Poetry

In the Middle of August, I Saw the Sky

By Romeo Oriogun August 10, 2022

One morning, on a wet day during the week...

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Irrawaddy Delta, 2016

By Maung Day August 3, 2022

A grain of rice cannot feed a hundred mouths

Poetry

Hypertension

By Courtney Faye Taylor July 27, 2022

In the early 1870s, at the mouth of the Big Bend tunnel, / John Henry beat a mechanical steam drill in a “steel driving” / contest.

Race

AudioPoetry

Search Party

By Steven Espada Dawson July 20, 2022

Together, above the kitchen sink, we peeled / a hundred russets.

Family & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Bringing Up Mother

By Idman Omar July 13, 2022

I was not dressed correctly when / motherhood interviewed me.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Lived Here

By Tarik Dobbs July 6, 2022

My Birth State can’t possibly drive interest

AudioPoetry

If I Say My Body Is Asian Does This Poem Disappear

By Eugenia Leigh June 29, 2022

Another poem mannequin- / Ing the body.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

from Beyond the Somber Station

By Liliana Ponce, translated by Michael Martin Shea June 22, 2022

Thought reduced to ashes — / in the golden sky tracing lines.

AudioPoetry

The Christmas Poem

By Jackson Holbert June 15, 2022

there are thousands of days left / tens of thousands if we’re lucky

Arts & Culture

AudioPoetry

A Poem Is a Landscape of the Mind

By Megan Pinto June 8, 2022

It was the winter of my life. Afternoons, / I watched light fade / from the faces of brownstones.

AudioPoetry

When the Sky Is Closed

By Mark Yakich June 1, 2022

Not even children who brave the street / Will notice the robins, mistaking them for nightingales.

Poetry

Hope Dissidents

Mona Kareem, translated by Sara Elkamel May 25, 2022

When we die, / the cemetery keeper tires / of surveilling our graves’ windows.

Poetry

One Hundred Percent House

By Shin Hae-uk, translated by Spencer Lee-Lenfield May 18, 2022

A house where no one lives / needs someone to draw it full of glass, / then smash that glass to bits.

AudioPoetry

Cut Off

By R/B Mertz May 11, 2022

The last man who touched my tits cut them off

Poetry

In the Field of the Dead

By Luisa Muradyan May 4, 2022

I have brought the wrong kind of sandwiches / and yes, I know this poem is supposed to bring us there

Family & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Vigilance

By H. R. Webster April 27, 2022

The hottest summer on record I couldn’t open the windows.

Poetry

Contemporary Utopia

By Ra’ad Abdulqadir, translated by Mona Kareem April 20, 2022

Skilled carpenters / excellent mechanics / energized farmers / fierce fighters

Labor

AudioPoetry

AFTER SEVEN YEARS I’M HOME AGAIN & ANIMAL AS EVER

By Despy Boutris April 14, 2022

I think back / to childhood— // to this state / & its former rainfall

Poetry

the wind would not stop

Xiao Xi 小西, translated by Yilin Wang April 6, 2022

a child licks the candy wrapper; the treat has fallen into the mud.

AudioPoetry

Girl from

By Vandana Khanna March 30, 2022

I tell the oracles that no one has touched / me, that plenty have looked, drunk their fill / on my (   ).

Gender

AudioPoetry

Without Them

By Bernardo Wade March 23, 2022

Thirsty / doesn’t describe what we’re looking for, / yet for some it means desperate for another’s touch.

Climate & Environment

AudioPoetry

A Barn of Many Languages

By Saddiq Dzukogi March 16, 2022

my tongue is at war with a new language

Poetry

With a pair of wolves I walk over the stones

By Khrystia Vengryniuk, translated by Dmytro Kyyan March 11, 2022

With a pair of wolves I walk over the stones. / Clouds are pressing on my shoulders,

Poetry

Pear Snow

By Todd Dillard March 2, 2022

It’s my job to find the dead, / chauffeur them back to their plots.

AudioPoetry

Tenement

By Kellam Ayres February 23, 2022

I’d been undoing myself for years. / Why would this day be any different?

