
Poetry: “Blood” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Poetry: “The Colour of Pomegranates,” Sujit Prasad
It cuts through suddenly, expertly, this want to talk to you — like the way you used to open pomegranates. Nothing was wasted, not time, not an extra ruby-seed on the inside. You always said that one does not cut a fruit — you ask them to open, gently, and they would let you in. They knew you would be fair while splitting them. I try to talk to you, cutting through time. It does not open. It says, learn from your mother.
-Sujit Prasad
“A sparrow in a storm, fragile as the wealth that you hide in your heart” – Berlin, Brett
Recently stumbled across this gorgeous song by indie band Brett off their second album Mode. They’re on Spotify, but that wouldn’t embed, so here the song off their Soundcloud page.
Lyrics:
A sparrow in a storm, fragile as the wealth that you hide in your heart
just wait a little more, stay until you run and the words tumble out
save your ransom, leave your hand with the mother’s touch, take my chances
pay your sum but it’s far too much
are you aware, well, someone should tell you, are you aware, well,
someone should tell you
who
Poetry: Is It Better Where You Are? by Christopher Salerno
The bakery’s graffiti either spells HOPE
or NOPE. But hope and results
are different, said Fanny Brawne to her Keats
voiding his unreasonable lung.
Getting off the medicine
completely means light again
blinking to light. Device returned
to its factory settings. The complete black
of before the meteor shower
above the bakery. If you lose the smell
of leather, lemon, or rose,
studies show you will fail at being
Poets.org, Christopher Salerno
“We are crayons and lunchboxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
Poetry: “Personal” by Tony Hoagland
rt Gemi on Pixiv
Don’t take it personal’, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—
the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,
the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me
and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.
The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,
and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.
Tony Hoagland, Poetry Magazine
Falling Lessons: Erasure One – Motionpoem
“My father steps into a field of lost
sensation, sunflowers, a yellow star”
I had the pleasure of interviewing Beth Copeland about her gorgeous poem “Falling Lessons: Erasure One.” The poem is about the loss of her father to Alzheimer’s, and was transformed into the above video for Motionpoems by Ahn Vu (it was also featured on PBS Newshour!)