Portside

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

Seeking explanations for the rise of the insurrectionist right, California poet Alison Luterman turns the story to what has been stolen from the old America and lost.

For all the news about the invasion of Ukraine, US observers scarcely know the price of war, but as San Francisco poet Beau Beausoleil writes, that won’t last forever.

“The debts we make are never paid, for us behind the wall,” write the incarcerated poet Cory Lambing, offering a glimpse of what it’s like to be inside.

Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest celebrates the beloved “Indian Country,” even welcomes people aboard, but adds a surprise twist to the invitation.

As the San Francisco poet Beau Beausoleil explains, “The tidal wave of commercialized mourning for the Queen prompted this poem to write itself.”

“Ours in an old war,” says the poet Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer. “It has a beard and calls itself Uncle.”

This Labor Day, the poet A.D. Winans pays tribute to the workers of the world.

Has the war become boring, asks San Francisco poet Beau Beausoleil, how can you not hear the mourning birds?

On the third anniversary of the El Paso Massacre of Latin Americans, prize-winning poet Martin Espada offers a tribute to a human rights lawyer killed by a shooter.