A few poems for National Poetry Month

April is the month of crocuses, light jackets after an endless season of heavy coats, and poetry.

Poetry and I have a complicated relationship. It used to be my Thing, a long time ago.

Poetry is a reminder of paths I didn’t take, paths I only half-took, paths I could still take someday.

Poetry is a reminder that the internet, for all the good it brings (and it brings so much), changes my brain in ways that make it harder to connect with something deep in my core. With the silence that I need to move beyond prose.

Sometimes, in an ironic twist, the internet even brings poetry.

And so, I present a few of my favorite poems that I’ve come across recently, in no particular order:

Hala Alyan: Dear Gaza

Scherezade Siobhan: colored girls won’t be televised

Audre Lord: A Litany for Survival

Naomi Shihab Nye: Gate A-4

Emily (who I know through Boston’s fat community): Dead Women Litter the Sidewalks of Manhattan, 1911

Suheir Hammad: First Writing Since (Poem on Crisis of Terror)

Kamilah Aisha Moon: Imagine

Autostraddle interviews Lauren Zuniga (contains videos of multiple poems)

Joy Harjo: Deer Dancer

Aimee Nezhukumatathil: After the Auction, I Bid You Good-bye

Leah Lakshmi Piepza-Samarasinha: the city of my desire