SPLIT THIS ROCK -- Poetry that takes a stand!

For a poetry conference about 

POETRY THAT MATTERS

plan to attend Split This Rock's 2018 (April 19-21) Festival.

Information about the festival and how to register available here.

One of the most vital and persistent forces behind Split This Rock , an organization of socially engaged writers, has been Washington DC poet Sarah Browning -- THANK YOU, SARAH.  Here is one of Sarah's poems that presents some of the awful arithmetic of WAR.

Headline: Six Killed in Raid       by Sarah Browning

          Six American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter killed 
          in booby trapped house. 
                 -- Fourth paragraph of Washington Post story 

Seven.

The Iraqi interpreter lent
his tongue, teeth, the tender
upper ridges of his mouth
to the Americans.

I used to believe
the secret of seven 
was its spike and splendor.

We won’t know
his name, his burying
place, the tea he drank,
his daughter, the shoes he wore.

"Headline:  Six Killed in Raid" is found in Browning's 

new collection, Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017).

          The name "Split This Rock" is pulled from a line in “Big Buddy,” a poem from Langston Hughes.

                    Don’t you hear this hammer ring?

                    I’m gonna split this rock

                    And split it wide!

                    When I split this rock,

                    Stand by my side.

Split This Rock's website

offers a large data-base of SOCIAL JUSTICE POETRY .  

Find time to visit there and read!