Portside

The South African poet Ronelda S. Kamfer pokes a sharp finger at trendy styles of race and color among women she deems “dumb as shit.”

Northern California poet Dawn McGuire, author of American Dream with Exit Wound, turns a sharp eye on the American Nightmare: “Every bedroom ransom./Every day the war.”

Inspired by a photography exhibition, the poet Ewa Chrusciel adapts the testimony of refugees describing what they took with them into exile.

Inspired by a photography exhibition, the poet Ewa Chrusciel adapts the testimony of refugees describing what they took with them into exile.

After all, the New Jersey-based poet Nicholas Gordon writes, Washington and Wall Street move up and down on one principle--why be surprised? what did you expect?—Greed!

Florida-based poet Lolita Stewart-White addresses the paradox of race hatred that seems never to go away.

Reflecting contemporary tensions that explode into violence, Virginia poet Mary Anna Dunn explores the failures of imagination to create resolution.

Asked to addressed the word “resistance,” New York poet Esther Cohen responds “courage,” which is not what the teacher expects, which helps define “resistance.”

Kim Shuck, current poet laureate of San Francisco, explores the complications-- mixed-up heritages, commercial indifference—of seeing the “Great Urban Indian Poem published “because culture is at its/Root not something that can be sold by chain stores.”

The Australian poet Joyce Parkes brings us the word “swags,” meaning the bedding rolls used by homeless persons, asking why in a wealthy country so many remain homeless.