Poetry & Protest: 12 Poems

After weeks of considering what the phrase “poetry and protest” means to me, I’ve decided that centering love and joy, particularly between and among people of color, can be a useful antidote to the atrocities of our time. To remember that we are capable, worthy, and deserving of joyfulness, and of documenting and archiving our happiness in the face of pain and suffering, is valuable, necessary work. The love here is romantic, familial, platonic, communal. The joys quotidian and remarkable. 

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Poem for My Love – June Jordan 

If All My Relationships Fail and I Have No Children Do I Even Know What Love Is– Patrick Rosal

Over Breakfast We List Our American Sins – Franny Choi

Domestic– Carl Phillips

The Conditional– Ada Limón

Cento Between the Ending and the End – Cameron Awkward-Rich – Cameron Awkward-Rich

Flirtation– Rita Dove

Annus Mirabilis – R.A. Villanueva

acknowledgements– Danez Smith

The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings. – Donika Kelly

To the Fig Tree on 9^th and Christian – Ross Gay

I Loved the World So I Married It – José Olivarez