The poems posted here have been curated specifically for the website and don’t appear in the poetry anthology. If you’d like to submit a poem about gun violence in America for consideration on this site, please see our submission guidelines in the “Other Voices” drop menu.
By Leah Brennan I hold it in my hand like a baseball— the glass apple paperweight inscribed with my name. I am trained to scan for objects, to weaponize the room, to lock the door from the outside, dismantle the workspace, reassign it to the front line, a hedge of student-chairs, impossibly small desks attached … More Paperweight
By Hakim Bellamy Son, if you came up missing your hood would not be able to find you. Unable to pick you out in a crowd, or a police lineup. If you made it that far. If they even came looking at all. Don’t be anonymous, child. Make sure you stick out like a … More Don’t Be Anonymous, Son
By Anna Leigh Knowles Years after the shooting, the local high schools decided to merge our theaters together for a musical. Columbine wanted to rebuild its reputation. I stayed in the background, sang in the choir. After a late rehearsal, one of the Columbine boys gave a small group of the cast a tour of … More Stage Production
By Eloísa Peréz-Lozano I want to shrink you down, tuck you between my breasts and rib cage, settle you into the valleys between bones, held in place by my supple underness, never explored. I want to protect you from madmen in schools, concerts, and churches angry at the cards they were dealt that they didn’t … More Hiding You Under Me
By Crystal Ignatowski My father has a gun. I don’t know where it is. It must be somewhere. Maybe in his dresser drawer. Maybe underneath his bed. We don’t speak of it. The gun is not meant to kill. We don’t believe in that. I repeat, We don’t believe in that. Outside, frost butters … More A Gun Is Not A Father Or A Husband Or A Saint
By D.R. James —for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Fourteen chairs loiter, emptied, no young bodies adjusting for the next lesson, hand-raising, class-clown antic, contemplative talk, pat show of teen contempt, rhythm beaten with pencil, palm, bouncing knee, jouncing heal, wise-crack, step in the impossible problem never to be solved. Instead, more of the same … More Surreal Expulsion
By Tara Ballard March 18, 2018 And so we begin the difficult work of re-membering the body: sewing together ribs broken by multiple bullets, mapping the path love once walked across the brown, bare chest About the Author Tara Ballard is from Alaska. Her first collection, House of the Night Watch, is the winner of the … More After the Police Shooting of Another Unarmed African-American Man
By Mark Evan Chomsky The choice seemed consequential only a week ago – would I finally get it right? – remember that it was whole wheat instead of multi and what kind of fancy swirl? – but now I could pick the wrong one and it wouldn’t make any difference at all. Except I can’t … More Man in the Bread Aisle at the Newtown Safeway
By Jennifer Sutherland Equity will not suffer a wrong without a remedy. Two days later, when the lobby tile had traded crimson for cardboard and chalk, I respectfully submitted a request to return and retrieve my papers. As the scene had been processed my plea was granted. The policeman yawned and stepped over the yellow … More Lines Composed at the New Castle County Courthouse, February, 2013
By Clif Mason In the cemetery of night, +++++++++++++++++++++++++++the weeping spreads ++++++++++++++++briars ++and brambles. What does an assault weapon bullet +++++++++++++++++++++++++++do to a child’s body? ++++++++++++++++What must we give up to count ++++++++++the entry wounds? ++++Earth holds their bodies. She will treat them ++++++++++++++++with the kindness ++++++++++++++++++++++++she offers all of the dead, ++++the kindness that … More FUGUE FOR THE SANDY HOOK DEAD
