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

Poetry

Practice

Poetry by Jane Hirshfield June 12, 2019

Bystander, listener. One of the lucky. / I do not seem to grow stronger.

Politics

Poetry

Dream Seminar

Poetry by Tomas Tranströmer, translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane May 22, 2019

Every dream is crowded with faces and bodies— / there are more dreamed people than there are us.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

A Wedding, or What We Unlearned from Descartes

Poetry by Kemi Alabi May 8, 2019

Yes / body, you are owed a whole lake.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Shadow of the Colossus

Poetry by Michael Marberry April 18, 2019

We were made to suffer. Mostly, / the man you love doesn’t know you

Family & Relationships

Poetry

Frieze

Poetry by Erin Elizabeth Smith April 11, 2019

And I don't know then / how to disappear enough / for neither of us to see me

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Ontological

Poetry by Peter Cooley March 27, 2019

I am the name behind the names, remembering / my origins at the formation of the world.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Phantom

Poetry by Tomasz Różycki, translated from the Polish by Mira Rosenthal March 13, 2019

each of us still carries / a hole for you inside our hearts

Family & Relationships

AudioPoetry

Auto-Immune

By Destiny Birdsong February 27, 2019

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

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Swimming Pool

Poetry by Aleš Šteger, translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry February 18, 2019

I accept everything. I renounce everything. / I sink into everything, clothed only in a wet beard.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

Poetry

The Hang-Up

By Justin Phillip Reed January 24, 2019

Waiting had also promised to end me,
 / but daily, and starting with the innermost parts.

Poetry

The Meal

Poetry by Gemma Gorga, translated from the Catalan by Sharon Dolin January 10, 2019

death reviews the menu for the umpteenth time, / repeats our names between its teeth

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

/ˈməT͟Hər/

Poetry by Tiana Nobile December 21, 2018

We tend to our roles like we tend to a fire, / poking the coals with the blazing tip of an iron.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Blind River

Poetry by Diane Mehta December 13, 2018

We have long ties to sunlight, / equations that always solve for equality.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

The Weight of the Sun

Poetry by Charlotte Pence November 21, 2018

I like being / reminded that we all began in dark and stars

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

River

By Amy Roa November 14, 2018

Then one of them kissed a live, flopping catfish and said it was her husband now.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Little Mouse

Poetry by Robert Walser, translated from the German by Daniele Pantano October 18, 2018

I stood still and said: What is this? / Why do you lie here so quietly?

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Bloodlines  

Poetry by David Schaefer October 11, 2018

I have given nothing I would not give again.

USA

Poetry

The Stone in the River

Poetry by José Watanabe, translated from the Spanish by Michelle Har Kim October 1, 2018

When we rose up from the murky water / we'd scale it like lizards.

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

After Kaddish

Poetry by Nathalie Handal September 27, 2018

Skeletons in our minds, it’s a private grief, a private grief, you hear.

Family & RelationshipsReligion

Poetry

Highlands

Poetry by Fatema Roshan, translated from the Persian by Farzana Marie September 6, 2018

Oh, uncles, / what zealous men you are!

Bodies & Nature

AudioPoetry

Etymology.

Poetry by sam sax August 24, 2018

the etymology of gun is hunger

Conflict

Poetry

Identity Theft

Poetry by Daniel Borzutzky August 10, 2018

My eyes and lips and hair and face will rot in the river / And I will be carried away by vultures / To the corporate headquarters of Bank of America

Work & Money

Poetry

the last prayer

Poetry by Chibụìhè Obi July 23, 2018

i asked this of shame / be a stranger

Bodies & Nature

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

Poetry

Eye Bank

Poetry by Ahmad Faraz, translated from Urdu by Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb June 6, 2018

Tell them come take my eyes / Before my body gives out

Bodies & NatureConflict

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

Poetry

XV

Poetry by Julio Serrano Echeverría, translated from the Spanish by José García Escobar May 7, 2018

it was near this piece of ocean bed / where their whale ancestors dealt out the sea / as if they were gambling.

Deserts Bodies & Nature

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

Poetry

We Should Recount Something Says the Patriarch

By Greta Montero, translated from the Spanish by Robert Keiser March 23, 2018

Sometimes what happens is the waves / fling themselves on the beach without spectators

Americas

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

Poetry

To the Littlest Brother

Poetry by Tarfia Faizullah February 16, 2018

listen, the ache of a sister for a brother / isn’t obvious

ConflictFamily & 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"

Poetry

Psalm of the Fire Starter

Poetry by Gabriella R. Tallmadge September 20, 2017

"I fled to oceans, I wandered / and found flesh— / some to eat, some to undress."

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

Three Re-Tellings

By Eve L. Ewing September 7, 2017

Each poem rewrites racism with magic.

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

Poetry

Lamentation I

By Úrsula Starke, translated from the Spanish by Jonathan Simkins August 14, 2017

Time aches, / horizons wound, light stabs—there’s room for it / all, missy.

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

Poetry

[to lick the skin of the water with a tongue]

By Marie-Andrée Gill, translated from the French by Kristen Renee Miller June 26, 2017

how to augur anything / but crooked miracles / anyway

Bodies & Nature

Poetry

King Vultures

By Pascale Petit June 12, 2017

Here comes the hard part, the Land of the Dead / floating just above my head

Bodies & NatureFamily & RelationshipsGender

AudioPoetry

Subterfuge

By Mai Der Vang May 22, 2017

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

Conflict

Poetry

The Glass Door

By Max Ritvo May 8, 2017

Somebody guessed just what life was like, / and then made a pill for it.

Bodies & NatureFamily & Relationships

Poetry

With Love and Love and Rage and Love

By Stephanie Anderson April 24, 2017

On the map, great gasps / of land are already gone.

Poetry

All-Purpose Elegy

By Paul Guest April 10, 2017

For ashes. For the wind. / For this emergency we call life.

Bodies & NatureClimate & Environment

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

Poetry

TIME GRAVE

By Patty Yumi Cottrell February 20, 2017

For breakfast I ask for a fine blue world

The Future of the Body Bodies & Nature

Poetry

The Land of Uz

By Ejiọfọr Ugwu February 13, 2017

I have no debt to the worms except / wads of silk.

Bodies & NatureConflict

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

Poetry

Encore

By Bob Hicok December 5, 2016

there's nothing to be done / about the weight of the night

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

Poetry

Prisoner’s Cinema with Saints Catherine and Lucy

By Susannah Nevison November 3, 2016

You are not / eyeless and God is nowhere

Bodies & NatureReligion

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

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

Poetry

A Soldier

By Admiel Kosman, translated from the Hebrew by Lisa Katz May 2, 2016

the melting seconds of your longing in the brown of a military shirt

Conflict

AudioPoetry

She Walked In / She Walked Out

By Roberto Montes May 2, 2016

Whatever you touched grew more like itself

Bodies & Nature