PEN Poetry Series
Through 2019, the PEN Poetry Series published work by writers from all over the world.
Two Poems by Carolina Ebeid
Doesn’t it scare you / not to have a wherefore? to never know where / in the cityscape we are when underground // to flash like bulbs shutting off… More
Two Poems by Mia Kang
Rome made a deal / with the surrounding areas. / Let’s be friends, said Rome. / What is friends, said the world. // An engineering feat, said the city.… More
Two Poems by Elisabeth Borchers
Raised without a mother, / the father a drinker. / Once at fourteen, again at sixteen / then off to a facility. / At twenty a third time. /… More
Miscarriage
So mom I came out / with a wallop / and was ready to live / covered in the rubies / you made / You looked at me /… More
from The Blue
a body hard as rock / I am occupied // with the visible // rock as soft as a body / both hurt // that’s why she can’t touch… More
Two Poems by Francis Ponge
(These are the pear-trees that are given to you in today’s human terms.) Look how the pear-trees want to say themselves today. More
Two Poems by Brian Foley
Here / is what we know. / This is the music / they would listen to. / They were addicts. / Here is what we know. /… More
Oakland, Cal.
The horses go running through my mind. My student says / She wouldn’t believe police if they told her the sky is blue. More
The Transformation
In deeper waters / were hairtail, and cuttlefish. Hairtail were called knife fish / in my language. If you’re shipwrecked, some say, / knife fish are the first… More