[allthingseurope]

Hereford, England (by Ben Abel)

[iloveroses-deactivated20210116]

[pusheen]

[weltenwellen]

Jenny Xie, from "Zuihitsu",  Eye Level

[lifeinpoetry]

I try to find you, yet you are not here. / I’ve studied absence, fought to fill it in—

— Denise Riley, from "Hiding in plain sight," Say Something Back & Time Lived, Without Its Flow

[lifeinpoetry]

I am my soul adrift / the whole night sky denies me light / without you

— June Jordan, from "12:01 A.M." Haruko/Love Poems

[lifeinpoetry]

I sensed your not-there in its burning life. / I listened out to feel its silence beat. / It does not speak with any human mouth.

— Denise Riley, from "Hiding in plain sight," Say Something Back & Time Lived, Without Its Flow

[lifeinpoetry]

Sometimes, I cry so hard I can feel it in my ribs. / I feel like the real me is backed into a corner inside me

— Ama Asantewa Diaka, from "Saturday Evening WhatsApp Message," Woman, Eat Me Whole

[lifeinpoetry]

Exile is a word I do not like very much, I’ve often said. You are not in exile because you are out of your home. You can be in exile at home, where you may live as a recluse, on the margins of everything. I’m not sure I’ve left my country. Wherever I am, it is among the baggage that I carry with me. That has always been the case. And we can see that even when I write about something else . . .

— Tanella Boni, from a 2019 interview, as quoted by Todd Fredson in the Translator's Note in Boni's There Where It's So Bright in Me

[lifeinpoetry]

Oh! If you would only walk into this room again and touch me anywhere I swear I would not long for heaven or for earth more than I’d wish to stay there touched and touching you

— June Jordan, from "A Poem For Haruko 10/29," Haruko/Love Poems

[lifeinpoetry]

What to do now is clear, and wordless. / You will bear what can not be borne.

— Denise Riley, from “A gramophone on the subject,” Say Something Back & Time Lived, Without Its Flow

[lifeinpoetry]

— Brenda Hillman, from "[in the split gardens irrational hope]," In a Few Minutes Before Later

[lifeinpoetry]

She used “I love you” / as an antidote / to pause the rot

— Ama Asantewa Diaka, from "Uses," Woman, Eat Me Whole

[lifeinpoetry]

The life the resilience Life that rises up Stands tall In spite of the horrors That people your memories Life hope and nothing else That’s the essence of our song

— Tanella Boni, from Words Are My Preferred Weapons, There Where It's So Bright in Me

[lifeinpoetry]

— Brenda Hillman, from "On Days When We Both Travel," In a Few Minutes Before Later

[lifeinpoetry]

I must become / I must become a menace to my enemies.

— June Jordan, from "I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies," Haruko/Love Poems

[lifeinpoetry]

I have walked through the world in a dream I didn’t want to know it I forbade myself from seeing The actual state of it My self-righteous speeches Ended once I stumbled Into this corner of the day

— Tanella Boni, from What Needs to Be Said, There Where It's So Bright in Me