Discover Top Posts Tagged with #jonathan bachman

Jonathan Bachman

"Unrest in Baton Rouge" by Tracy K. Smith

"Unrest in Baton Rouge" after the photo by Jonathan BachmanOur bodies run with ink dark blood.Blood pools in the pavement’s seams.Is it strange to say love is a languageFew practice, but all, or near all speak?Even the men in black armor, the onesJangling handcuffs and keys, what elseAre they so buffered against, if not love’s bladeSizing up the heart’s familiar meat?We watch and grieve. We…

View On WordPress

#Graywolf Press #Jonathan Bachman #National Poetry Month #Poem #Poetry #Tracy K. Smith #Unrest in Baton Rouge #Wade in the Water

A poem by Tracy K. Smith

Unrest in Baton Rouge

after the photo by Jonathan Bachman

Our bodies run with ink dark blood. Blood pools in the pavement’s seams.

Is it strange to say love is a language Few practice, but all, or near all speak?

Even the men in black armor, the ones Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else

Are they so buffered against, if not love’s blade Sizing up the heart’s familiar meat?

We watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat. Love: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean.

Love: naked almost in the everlasting street, Skirt lifted by a different kind of breeze.

Tracy K. Smith

Image: Photograph by Jonathan Bachman. Bachman’s image won 1st prize, singles, in World Press Photo’s 2017 Photo Contest.

#tracy k smith #american poetry #jonathan bachman #unrest in baton rouge

“We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined ... nonviolent pressure. It is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.” ~ the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (1963)