State of the Union: Fifty Political Poems

From rough optimism to sharp criticism, fifty American poets present new work dissecting the current political climate in America. Wide-ranging writers bring their bold voices to this collection, including Eileen Myles, Matthew Rohrer, Rebecca Wolff, Terrance Hayes, Joe Wenderoth, and Tao Lin.
“Walking by Hope Street”
Look at the landscape,
A lot of damage, no?
But we are here together,
And of needing me, here
The world needs me,
We are too alone.
And what of our orange daylight,
Growing darker as the lamplit
Trees grow dark. There
Is not enough to say.
But our hands, our gentle
Frozen hands sift through
Things like numbers out of breath.
It will all be okay, I promise.
Promise who? Promise the faded land.
—Noelle Kocot
“Literary Agency”
Coretta Scott
King has died, the other
day. Dream
unrealized. Lost
and found, lost again, bathos
my motivation
my Elysian
dream. The place
inside
untutored, incorruptible,
without relation. That’s
something to hold onto,
and uncontingency
dressing the wound. That’s
sad and just “what it is.”
It is what it is.
That’s what I say
when I can’t bear the news.
—Rebecca Wolff