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
She Wants the Ring Like He Wants the Suit of Scars/But
she wants the ring / like he wants the suit of scars/but / I / want violetrhymes from the salt mine of a cell when it blows More
Follow Rozewicz
Follow Różewicz". . . at twenty-fourled to slaughter,"he recites, smokes his thick cigarettes,his tenor voice betrays him, his enduranceall these years, he utters so many thingsabout days gone and… More
Water Water Water Wind Water
under our floors filtered wooden stars / towels and glass gasoline coffins / the skin of trees and jalopy tires fish More
June Journals 6-25-88
The check I bounced was for $208. My buddy, Alfonso S., did the design and layout for Victor Martinez’s first book, Wrecking Them Back. I feel like telling Vic… More
Let Me Tell You What a Poem Brings
yes, it is that easy, a poem, imagine me telling you this / instead of going day by day against the razors, well, / the judgments, all the tick-tock… More
Quiet Racism
Quiet RacismNight smiles, walls carved with namesdead and dying, dates past and present,crowding into one, petrified in ageless shit.Silence support the ceiling. The blackhole we see into to seeis… More
Methamphetamine Trap
The brilliance of diamond clear rocks/ Sparkle in a bent heirloom spoon/ A cracked cup of tepid water/ And a small bit of cotton fluff More