Everything Is Going To Be All Right by Derek Mahon
“The sun rises in spite of everything / and the far cities are beautiful and bright.” — Derek Mahon
Self-Portrait by Mary Oliver
“though I’m not twenty / and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still / in love with life.” — Mary Oliver
Advice by Langston Hughes
“we all somebody’s child tryna get home / you’re not a poet til the state betrays you” — Langston Hughes
The Moon Days by Dorothea Lasky
“Blow your seeds / Directly / To me // Blow your soul / Directly to me / I’ll save you” — Dorothea Lasky
Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Is Not Breaking by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
“How dense it is, / how it carries inside it the memory of collapse. / How difficult it is to move then. / How impossible to believe that anything / could lift that weight.” — Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Weather by Hettie Jones
“a hard rain like “little nails,” or / that deluge “plunging radiant”” — Hettie Jones
Letter From a Reader by Adam Zagajewski, Translated by Clare Cavanagh
“Write about those moments / when friendship’s footbridges / seem more enduring / than despair.” — Adam Zagajewski