Poetry & Spoken Word

AUDIO: ‘Thin Ice’: A Poem About Motherhood in the Age of Climate Change

Staff / Truthdig Oct 28, 2015 Penelope Moffet's poem, based on a Los Angeles Times article that narrates the story of a polar bear who loses her infant cub as she swims hundreds of miles to reach the nearest ice floe in an ever-melting Arctic sea, beautifully illustrates the effects of the man-made destruction of the natural world. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

‘The Inheritance of Trauma’: A Poem Explores How Suffering Leaves a Mark on Future Generations

Staff / Truthdig Oct 14, 2015 Based on a study that posits that the children of Holocaust survivors may inherit genes altered by their parents' trauma, Megan Collins' poem beautifully ponders how to live with the tragic fact that "blood remembers blood." Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

‘Channeling James Wright’: A Satirical Poem With an Important Message

Staff / Truthdig Sep 23, 2015 Shelley Puhak updates James Wright's "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" to give it a modern political twist. The full title of her poem is "Channeling James Wright Near a Sand Mining Site in Minnesota." Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

For the Children of the World Trade Center Victims

By BJ Ward Sep 11, 2015 "This poem is trying to reach your mother/ in her business skirt, and get her home/ to Ridgewood where she can change/ to her robe and sip Chamomile tea/ as she looks through the bay window at the old,/ untouched New York City skyline." Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

AUDIO: ‘Most Officials Agree the Epidemic Could Have Been Contained Earlier’

Staff / Truthdig Aug 19, 2015 Poet Sonia Greenfield ruminates over the racism and ethnocentrism involved in international responses to epidemics, including the recent Ebola outbreak, which was mostly concentrated in West Africa. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

AUDIO: ‘Love in the Time of Climate Change’: A Romantic Call to Action in the Shape of a Poem

Staff / Truthdig Aug 5, 2015 Jocelyn Macdonald's poem about the environmental crisis will have you quitting meat, riding your bike, chasing your dreams and spooning the love by your side, all to "slow down the rising of seas, the death of the bees [and] the electric current of spreading disease." Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

‘A Small Needful Fact’: Possibly the Most Heartbreaking Piece on Eric Garner You’ll Read

Staff / Truthdig Jul 1, 2015 Ross Gay's unforgettable poem about Eric Garner--who was choked to death by an NYPD officer last July--reads like a memorial wreath, delicately pieced together with pain and sprouts of hope. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

AUDIO: ‘Critical Race Theory: The Year in Review 2014’: a Candid Poem About Modern-Day Racism

Staff / Truthdig Jun 17, 2015 Lisa Alvarez's straightforward poem gets to the core of a year in which violence against black people became impossible to look away from any longer. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

AUDIO: ‘Your Body Is a Dark Axiom … ‘: A Forceful Poem About Immigration Reform Activism

Staff / Truthdig Jun 3, 2015 Purvi Shah's poem collects the voices and stories of some of the women who fasted to promote immigration reform as part of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )

AUDIO: ‘The Amazon Is Not for Sale’: a Poem About the Destruction of the Environment for Profit

Staff / Truthdig May 13, 2015 L.E. Goldstein's lyrical lines fill the imagination with the beauty of an area that is quickly becoming one of the many casualties of a world overrun with capitalist greed and corruption. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

‘Still Death’: a Hard-Hitting Poem About Predator Drones (Audio)

Staff / Truthdig Apr 29, 2015 Jill McDonough's poem drives home the idea that when it comes to the many lives taken in our ongoing drone wars, "On the screen or on the ground, death observed is still death." Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

‘Agent Orange’: a Poem About the Terrible Legacy the U.S. Left in Vietnam

Staff / Truthdig Apr 15, 2015 As the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon approaches, Paul Lobo Portugés' moving poem serves as a reminder of the pernicious and long-lasting effects American interventionism has had in Vietnam. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )