Some poetry is magic. Casts spells. Shifts consciousness. Some poetry takes on the unbearable issues of a culture or a time. After two years of pandemic, over one million dead in the U.S. alone, and Americans fighting over vaccinations and masks, what has been released from the shadows is the revelation—yet again—that the heart of America is broken. It’s not just America. All over the world poets are speaking for the broken hearts of their culture, the loss of so many people to variants of COVID-19, the experience of racism, inequality, poverty, and climate change.
Some poetry dares to speak from the heart of horror, as well as the heart of desire, from the heart of sorrow, as well as the heart of joy, mingling love and hate, doing the dance of the opposites. Such poetry can be part of the process of healing our broken hearts. We will read and write under the influence of the heavy magic of Patricia Smith, Danusha Lameris, and Diane Frank.
