On Thin Ice
New Verse News
The poets says doomsday: climate heat is serious business, coming sooner than you think.
poetry
Ode to the Cop Next to the One With the Pepper Spray
Rattle
Michigan poet Ryan McCarty witnesses the shock of pepper spray from an unfeeling cop doing his job.
poetry
Mocking Birds
Rattle
California poet Alison Luterman wants to know why two antiques are running for the presidency while the talent of competent women is ignored, and it’s no joke.
poetry
Independence Day
Poet Ehrhart questions how our Declaration of Independence can be true, even as the nation moved toward democracy, perhaps a warning that Constitutional originalism is equally absurd.
poetry
What the Garden Bodes
What the Garden Bodes, poet Carol Kanter implies, is not about flowers alone but about the political seasons in the run-up to the coming elections.
poetry
Sweet Rain
Catamaran Literary Reader
California poet Teresa Pham-Carsillo opens the reader to summertime; show some gratitude!
poetry
Juneteenth
Enslavers typically insisted that Africans lacked "civilization," culture, religion until scholars like P. Sterling Stuckey showed beyond doubt the rich complexity --and survival-- of African traditions among African Americans.
poetry
Before the Gaza Genocide: Thoughts on Hersey’s the Wall
Poet Sam Friedman brings us back to the walls around Gaza before the after.
poetry
Memorial Day
For California poet Joe Zaccardi our holiday of memory brings back wartime scenes of flying and hope of rescue.
books
Review: White Terror; Black Trauma: Resistance Poems About Black History
Louisiana Literature
One of the recurring themes of the collection: the ways in which the scars caused by slavery and other forms of racial violence in America linger, influencing and echoing future events within a chronology of traumas.
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