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Bomb that tree line back about a hundred yards. Give me room to breathe.

By Cathy Linh Che February 16, 2022

Daughter, I think you embellish. A bomb / is nothing like a slammed door.

Poetry

After The Offering Ritual, Cain Carries Abel Home

By I.S. Jones February 9, 2022

Violence is a failure of communication. / The shoulder severed from the dream / of the socket.

Poetry

from and when the light comes it will be fantastic

Kristin Berget, translated from the Norwegian by Kathleen Maris Paltrineri February 2, 2022

This landscape snares us       with its dry stalks

AudioPoetry

Swing

By N. K. A. Prempeh January 26, 2022

At some point, fathers stop unraveling / in private, don’t they?

AudioPoetry

Extended Release

By Lesley Wheeler January 19, 2022

I won’t know how to daughter till it’s done.

Poetry

When You Land at Ben-Gurion Airport

By Issam Zineh January 12, 2022

a convocation of desert eagles rises from your spleen, / each one carrying a stone

Poetry

when I say hello to the oldest apples

By Ina Cariño December 6, 2021

they tell me / a mountain is good for me

Dirt

Poetry

The Summer Your Parents Split

By Kathleen Radigan December 6, 2021

All my life I never told you how quiet it was / on the dismount

Dirt

Poetry

Forgiveness

By Ada Limón November 10, 2021

It was the winter of manatees, Captain / Rhonda and her chartered pontoon boat / floating down the Crystal River.

Poetry

The Heart of Europe

By Tomaž Šalamun, translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry November 4, 2021

The heart of Europe is elegant and / dead.

Poetry

American Monster

By Bryan Byrdlong October 28, 2021

"Thursday, I am born, / of the white glove’s lazy C-section"

RaceUSA

AudioPoetry

Earning Keep

By Sophie Klahr October 26, 2021

“You can see the pure it-ness / of anything if you cut it right”

AudioPoetry

The Daughter Myth

By Vuyelwa Maluleke October 14, 2021

“Say then that I am overflowing / & nobody’s fool & did not give up"

Poetry

On Being Asked What I Am Tired Of

By Paul Guest October 7, 2021

The weather of course and the afternoon light / that might as well be bad milk

Poetry

From Aterrizar no es regreso

Xavier Valcárcel, translated by Carina del Valle Schorske September 16, 2021

“On the islands, leaving comes to seem like the natural thing to do.”

Americas

Poetry

Propuesta de Financiamiento para el Plan de No Hacer Nada / Funding Proposal for the Do-Nothing Plan

Rubén Ramos Colon, translated by Raquel Salas Rivera September 15, 2021

“I will need a grant of a million or two. / A million or more.”

Americas

Poetry

Traducción / Translation

Nicole Cecilia Delgado, translated by Urayoán Noel September 14, 2021

"America I spent it all and now I'm nobody.”

Americas

Poetry

Against Empire: A Folio of Puerto Rican Writers

Raquel Salas Rivera and Ricardo Alberto Maldonado September 13, 2021

Guest editors Raquel Salas Rivera and Ricardo Alberto Maldonado introduce three writers who “counter the loneliness and exploitation of U.S. capitalism.”

Americas

Poetry

The Show of Growth

By Nakeisha Cantzlaar August 19, 2021

"And right there and then, I showed her, I wouldn’t be of much use."

PEN America DREAMing Out Loud Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

My Mom Buried a Saint in the Yard

By Laura Villareal August 12, 2021

Not like you think, but yes, he’s upside down.

Family & Relationships

Poetry

The Night is an Eruption of Nebulas

By E. Hughes August 5, 2021

A pipe is a globe of loss— the baby / has no diapers and auntie had to bring some by.

Poetry

Limbs Astride, Land to Land

By Rita Dove August 3, 2021

"Static pinging / at the edges of thought: the sound a wall makes / powering down.”

AudioPoetry

The Women

By Maggie Queeney July 29, 2021

more than the men, even. The ones who looked / like I looked.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

Poetry

Passing Through

By Hala Alyan July 8, 2021

“Her father is dying, her father / is Beirut and Akka and a single building in this world.”

