Poetic Medicine

By Nick Norwood, Michael McFalls, Marc Olivié and Marleen De Bode Olivié now that you are here amid crag and gleam mist-rise and vapor ...

By Langston Hughes I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother.  They send me to eat in the kitchen  When company comes,  But I lau...

By Serena Williams She turns her disappointment into triumph. Her grief into joy. Her rejections into approvals. If no one believes in h...

By Denise Duhamel “There was a time when Barbie couldn’t even bend her knees,” I told my nieces Kerri and Katie who sit before me on a l...

By W. H. Auden I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest dec...

By Elisabet Velasquez  Maybe it was because of the last time you ran away with the boy who looked like God. Maybe it was because of th...

By Calvin Trillin A man who goes ballistic At trivial rebukes Is just the sort of person One wants in charge of nukes

By Charles Bukowski sitting here on a boiling hot night while after winning $232 at the track. there's not much I can tell you excep...

By Carlos Drummond de Andrade  A time comes when we no longer can say: A time of total cleaning up. A time when we no longer can say: my...

Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them. Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the...

By Susan Elizabeth Howe (A fortune cookie) Ominous inscrutable Chinese news to get just before Christmas, considering my reasonable hea...

By Royce Mann Dear women, I am sorry. Dear black people, I am sorry. Dear Asian Americans, dear Native Americans, dear immigrants who c...

By Audre Lorde The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children. I am trapped on a...

By Carl Sandburg Here is a revolver. It has an amazing language all its own. It delivers unmistakable ultimatums. It is the last word. ...

By Ellie Wiesel  Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Nev...

By Orhan Veli Kanik I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed: The cool covered bazaar, Mahmutpasha, the courtyards Filled with warbling pig...

By Yosimar Reyes For colored boys I will crucify myself like Christ let my blood purify and sanctify these words create a doctrine and ...

By Cherríe Moraga Flesh is full of holes. It is made to breathe secrete receive. It is nothing against bombs and bullets. It...

By Yehuda Amichai Memorial day for the war dead. Add now the grief of all your losses to their grief, even of a woman that has left you....

By Maya Angelou We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy tem...