Dec 14 What gun violence looks like, in one powerful poem By Corinne Segal Gun violence "can't be solved with political correctness," poet Aziza Barnes says. Continue reading
Dec 07 Poet H. Melt shows why gender isn't always simple By Corinne Segal Gender is often not as simple as it seems. This principle underlies the work of H. Melt, a 25-year-old trans poet who uses the pronoun “they” and released “The Plural, The Blurring,” their debut poetry collection, last week. Continue reading
Nov 30 Poet Franny Choi pictures a world without police By Corinne Segal What world a world without police look like? Poet Franny Choi’s work attempts to answer that question. Continue reading
Nov 23 Why Native poets, and their languages, are so often misunderstood By Corinne Segal Alaskan Native poet Joan Naviyuk Kane writes in Inupiaq, one of the languages spoken by the Native Alaskan people. Many of her poems are inspired by the sound or feel of one word; then, she "build[s] the poem, either through… Continue reading
Nov 16 Poet Danez Smith issues a wake-up call to white America By Corinne Segal “Dear White America” is a sprawling testimony to the effects of racial violence in the U.S. Continue reading
Nov 09 What Buddhism taught poet G Yamazawa about using 'gay' as a slur By Corinne Segal Growing up Buddhist and Japanese-American in a mostly-white and black community in North Carolina, Yamazawa found an avenue of self-expression in rap and poetry. Continue reading
Nov 02 For poet Fatimah Asghar, the word 'orphan' has more than one meaning By Corinne Segal English needs to be broken, according to poet Fatimah Asghar. For Asghar, that goal is a reason to create spoken word poetry, using the language in new ways and to address stories at the margins, including her own. Continue reading
Oct 26 Spoken word poet Elizabeth Acevedo issues a challenge to rape culture By Corinne Segal Acevedo's poem "Spear" follows a speaker in the aftermath of her daughter's sexual assault. Continue reading
Oct 21 MacArthur Fellow Ellen Bryant Voigt on the poetry of small-town life By Mary Jo Brooks Poet Ellen Bryant Voigt described herself as a "glass-half-empty kind of girl" in one of her poems -- but she's optimistic about the future of poetry. Continue reading
Oct 19 Chicana writer on the poetry embedded in her migrant father's rough hands By Corinne Segal Poet and activist Marilynn Montaño did not know what it meant for her parents to be undocumented until middle school. Montaño, who was born in the U.S., witnessed her parents' efforts to gain papers that would allow them to legally… Continue reading