Dark Testament, Verse 8

This Week Take a Hike With Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was an African American lawyer, labor organizer, writer, and human rights activist who dedicated their life to advocating for women, people of color, and other underserved communities. Born in 1910, Murray experienced profound loss early in life after the death of…

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How They Speak of Fields

Born in San Jose to a South Indian mother and Irish-American father, Shamala Gallagher holds a BA from Stanford University, an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin; and a PhD from the University of Georgia. She is the author of Late Morning When the World Burns (The Cultural Society, 2019),…

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The Lilies

Karenne Wood was an enrolled member of the Monocan Indian Nation, a poet, and linguistic anthropologist. She earned her MFA at George Mason University and earned her PhD from the University of Virginia, where she taught and advocated for Indigenous communities. In her poems, she often explores themes of identity, cultural heritage, and language. She…

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Look at our boots and spurs!

Angelina Sáenz, M.Ed., is a Los Angeles–based Chicana writer, poet, and award-winning educator whose work bridges teaching, community, and the humanities. Over a fifteen-year career with the Los Angeles Unified School District, she supported educators and students as a Teacher Consultant and fellow with the UCLA Writing Project. A dedicated advocate for education, Sáenz has…

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Wind in a Box

Terrance Hayes is an award-winning contemporary poet from Columbia, South Carolina.   He was a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. He was educated at Coker College where he studied painting and English and then received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught all over the country and in southern Japan and is now the…

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What Do I Care for Morning?

This Week Take a Hike With Helene Johnson Helene Johnson was one of the youngest writers from the Harlem Renaissance, and best remembered for her poetry. Johnson published many poems in small magazines during the 1920s and early 1930s, including Fire!! magazine, Opportunity, the Messenger, the African-American magazine Saturday Evening Quill, and Vanity Fair. Additionally,…

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I’m Going Back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense

Danez Smith

This Week Take a Hike With Danez Smith Danez Smith is a writer, performer, and poet; the author of four poetry collections and has won numerous prizes for their work including the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award,…

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Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

One of the most beloved and well-known American poets, Robert Frost explored universal themes using language as it was usually spoken. President John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration Frost delivered a poem, said of the poet, “He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.”…

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