Blog

Filter By:

Advocacy • Analysis • Blog • Commentary • Drama • Essay • Event • Feature • Fiction • Graphic Narrative • Interview • Memoir • News • Obituary • Open Letter • Poetry • Press Release • Profile

Browse By Series:

PEN Poetry Series •  Prison Writing • The PEN Ten Interviews • Illustrated PEN • Pen Pals • The PEN World

Browse By Email Subscription:

PEN America News • Educational Censorship News • Works of Justice 

Longevity

Poetry
By: | May 4, 2011

I cannot sustain your voyages, these corrosive minglings of hydrogen and oxygen, seeking the green rivers of your blooms. More

Black Settlement Photo: Circa 1867

Poetry
By: | May 4, 2011

Twelve ancestor souls have been preserved In sepia tones one hundred forty years deep. Still uncomfortable in their two-year-old freedom. It’s a pseudo-freedom, the kind that pinches Expressions tight… More

Knotty Dreams

Poetry
By: | May 4, 2011

Knotty Dreams Staccato bursts unravel my thoughts Woodpeckers hammer at a camera tower oddly pleased with each aluminum notch they leave behind Somewhere a sparrow mends her nest in the city dome’s framework tugging at frayed wire and steel shavings I crouch… More

Play

Poetry
By: | May 4, 2011

toy soldiers arrayed for battle dirt clods piled high, piled ready hands work, hands arrange, the cattle a shout of challenge joyfully proclaims my hill, my clods, my… More

Untitled

Poetry
By: | May 4, 2011

A voice that’s tinted with the hint of memory. I can hear myself not say the words, I can taste the salt of the tears you would not cry. … More

Forgiven

PoetryMay 4, 2011

I forgave her but she didn’t seem to hear, For all the wrongs, real and imagined, Over all the years we called ourselves married, Through too many spats and… More

Join PEN America Today

Defend free expression, support persecuted writers, and promote literary culture.

Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!

SHOP

Are you an artist at risk or know someone who is?

CONTACT ARC