Portside

Entering the year’s end, Georgia poet Alice Friman suggests how much, how little, time carries as life goes on.

For poet Joseph Zaccardi, the Vietnam war lingers in memory for the fear it wrought among soldiers, but also the loss of camaraderie “after all these/years scattered across American towns and cities…”

The prolific LA poet Alexis Rhone Fancher offers a strong a poem of grief and the absence of legacy.

Oregon poet Amy Miller responds to the “inappropriate behavior” of celebrities, lamenting “the hypervigilance that women live with daily.”

San Francisco poet Beau Beausoleil reminds us that the war in Ukraine goes on, people are dying, all obscured by political shadows and dubious communications.

Thanksgiving Day is surely an American holiday, even for some subversives who defy the US government--at least on TV!

Poet Lynn Melnick captures a moment traumatic violence, what she calls “inauguration,” and its lasting effect: “there was always dread.”

On Veterans Day, we honor Gerald Sloan’s poem, commissioned by a local symphony to be recited at a choral performance of Wilfred Owen's famous sonnet (see below).

A local land dispute between indigenous Native Americans and a sand and gravel business prompts California poet Amy Meier to plead for environmental justice.

Watching night news, Poet Kelly R. Samuels suggests it’s so much formula, it might even be robotic.