Portside

“I’m trying to tell you that the world is beautiful,” writes Brooklyn poet Cynthia Manick; and in her rendering it is.

Nominative determinism, explains poet Ellaraine Lockie about a certain president, is the hypothesis that people gravitate towards areas of work that fit their name.

“After living 60 years…as a Black man from Jamaica,” writes poet Geoffrey Philp, “a DNA test … [revealed} my Jewish ancestry. I am astounded by the endurance of Nazi propaganda and the need for constant vigilance.”

Southern California poet Alexis Rhone Fancher offers a musical rendition on the theme “guns matter/kids do not.”

Months before the public became aware of Covid-19, the poet Quinn Lewis used the word to depict a chosen escape from normal life and the ensuing comforts “inside/the walls.”

Poet Lee Rossi recalls his introduction to right-wing politics, Goldwater’s call for a war against America, much of it still echoing today.

New England poet Janice Miller Potter reminds us of the social costs of having a “president of lies,” a “president of shamelessness.”

After nights of fire and looting, the poet Jed Myers asks in “False Flag” the simple question: who is shifting the blame to whom?

“I’d like us to rethink/What it is to be a nation,” writes the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

The coronavirus reveals evils of our economic systems, the poet suggests maybe it's time for confiscating some wealth.