Poets’ Corner
The War Works Hard
How magnificent the war is! How eager and efficient! Early in the morning it wakes up the sirens and dispatches ambulances to...
Korean Lullaby
When at last the guns were silent, In the graves where children lay The crying passed away, And the dead had stopped their...
Nature Bats Last
“I’m two with nature”—Woody Allen We fled Woody and the cities in the tie-dyed seventies headed back to the land, man, and fed...
Blind Boone’s Pianola Blues
They said I wasn’t smooth enough to beat their sharp machine. That my style was obsolete, that old rags had lost their gleam...
Pity the Nation
(After Khalil Gibran) 2007 Pity the nation whose people are sheepAnd whose shepherds mislead them Pity the nation whose...
Diablo Canyon
Native American poet John Trudell describes a 1981 protest against nuclear power plant construction in which 1,900 activists were arrested.
Eagle Poem
The eagle, rather than an imperious symbol of American exceptionalism, is actually a cleansing force that can lead us into peace and beauty.
The Colonel
Poet Carolyn Forche provides a scintillating portrait of one of the many tin-hat despots, products of U.S. militarism and weapons exports.
Thank You for Your Service
2017 Heroes’ Voices National Veterans Poetry Contest prize-winning poem about veteran suicide by World War II veteran Jay Wenk.
Quan Âm on a Dragon
In this poem, Vietnamese poet Teresa Mei Chuc brings us a voice often muted in America—the young refugee’s.
Song for Leela, Bobby and Me
Poem by Vietnam War veteran W. D. Ehrhart, reprinted from his book Thank You For Your Service: Collected Poems.