She Plays a Child’s Game
“The windows are red/ and ringing with silhouettes.”
Poem of the Week (December 14), by Mishka Hoosen.
poetry
The Poetic Protest of Phillis Wheatley and Alice Dunbar-Nelson
“The poetry of two black American female poets, Phillis Wheatley and Alice Dunbar-Nelson, are both, if not political statements, records of the politics of their time.” Steven Chung reflects on the poetry of two African American women.
Read More
White Flesh, Yellow Dust
“Now there is just stillness,/ a silence not quiet, but alive/ inside the muted grace of winter light.”
Poem of the Week (December 7), by Rachel Heimowitz.
Radcliffe Line
“The line/ reincarnating as a fragile ceasefire margin,/ that moves to and fro with glacier tilt”
Poem of the Week (November 30), by Usha Kishore.
Fi Yom Wi Leila
“Spare me this Arab love for dictators tonight./ Come closer, listen—Warda is singing…”
Poem of the Week (November 23), by Zeina Hashem Beck.
The Best Medicine
“Inside is a black verse. Black like the womb of a deep river/ too black for this porcelain room…”
Poem of the Week (November 2), by Juleus Ghunta.
Opera Kabul
“there are ten moons in this room,/ a thousand miles in this corridor/ but not a single whisper inside us…”
Poem of the Week (October 26), by Nathalie Handal.
While Watching the Latest Clip Out of Douma, Syria,
“God is great,// he begs aloud—again and again,/ as if repetition could make that be,// make that true…” Poem of the Week (October 19), by Tara Ballard.
Read More
Half the Kingdom/Det halve rige
“I neither cut off a toe, nor shaved off a heel/ just minced my way through it all/ with a smile…” Poem of the Week (October 12), by Jesper Wung-Sung, translated from Danish by Lindy Falk van Rooyen.
Read More
Parallel
“It’s raining again./ they don’t tell you about the/ rain/ before you come/ or the cold or the clouds…” Weekend poem, by Samuel Usayd Ilyas.
Read More