Portside

Taking a global perspective, Ohio poet Amit Majmudar masterfully links issues of ecology and refugees.

New York poet Kathy Engel responds to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute’s rescinding an award to Angela Davis.

New York poet Philip Fried traces the evolution of THE WALL, “the quintessential barrier/for keeping the future out and the past in.”

The casualties of a seemingly invisible war are brought home in J. L. L. Kroll’s poem about a single veteran.

California poet Patrick Phillips traces one legacy of the countrywide home loan crisis that followed the corporate Countrywide meltdown.

The award-winning poet Marge Piercy decries America’s refugee policies that would make an earlier poet, Emma Lazarus, weep.

Alabama poet Jacqueline Allen Trimble points to the slave origins of the Star Spangled Banner linking the song to today’s Black Lives Matter and other protests.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn reminds us, even if life isn’t fair there’s kindness, even love.

“The stench of life is everywhere,” observes the Michigan poet Cal Freeman about human-made hazards wrought on the great inland waters.

We speak often in generalities of social justice, but California poet (and ex-lawyer) Anita Pulier gets down to the nitty-gritty in this small courtroom drama.