Issue 4, Summer 2021 Poetry
The 2021 Prize Winner in Poetry, selected by Douglas Manuel:
April is the Cruelest Month | Pamela Sumners
I was watching the trial of a white cop
who put his knee on a Black man’s neck
for almost 10 minutes but my viewing
displeasure was interrupted by breaking
news of a white cop who shot a Black man
and then later on the 10 o’clock news I saw
two white cops taunt a Black guy dressed
in Army fatigues and pepper-spray him
From the Stem | Daniel J Flosi
Charles Darwin hypothesized that language emerged from a song-like proto language.
look! down the misty hillside
our ancestors
work the soil
while soughing trees
prattle on about their mysteries
American Diorama | Naomi Ling
after Ocean Vuong
“I am an American; free born and free bred, where I
acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own
worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Let this be a story of light. Tonight the TV
speaks little tragedies into
existence, throws
home across faceless soil.
Other Good Stuff…
