Category: National Poetry Month

  • Poet Pick – Wally Swist

    Poet Pick – Wally Swist

    Cleaning Your HandsTaking your hands in mineI am shocked that theyare covered with grime,that the aides didn’t notice how dirty they were.To love is to go beyond whatone imagined what love was.The hand sanitizer I hadin my cloth bag couldn’tdilute the color stuck tothe cuticles of your nails, the backs of your hands, your palm…

  • Poet Pick – Valy Steverlynck

    Poet Pick – Valy Steverlynck

    How heavy it was my mother’s dead body in my arms wet wool limbs dangling like ball chain with bent back I heaved her onto the oak plank rolling her poundage flesh sinew fat. In my hand today dense hunk of lard– animal fat to melt in the griddle I peel the potatoes and quarter…

  • Poet Pick – Tricia Knoll

    Poet Pick – Tricia Knoll

    Next Time You Interview a Unicorn Prepare Better QuestionsYou’re alone waiting for a bus in freezing wind, blowing on frostbitten fingers. I feel sorry for you. I’m here to watch the aurora borealis predicted for tonight, a first this far south. So, I answer. Yes, I have family and friends. I am an alicorn of…

  • Poet Pick – Susannah Sheffer

    Poet Pick – Susannah Sheffer

    What I Might Do I’ll visit the spot without wondering about anything. I won’t ask what could have been different, what the witnesses witnessed or didn’t. I’ll say gone is just a way of talking about ourselvesstill being here. I’ll hope this tastepasses swiftly from my mouth and I’ll refuserequests to describe it. If anyone…

  • Poet Pick – Sunny Hemphill

    Poet Pick – Sunny Hemphill

    She Was a Set of Silver Lock-picksYou could never have known her — she had 2 many names or 3. After the end, I learned it was 4.1 for the way an elegant stitch can //fly//across open fields of cheat grass or silk.2 for the girl she left behind, motherless.(No one can be motherless, I…

  • Poet Pick – Simona Carini

    Poet Pick – Simona Carini

    Paradise Loop Bicycle Ride in Marin County, CaliforniaMornings are a sustained hymn / without the precision of faith. (Oliver de la Paz)Days on the bay start overcast, the sun must fight its way out of the fog,like thoughts when first waking up. On the Mill Valley path, along the marsh, ribbons of fog mirrored on…