being troubled and alone at the end of this world

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

History

By Melissa Ginsburg March 9, 2018

We kept the kills quiet / amid rows of pale clover

Bodies & NatureConflict

AudioPoetry

Some Call It Bounty

Poetry by Alexa Doran February 28, 2018

Before you were born I binge-watched Hoarders.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Rooms

Poetry by Rewa Zeinati January 19, 2018

We used to think that refugees / were of one kind / and we never knew / that we were too.

Conflict

AudioPoetry

Notes on Inheritance

Poetry by Chelsea Dingman January 12, 2018

I stretch my neck into the next life.

Bodies & NatureGender

AudioPoetry

An Iranian Rat Prepares for Space Flight

Poetry by Robin LaMer Rahija January 8, 2018

I have no name unless I make / it back alive

Climate & EnvironmentTechnology & the Future

AudioPoetry

At Mercier Orchards

Poetry by James Davis May December 15, 2017

we believe in ourselves / more than we believe in anything else

Conflict

AudioPoetry

Where Papi’s Angel Speaks to Me About Love

Poetry by Willy Palomo November 29, 2017

mijo—i know you have seen the night / as an excuse to hold your body like a bottle

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

The last dog in the world

Poetry by Sarah Messer November 15, 2017

What are days? Just him and / the left-over spiders.

Climate & EnvironmentPoliticsTechnology & the Future

AudioPoetry

Unfinished

By Fritz Ward October 25, 2017

This is where our devouring / comes home

AudioPoetry

On a Lamp Post Long Ago

By Ada Limón October 11, 2017

in case we have forgotten the word love, we will know its symbol

AudioPoetry

I Give You My Heart/Os doy mi corazón

By Ricardo Alberto Maldonado October 10, 2017

A poem for Puerto Rico.

Climate & EnvironmentUSA

AudioPoetry

Je Suis Sally

Poetry by Chet’la Sebree September 27, 2017

"I am black wench, / wench Sally, African Venus, Sarah Hemings"

AudioPoetry

After Dinner

By Sasha Pimentel August 21, 2017

The serrated are only / 
for dining, the curved ones for husking / 
muscle from the bone

Conflict

AudioPoetry

Black stars fill up black sky—

By Dawn Lundy Martin July 24, 2017

When the opal stone appears, I’ll lean into it. But terror is a runaway train.

AudioPoetry

The Dead Woman

By Michael Bazzett July 17, 2017

This is how we knew she had / already died at least once.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Subterfuge

By Mai Der Vang May 22, 2017

Maybe you spiked the dirt / With your snare of shivers.

Conflict

AudioPoetry

The Song of Empty Rooms

By Wale Owoade March 27, 2017

Your voice is my favorite album, / you left but your bones are still here.

Family & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Oasis

By Beth Bachmann March 13, 2017

We want what God wants: to be pure.

Bodies & NatureClimate & EnvironmentReligion

AudioPoetry

Number Love, My Taxes

By Alicia Mountain January 23, 2017

how we are so many dependents, / how one headlight will do for now

Bodies & NatureFamily & RelationshipsWork & Money

AudioPoetry

Hive

By M'Bilia Meekers January 9, 2017

My name // came reeling towards me from a net / of insects that said it was your mouth.

AfricaConflictFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Neck of the Woods

By Amy Woolard December 26, 2016

One girl might leave a trail of crumbs / Behind her. One might leave a line of poured-out gasoline.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Fourth Algorithm

By Terrell Jamal Terry November 7, 2016

I have trouble naming myself / In a language I can find.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Labor Day

By sam sax June 15, 2016

any word traced to its origin is a small boy begging for water

The Future of Cities Bodies & NatureConflict

AudioPoetry

Migrant Is Not a Metaphor

By Cynthia Dewi Oka June 15, 2016

A migrant learns to love as mothers do, by trying and trying again.

The Future of Cities ConflictPolitics

AudioReport

Brooklyn Bound

By Dwyer Murphy June 1, 2016

The fight to extradite El Chapo.

AmericasConflictGovernmentPolitics

AudioPoetry

Tenebrae

By R. A. Villanueva June 1, 2016

Praise instead the night, its starless, basilica void.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Let’s Not Begin

By Maggie Smith June 1, 2016

Worry and console, worry and console: it’s how I stay in shape.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Tassiopeia

By Kaveh Akbar May 16, 2016

I came out hot as a punched jaw

Bodies & NatureReligion

AudioPoetry

Asylum

By Hala Alyan May 16, 2016

They said burn the keys but only our hair caught fire.

Conflict

AudioPoetry

She Walked In / She Walked Out

By Roberto Montes May 2, 2016

Whatever you touched grew more like itself

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

How Easy to Live with Choice

By Esther Lin April 15, 2016

Oh it’s a gold rush of expectations this place.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Apocalypse with Bed Sheets

By Brian Clifton April 1, 2016

I pick him up, and he unravels into a sheet.

