Poetry

We are so grateful to all of our partner-poets for sharing their work with us—please enjoy their beautiful words in our Featured Poetry catalogue.

CNN’s correspondent thinks afghani means Afghan

“My afghanis are quietly pressed into palms and secretly traded / When ready for purchase, I place my afghanis face side up”

“About our bodies, strangers in white / deliver the news; in some places, the only option / is the option Mary had.”

“when the athan breaks across the sky / the seas come back to pray. I will / believe most things easily.”

“Our bodies were latte stones, pillaring and holding their weight against what felt like a push towards home.”

“River, river– / lift up your roaring tongue to heaven, / swear you do not have my mother / in your belly.”

This June, Benjamin Bartu spotlights four poems for Pride Month.

“here, words for woman depend / on the body’s proximity / to dusk, which is not the opposite / of light but its refraction.”

“prioritize chaos on high / knees and kicked butts. / essentialize oil and free / fats.”

I don’t pray but my body speaks in wracks and / heaves. I sigh. My heart does its own thing, the organs / comply.