Portside

“I am doing my best to not become a museum,” writes Native American poet Natalie Diaz of complexities of preserving her identity as a person among people.

Massachusetts poet Kathy Nilsson exposes feelings of alienation in the current state of the world: “I don’t recall being American, or even here.”

Seattle poet Jed Myers puts himself in the shoes of a Mexican father as two men plan to cross international borders.

“Our hearts go out/ but only as the yo-yo might,” writes Georgia poet Chad Davidson of the shock world we mostly live in.

What it means to bring a war back home is the subject of Seema Reza’s searing poem about our soldiers.

Amy O’Reilly’s “Boy White American” puts her finger not so gently on the dangers in a Trumpian universe of gender roles.

As the moguls of the National Football League coerce the athletes to abandon their protests against racism, Kathy Engel’s poem reminds us of the larger stakes for us all.

Coal may be a dying industry but, as St. Louis poet Kerry James Evans shows, the living miners go on working for less and less.

Chicago poet Daniel Borzutzky blends the surreal with all-too reality in depicting environmental pollution and political corruption.

An egg is an egg is an egg but in Joyce Peseroff’s subtle poem, an egg is a marker of a person’s social conscience.