Translator’s Note: These poetic excerpts come from Elena Salamanca’s book Landsmoder, which was written for a performance she staged in 2011 where, dressed like a “president’s wife,” she mounted a national monument in San Salvador […]
Category: Poetry
Two Poems by Lana I. Ghannam
Dark Matter the townsfolk sing we shall overcomewhile hope bleeds slowly from my mouth—Lucille Clifton, “jasper texas 1998” Another black man was shot last week,his life a toll in the streets. People pitched hope with […]
Two Poems by R.K. Fauth
Queer Utopia It’s April. I watch you shoot arrowsfrom a smooth-carved cherrywood bow. The target is a rope gongwhose center keeps movingbecause of the breeze, and your arrowsbounce in the grass. We talkabout nothing, and […]
Two Poems by Thea Swanson
Uncle No one wants to go there. We have to tread light, write the perversion with metaphors, pen how flowers were crushed by boots. We have to whisper our travesties to therapists, guard the ears […]
Two Poems by Matthew E. Henry
an open letter to the white teacher who threw a Black boy out of her class for wearing too much lotion his skin was ashy. perhaps that’s a conceptyou’re unfamiliar with—like seasoned chickenand leaving vegetables […]
Seven Daughters
Josephina is born with the notched penny her mother swallowed as a childtucked in the folds of her chin. So beautiful, she charms the midwife and winksat her husband. Always the one to pick the […]
The Theory of Walls
after Dr. Joshua Bennet’s interview with The Poetry God 1.A physics student told him that we are“too big to be considered by a wall”(as an explanation to why we aren’t ableto walk through them if […]
Once, I Shot a Man Right Between the Eyes
Following orderson the battlefield,it was kill or be killedmy sergeant said,no different thanwhen he taught meto thrust and parrywith fixed bayonet.The young soldierwore thick glassesand looked a lot likeone of my classmates.Sergeant claimedGooks don’t belongto […]
Close to the Heart: Learning the Chinese Characters
怒: anger influxes when slavery eclipses the heart愁: worry thickens as autumn sits high on the heart闷: depression settles when the heart is shut behind a door忘: forgetting happens when there’s death on the heart忍: […]
