Portside

The Egyptian-born, Brooklyn-based poet Marwa Halal focuses on the absurdity of labeling diverse people inhabiting a certain portion of our global maps as part of the same (misunderstood) "middle east."

What's the future of our environment? A poisonous wasteland, says Sam Friedman, offering a bleak view of what's imminent.

"What does it mean to have/a child in prison?" asks New Orleans poet Karen Maceira, observing how her mother answers and can't answer that question.

Southern California poet Stephanie Brown knows a thing or two about a relationship that sours, suffers, and never recovers as it goes on.

The weather report is never good news, in Philip Fried's poem, about the atmospheric patterns of the nuclear age.

Tongue-in-cheek, Marin poet Rebecca Foust offers a sonnet about the seven deadly sins, and rich people who have their trickle-down rationalizations.

For Valentine's Day, Philadelphia poet David Moolten's poem--for better or worse--says it all.

Poet Bill Glose, a former paratrooper and author of three collections of poetry, addresses the psychology and luck that brought him back from Iraq.

With the poet's thanks and apologies to Walt Whitman, Dan La Botz captures the spirit of resistance in today's America and reaffirms the importance of speaking up and marching, marching, marching. Note the poem below is also translated into Spanish and French.

Extinction: Lisa Allen Ortiz, child of Mendocino county, California knows a thing or two about birds and about how precarious are the lives of many species, speaks of our impending "civic sorrow."