Poetry

from Bodies

By Max Rojas, translated from the Spanish by Zane Koss and Gerónimo Sarmiento Cruz July 1, 2021

“Like ash or nearing the fabrication of mirrors / or alcoholic drinks”

Poetry

Take the Bait

By Adele Elise Williams June 17, 2021

“Memory. Now that’s a thing a girl / can get behind.”

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Metamorphic Sonnet

By Eric Wang June 3, 2021

How could I not praise the Chinese grandmother / rocking her floral print tracksuit?

AudioPoetry

Bulbous with an Egregious Silence

By Joseph Omoh Ndukwu May 27, 2021

“while the aunties sit weaving an awful dress of effrontery / —and I wish we could be alive in several ways but this one”

Family & Relationships

Poetry

relapse dream

By Anthony Thomas Lombardi May 20, 2021

"& when will i be emptied by what a night doesn’t promise instead of what it does”

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Man at Desk

By Rigoberto González May 13, 2021

There’s a man who sits at his desk this evening, / bearing witness to the end of days.

Poetry

Third Week of Ramadan

By Sahar Romani May 6, 2021

“By then we were used to it.”

Religion

Poetry

Umm Kulthum Singing for the Prophet

Poetry by Najwan Darwish, translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid April 22, 2021

The Star of the East sings for the Prophet / while I release my song

AudioPoetry

Ordnance

By Steven Duong April 8, 2021

“The world is a list of things / I keep from my father.”

Family & RelationshipsHistory

AudioPoetry

LOS ÁNGELES

By Cintia Santana March 18, 2021

We’re going to see the angels / my father says but in Spanish

Family & RelationshipsHistory

Poetry

Scene VI

Poetry by Loisa Fenichell March 11, 2021

Of course, there was a you, and between the two of us, what were we but frightened?

Poetry

A Bulldozer’s American Dream

Poetry by Shangyang Fang March 4, 2021

At the construction site the bulldozer works days & nights. / No, it is the man inside who works.

Poetry

No More

Poetry by Subhashini Kaligotla February 16, 2021

Soon after mere seconds after he became the body

Poetry

Fable

Poetry by Audrey Gradzewicz January 28, 2021

Long ago, in the garden of a man who tried to kill me, / I tended watermelon, green pepper, tomatoes as blighted / as hurt.

Poetry

Poem About Human Habits of Consumption That Begins with Contemplating the Walnut in My Yard

Poetry by Felicia Zamora January 14, 2021

Who parted / your shell, in wedge & tear?

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

The Living Dead

Poetry by Salgado Maranhão, translated from the Spanish by Alexis Levitin December 10, 2020

They do not think that they will disappear / into the amusement park / of nothingness.

Poetry

Wave Built in the Form of Prayer

Poetry by Dan Sullivan December 3, 2020

When does my body stop being a goal?

Poetry

Dispatch from the Clorox War

Poetry by Andrea Cote Botero, translated from the Spanish by Craig Epplin November 19, 2020

I believe there are two worlds. / In one of them I clean it all, / all the time.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

The Cannon on the Hood of My Father’s Car

Poetry by Martín Espada November 5, 2020

Someone tore the cannon off the hood. That’s why we missed it.

Family & Relationships

Poetry

Ambergris and Gasoline

Poetry by Patrick Meeds October 29, 2020

Imagine what that’s like for the whale.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

The Repast of a Lion in Dream

Poetry by Jai Hamid Bashir October 15, 2020

Unbuilding each rampart of our small, animal hearts.

Poetry

Clock Hands

By Hua Xi October 1, 2020

My bones say / don’t you have any place to be.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Acarapis woodi

Poetry by Matt McBride September 24, 2020

“Breathing makes us susceptible.”

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

9 dreams

By Nicole Cecilia Delgado, translated from the Spanish by Katie Marya August 27, 2020

I feel as though I’ve dreamed / something terrible, but I don’t remember / what.

