By Silas Maxwell Switzer In my 15 years of life, I have witnessed the headline “Largest Mass Shooting in America” scroll across TV screens over seven times. Twice that I can truly recall, both in the span of the last year and a half. Orlando. Las Vegas. Music, a gunshot, run for … More A Message To Those Who Don’t Believe in Gun Control
By Elizabeth Bradfield Gypsy moth: Lymantria dispar dispar Frayed, moth-eaten, vulnerable. Those Florida dancers gunned down & my young self coming out dancing & pathetic fallacy (dispar dispar) crawls all over June’s fresh oaks, gnawing them to a February canopy. The news, bad oracle, gnaws fact & rumor. Above, unrelenting mastication, defoliation. Lymantria, ‘destroyer,’ … More Dispatch from this Summer
By Emari DiGiorgio It might rile up the bull, but any gypsy grandmother who worships the cornicello knows red resists evil. Hidden beneath clothes like a narc’s slim-fit Kevlar vest, or on the outside like a badge. On the day I might die, I spurn sensible shoes. I once sprinted eight long Manhattan blocks in … More What to Wear on the Day I Might Die
By Amorak Huey If I say everything is a gun you have to say yes, and the gun is always going off. If I say someone could get hurt, you have to say yes, and that’s what it means to be alive. I say, does it have to be like that? You say yes, and … More Yes, And
Bullets into Bells Event at Boston Public Library Co-editors Brian Clements, Alexandra Teague and Dean Rader reflect on gun violence in America through poetry and the voice of victims of gun violence before an audience at the Boston Public Library. They are joined by poets Martín Espada, Jill McDonough, and Rebecca Morgan Frank, and Aimee Tavares, (National Organizing Director … More “Bullets into Bells” Event at Boston Public Library
Martín Espada: “Heal the Cracks in the Bell of the World” Martín Espada reads “Heal the Cracks in the Bell of the World” at the Sandy Hook Vigil, Newtown, CT. The poem is included in Bullets Into Bells.
By Dick Allen On December 27, 2017, the poet Dick Allen passed away. He had a long and productive writing career, publishing several collections including, most recently, This Shadowy Place, which won the 2013 New Criterion Poetry Prize, as well as Present Vanishing: Poems (2008). Former poet laureate of the state of Connecticut, Allen retired … More Solace
By Roshie Xing i. Innocence The first time it happened, I was ten. Almost ten and a quarter, I liked to protest. Numbers are such a big deal when you’re young. It was near the end of the day when they herded us into the auditorium, the sound of children chattering a fluid undercurrent of … More Again
Juan Felipe Herrera: Speak the People/The Spark/El Poema The Fresno State Chamber Singers, under the direction of Dr. Cari Earnhart, perform newly commissioned pieces created with Juan Felipe Herrera in celebration of his term as the 21st Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. The performance begins at 16:24.
By Jenny Ruth Sixteen years after the death of her only child, Valerie Dixon speaks of the loss with composure. She knows her grief well. The crowd at Pittsburgh’s Wear Orange event to commemorate National Gun Violence Awareness Day in June of 2017 is captivated by the measured tone with which she recalls the … More This Is What Happens Where You Live
