Portside

For Labor Day week, Seattle poet Alex Gallo-Brown reminds us that unpleasant bosses often receive their just rewards without knowing why.

Labor Day Special: Former Poet Laureate of the United States Robert Pinsky reads his poem “Shirt,” among the great works of poetry about labor.

Is Jeffrey Epstein worth another conspiracy theory? Poet Lee Rossi touches the dark side of too much media speculation.

“Outside from Inside,” words found in a letter written from a Japanese American concentration camp, are transformed by New York poet Anne Whitehouse.

“Someone with wings,” writes the critic Elizabeth Willis, “may be angelic, but the figure also embodies the predatory power of a country—the one we live in…”

Tennessee poet Ben Weakly sings of a soldier’s valor as sacrifice for the living.

The New Jersey-born poet Kyle Dargan adds irony to our reckless consumer economy, tracing the impulse to a juvenile urge to grow up.

Illinois poet Jeff Balch takes some liberties with Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” turning the verse into something like the voice of our president, if he were poetic.

California poet John J. Brugaletta explains the silent magic of Houdini and why the public adores escape artists.

Idaho poet Alexandra Teague takes us back to a child’s innocent, albeit cloudy, view of the world (in contrast to its perverse current state.)