Arts & CultureBodies & Nature

Poetry

Pandemic Jobs for Poets

Poetry by Beth Bachmann August 7, 2020

Young poets join the army: burial of the dead is already / on your resume.

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Home

Poetry by Jamaica Baldwin July 17, 2020

I was mesmerized by how willing her skin / was to leave her.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

Poetry

[in this ancestral land]

Poetry by Alain Mabanckou, translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson July 2, 2020

barbed wire circling raised voices

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Project Paradise

Poetry by Rubén Merriwether Peña, translated from the Spanish by David Rock June 19, 2020

Of course we could begin / with the moon, so famous

Poetry

Imperfect

Poetry by David Kirby May 22, 2020

in art / there are so many more endings / that we can’t even imagine it.

Arts & Culture

Poetry

good friday or second nocturne with the invisible shepherd

Poetry by O-Jeremiah Agbaakin May 15, 2020

father is everything but a good snake / charmer.

Family & Relationships

Poetry

Is This Not Why You Are Here?

Poetry by Michael Hurley April 24, 2020

He didn’t see the flares / because our dreams are limitless.

Arts & Culture

Poetry

Visitation

Poetry by Kerri Webster April 10, 2020

Light! Light! I hear her calling when she’s a block away as if she’s a monger of light.

Family & Relationships

Poetry

Your Name Means Garden

Poetry by Innas Tsuroiya March 27, 2020

What does it mean to graduate / your way through the world?

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

Poetry

Hurricanes with the Names of My Friends

Poetry by Jonathan Aprea March 13, 2020

We are disappearing into / the map’s folds. Small birds. Smaller ones.

Arts & CultureBodies & Nature

Poetry

[You button this coat as if one sleeve]

Poetry by Simon Perchik February 28, 2020

making room for the night sky / the dead try on

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Blank Notes

Poetry by Lee Young-ju, translated from the Korean by Jae Kim February 14, 2020

How about adopting a fully grown girl? Says a broken-headed doll.

Bodies & NatureGender

Poetry

Morning

Poetry by Yi Sang, translated from the Korean by Michael Joseph Walsh and Jae Kim January 24, 2020

there’s so much of it, this night

Arts & CultureBodies & Nature

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

Poetry

Portrait of a Boy with Grief

Poetry by Wale Ayinla December 6, 2019

you will open your wounds / and make them a garden

Arts & CultureFamily & Relationships

Poetry

Snow Hare

Poetry by Alycia Pirmohamed November 22, 2019

you know how to pull down a tree / with only your teeth

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

from 13th Balloon

Poetry by Mark Bibbins November 8, 2019

Since you died a thousand birds / have daily flown through me

Family & Relationships

Poetry

I Would Steal a Car for You

Poetry by Martín Espada October 25, 2019

I may be sixty-two, but I wish I could steal a car for you.

Family & Relationships

Poetry

Out of Water

Poetry by Luis Chaves, translated from the Spanish by Julia Guez and Samantha Zighelboim October 4, 2019

The sea of simpler songs only the drowned and the fish know to sing.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

I Am Your Abyss

Poetry by Abraham Sutzkever, translated by Maia Evrona September 26, 2019

I am your young death. And here I am found: / In me is your skeleton. I carry it within.

Poetry

Sculpture

Poetry by Mieczysław Jastrun, translated from the Polish by Dzvinia Orlowsky and Jeff Friedman September 10, 2019

That early star is not for us.

Arts & Culture

Poetry

My Turn

Poetry by Johanny Vázquez Paz, translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel August 28, 2019

I seal myself in a coffin and pretend to be dead. That way death is a game of hide-and-seek and not a witness to the terror.

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

Poetry

Untitled

Poetry by Jane Mead July 25, 2019

The moon in the trees was a good moon, / The world in the sound-bite, a good world.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Epithalamion in the Field

Poetry by I.S. Jones July 17, 2019

the red, wet animal in my chest throbs Your name.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

How A Bird Dies

Poetry by Háel Lopez, translated from the Spanish by Ariel Francisco June 20, 2019

Every bird should have the right / to never touch the ground

Bodies & Nature