Poetry Composition Through Instruction
by Joe Milosch On a hot August night in the desert, I stood near my work truck, It has been a long day at work. I arrived at my mobile lab at 5:30 AM and had been at it until 9:00 PM. Closing my lab, I hitched it to my truck for the six-hour drive…
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by Elizabeth Alexander My mother loves butter more than I do, more than anyone. She pulls chunks off the stick and eats it plain, explaining cream spun around into butter! Growing up we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles, butter melting in small pools in the hearts…
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by Elizabeth Alexander A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other’s eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. …
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by Quincy Troupe take it to the hoop, “magic” johnson take the ball dazzling down the open lane herk & jerk & raise your six feet nine inch frame into air sweating screams of your neon name “magic” johnson, nicknamed “windex” way back in high school cause you wiped glass backboards so clean where you…
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by Jihmye Collins A demise of privacy and stealthed isolation the tenderness of touch passe warmth replaced for expediency the new temple of worship google blogging textmessaging facebooking my space tweeting and twitting a prayer for faster shout-outs, twitching mode in incubation the intimacy of pleasurable touch forgotten Michelangelo’s tantalizing tingle of tipping fingers teasing…
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by Jihmye Collins Global warming makes a plaintive cry unheard napalm starts to mutate itself, phosphorous dust in a pollination dance from Palestine to Afghanistan and Iraq, discount flight reservations to Syria, settling on broken bones and disenchanted dreams of those who have no refuge, and do not matter to the fortunate overfed, feeding on…
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by Jim Moreno, Summer 2018 She was a short-haired, big girl blonde, He was a long-haired carrot top rock and roll blues, He played the Hammond B-3 on the Chitlin Circuit, Those gigs in the Southern woods where moon shine And fun shared the same cup, the main Escape from broke and Jim Crow, the…
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by Joe Milosch Waiting for my wife to complete her MRI, I have no patience with the book, which I brought to pass the time. Occasionally, I open it and remove my wife’s picture that I use as a bookmark. Then, replacing it, I close the book and look at the receptionist, who is talking…
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by Joy Kogawa Where there’s a wall there’s a way through a gate or door. There’s even a ladder perhaps and a sentinel who sometimes sleeps. There are secret passwords you can overhear. There are methods of finding or extracting clues to maps of underground passages. There are zeppelins, helicopters, rockets, bombs, battering rams, armies…
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by Jihmye Collins Quietly thinking of humanity, I ponder of someone born near a drain pipe of Islamabad The shanties of Subotica, Tijuana, or Manila An infant cries out into Life and receives the great gift Without its knowledge Ever to be fully lived Its innate eminence Snatched before the first steps By a human…
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