What’s in a Name?
Who is Jack Smith? asks the poet Carol Kanter. Cross your fingers. Is he the hero who shows that someone with a fancier name is not above the law? Look it up.
books
Poetry, Biography, and the Unknowable
Los Angeles Review of Books
These books offer two approaches to the life and work of Wheatley, who is a cornerstone figure of the U.S. and African American literary traditions.
poetry
Chinese Exclusion Act
Arkansas poet Gerald Sloan reminds us that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was no “act” but often lost to history and found again.
poetry
Poisoned Water
Mississippi poet Philip C. Kolin reminds us of the next imminent global disaster—bad water—and in some places it’s already here.
poetry
Clemency
Cultural Daily
There’s more than a little irony in Peter Carroll’s poem about a woman who has been imprisoned for over 20 years being “free to start over.”
poetry
F Is for Fear
Rattle
Poet Heidi Seaborn (a distinctive surname) envisions a death at sea by strangulation, though it didn’t quite happen that way.
poetry
History Repeats Itself
A poet sensitive to injustice, W.D. Ehrhart projects a “broken-hearted world without end.”
poetry
It’s Different Now
Radical Teacher
“I just want to teach science,” says New Hampshire poet Christopher Clauss, but his responsibilities also range from the absurd to the dangerous.
poetry
Our Constitution
Intermitten Press
Three years after the murder of George Floyd on March 25 2020, San Francisco poet Beau Beausoleil offers a limited portfolio of 20 poems as homage and legacy.
poetry
The Popular Vote
Popular Vote
What really do we mean by the “popular vote”? The poet Star Black sees the consequences of misunderstanding.
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