- “Substance Abuse Trial” by Jane Mead
- “How to Not Be a Perfectionist” by Molly Brodak
- “Tablets IV” by Dunya Mikhail
- “Lullaby for the Immigration Ocelot” by Amalia Ortiz
- “another plain truth” by Sabrina Benaim
- “Danger: New Man” by Pat Mora
- “Adjunct’s Pledge (a.k.a. Broken Treaty)” by Kamala Platt
- “The Postmodern Llorona” by Gloria Anzaldúa
- “& Nothing Happens” by Katana Smith
- “when the drought ended” by César Leonardo de León
- “When a Story is an Heirloom” by Priscilla Celina Suárez
- “Strange Gospels” by Cynthia Cruz
- “The Last Time that the World Ended” by PW Covington
- “Border Crossings” by Natalie D-Napoleon
- “What Sex Becomes” by Olivia Gatwood
- “Three Little Words” by Rossy Evelin Lima
- “All the Good Girls Go Missing” by Lauren Badillo Milicia
- “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong
- Excerpt from Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
- “Ode to TERFs” by H. Melt
- “Unrest in Baton Rouge” by Tracy K. Smith
- “Awestruck [Verb]” by Andrea Gibson
- “they lie when they say grief lightens with time” by ire’ne lara silva
- “Refugee” by Ana M. Fores Tamayo
- “19.42” by Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley
- “Love” by Assata Shakur
- “Borderbus” by Juan Felipe Herrera
- “For the two Utah congressmen who voted no because ‘there is a chance women will return to be hit a few more times in order to stay on welfare’” by Valarie Wallace
- “Three Urdu Poems” by Vijay Seshadri
- “Ugly” by Warsan Shire
from: “Ugly” by Warsan Shire
from: "Ugly"
You are her mother.
Why did you not warn her,
hold her like a rotting boat
and tell her that men will not love her
if she is covered in continents,
if her teeth are small colonies,
if her stomach is an island
if her thighs are borders?
What man wants to lie down
and watch the world burn
in his bedroom?
Your daughter’s face is a small riot,
her hands are a civil war,
a refugee camp behind each ear,
a body littered with ugly things.
Shire, Warsan. “Ugly.” Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth. Mouth Mark, 2011, pp. 31-32.
from: “Three Urdu Poems” by Vijay Seshadri
from: "Three Urdu Poems"
don’t know why she still keeps my heart,
as useless to her as an unpaired sandal.
Fate abhors me and I abhor fate,
and prayer can’t reconcile us.
It’s as if you’re with me when I’m alone.
It’s as if I’m alone when you’re with me.
Seshadri, Vijay. “Three Urdu Poems.” 3 Sections. Graywolf Press, 2013, pp. 16-18.
“For the two Utah congressmen who voted No, because “there is a chance women will return to be hit a few more times in order to stay on welfare.” by Valerie Wallace
“For the two Utah congressmen who voted No, because “there is a chance women will return to be hit a few more times in order to stay on welfare.”
—October 1999
Ask the wife shot
& stabbed fourteen times
on her neighbor’s porch
the wife’s face
gone, on the courthouse
steps Ask the one dead in the courtroom
the one in her garage, against the garage wall
the one in her car, head split
in her children’s bedroom
ask her why she left,
if she’d go back
Before you tell her
she will return
ask if she can ever ever
ever get away
Wallace, Valerie. “For the Two Utah Congressmen Who Voted No, Because “There Is a Chance Women Will Return to Be Hit a Few More Times in Order to Stay on Welfare”.” Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, no. 16, 2001, p. 100.
from: “Borderbus” by Juan Felipe Herrera
from: "Borderbus"
No somos nada y venimos de la nada
pero esa nada lo es todo si la nutres de amor
por eso venceremos
We are nothing and we come from nothing
but that nothing is everything, if you feed it with love
that is why we will triumph
We are everything hermana
Because we come from everything
Herrera, Juan F. “Borderbus.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/91751/borderbus. Accessed 2 April 2024.
“Love” by Assata Shakur
"Love"
Love is contraband in Hell,
cause love is an acid
that eats away bars.
But you, me, and tomorrow
hold hands and make vows
that struggle will multiply.
The hacksaw has two blades.
The shotgun has two barrels.
We are pregnant with freedom.
We are a conspiracy.
Shakur, Assata. “Love.” Assata: An Autobiography. Lawrence Hill Books, 1987, p. 130.
“$19.42” by Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley
"$19.42"
Japanese Interment photo:
Family outside Home
American flag in frame
NO JAPS WANTED
in red In red a mother’s elbow
stained against windowsill
Here this ink of my ancestry
for sale on Ebay.
Clark, Fred. “Poston, Arizona. Living Quarters of Evacuees of Japanese Ancestry at This War Relocation Authority . . .” Wikimedia Commons, 1 Jun. 1942, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poston,_Arizona._Living_quarters_of_evacuees_of_Japanese_ancestry_at_this_War_Relocation_Authority_._._._-_NARA_-_536152.jpg. Accessed 31 Mar. 2024.
Kingsley, Benjamín Naka-Hasebe. “$19.42.” Colonize Me. Saturnalia Books, 2019.