Poetry helps to create conditions for better policy and public will.
There is no Life or Death,
Only activity
And in the absolute
Is no declivity.
There is no Love or Lust
Only propensity
Who would possess
Is a nonentity.
There is no First or Last
Only equality
And who would rule
Joins the majority.
There is no Space or Time
Only intensity,
And tame things
Have no immensity.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 2, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
One does such work as one will not,
And well each knows the right;
Though the white storm howls, or the sun is hot,
The black must serve the white.
And it’s, oh, for the white man’s softening flesh,
While the black man’s muscles grow!
Well I know which grows the mightier,
O, rich young lord, thou ridest by
With looks of high disdain;
It chafes me not thy title high,
Thy blood of oldest strain.
The lady riding at thy side
Is but in name thy promised bride.
Ride on, young lord, ride on!
I’m in my room writing
speaking in myself
& I hear you
move down the hallway
to water your plants
I write truth on the page
I strike the word over & over
yet I worry you’ll pour too much water on the plants
& the water will overflow onto the books
ruining them
If I can’t speak out of myself
how can I tell you I don’t care about the plants?
how can I tell you I don’t care if the books get wet?
I have folded my sorrows into the mantle of summer night,
Assigning each brief storm its allotted space in time,
Quietly pursuing catastrophic histories buried in my eyes.
And yes, the world is not some unplayed Cosmic Game,
And the sun is still ninety-three million miles from me,
And in the imaginary forest, the shingled hippo becomes the gray unicorn.
No, my traffic is not with addled keepers of yesterday’s disasters,
Seekers of manifest disembowelment on shafts of yesterday’s pains.
Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017) and [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014).
Jackie Wang is the author of the poetry collection The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void (Nightboat, 2021), which was longlisted for the National Book Award.
Janice Mirikitani was born on February 4, 1941, in Stockton, California.
Chen Chen is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017).
Meg Day grew up in California’s Bay Area and received a BA from the University of California, San Diego, an MFA from Mills College, and a PhD from
New York, NY (October 12, 2023)—The Academy of American Poets announces its Fall and Winter season of in-person, virtual, and hybrid readings and c
Produced exclusively for our members, the Fall-Winter 2022 issue features cover art by painter Jacqueline Gourevitch; essays by Sandra Beasley, Trapeta B. Mayson, and Ange Mlinko. Become a member to receive your digital and physical copy of the most recent issue of American Poets.
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