Family & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Hyel’s Zumbi

By jayy dodd April 1, 2016

Call his neck plum, when it bruises say the skin makes it easy to digest.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Straight to the jawline bloody Igor

By Shelly Taylor March 15, 2016

Trumpets skyward, you know about it, side eye, you know how goes silence in the rock-n-roll

The Future of Language Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Twentieth-First Century

By Samuel Amadon March 15, 2016

I vote with my feet. I vote with my wallet. I vote in person with my vote.

The Future of Language Politics

AudioPoetry

Hera, Say Hello

By Meghan Privitello March 1, 2016

Why, among this applause, 
have I become so small in this life

Family & RelationshipsGender

AudioPoetry

There’s no such thing as a free symphony

By Sonya Bilocerkowycz March 1, 2016

We reap such risky skills from childhood

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

the underworld

By Tyler Gonlag February 15, 2016

your sad eyes are a river the locals know not to swim

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Visions

By Kate Gaskin February 15, 2016

Cousin, I have had a premonition.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

From L’Heure Bleue, or The Judy Poems

By Elisa Gabbert February 1, 2016

it’s good to remember how much it hurts

Conflict

AudioPoetry

White Boy Time Machine: Software

By Hieu Minh Nguyen February 1, 2016

b u t w h e r e a r e y o u r e a l l y f r o m ? yesterday is the wrong answer, tomorrow too

Bodies & NatureRace

AudioPoetry

In Vitro

By Christopher Salerno January 15, 2016

hair as unreal as a doll built by hand in the hold of beautiful ship

Bodies & NatureReligion

AudioPoetry

Lessons on Expulsion

By Erika L. Sanchez January 15, 2016

This grain, this wild greedy thing

Bodies & NatureReligion

AudioPoetry

Love American-Made/ Your Toy Ode:Us

By Aliah Lavonne Tigh December 15, 2015

The heart I hide behind the hood: always speeding hot, too easily interstated.

The Boundaries of Nations

AudioPoetry

Annie Scrubs Motel Floors

By Brianna Albers December 1, 2015

there was no sex & the bruises were Boy’s way of saying no, then yes, then no again

Bodies & NatureGender

AudioPoetry

The Parable of the Wayward Child

By Shara McCallum December 1, 2015

All her life as if she in a race with ruin.

Family & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Charon’s Obol

By Madeleine Wattenberg November 2, 2015

The truth is I’d tongue the honey from most any hand that granted me a crossing.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Art

By Chris Martin November 2, 2015

Everything is art to be broken.

Climate & Environment

AudioPoetry

Suture

By Philip Schaefer October 15, 2015

Every day a heart is pulled out like a wet plum from one body and placed inside another.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Sita Considers Her Rebellions

By Vandana Khanna October 15, 2015

She has killed things (though it is forbidden) with her hands

Asia & OceaniaBodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

The Door

By Nomi Stone May 1, 2015

Where are you Salma? Little ache / of sky.

AudioPoetry

Dominion

By Rajiv Mohabir March 2, 2015

A mandrake quickens / into greed-grab, tears a page / from Genesis.

AudioPoetry

Messenger

By Robin Beth Schaer December 15, 2014

The choice left was to be lost. / I climbed cloud-high to answer.

Religion in America: Gods and Devils

AudioPoetry

God suspected my heart was a geode but he had to make sure

By Layla Benitez-James December 15, 2014

good, God said, I took clouds and planted them / in soft, red clay.

Religion in America: Gods and Devils

AudioPoetry

A Brief History of the Whale Fishery

By Rachel Richardson October 1, 2014

the body: / such thin skin / and gold beneath—

American Empires: Power and Its Discontents

AudioPoetry

Temporary People

By Abigail Carl-Klassen June 16, 2014

Gin means you start down south and diesel / dye your stripper, that International Harvester, / through barbed wire

Class in America: The Fault Lines

AudioPoetry

Thems

By Tommy Pico June 16, 2014

I say “and them” and mean / how in “the sticks” where I lived, the reservation, the mail / boxes were like maypoles at the end of the Earth

Class in America: The Fault Lines

Audio

Act Two

By Clay Matthews March 17, 2014

Only a flood could drown out / the light he still held inside.

The American South: On the Map and in the Mind Bodies & Nature

Audio

You Can’t Tell the Truth

By Rebecca Gayle Howell March 17, 2014

We talk about leaving here as if / it’s walking out a door.

The American South: On the Map and in the Mind Bodies & NatureEconomy

Audio

The Dying Days of Vinyl in Reggae’s Capital

By Saxon Baird February 28, 2014

While foreigners buy up the relics of Jamaica’s musical heritage, reggae culture lives on in Kingston.

Travel & Adventure

Audio

A Pete Seeger Sing-along

By Nell Boeschenstein January 30, 2014

A playlist for remembering the singer and activist who could turn an audience into a choir.

Arts & CultureUSA

AudioPoetry

Staring as I Was into the Sequined Doom

By B.J. Soloy October 15, 2013

I don’t mean to sing disaster.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

Audio

Vipralambha (Union Through Separation)

By Simon Coates and Zahra Jewanjee July 15, 2013

Two Dubai-based artists explore a history of political and social tension through border-crossing sounds.

MENA

AudioPoetry

Freedom

By Nathalie Handal May 1, 2011

even the guards will count / the scars on their tongue / and prepare to heal

MENA