American Poetry Review

Feb 10, 2024 | aprweb.org | Nicole Sealey

vol. 43  |  no. 05 Created with Sketch. Virginia is for Lovers At LaToya’s Pride picnic, Leonard tells me he and his longtime love, Pete, broke up. He says Pete gave him the house in Virginia.

Feb 10, 2024 | aprweb.org | Joy Katz

Twelve years ago, I adopted a young baby in Vietnam and made myself a firm but vague promise not to “raise him white.” But what did that mean? To figure it out, I started to educate myself about race, trying to see how I, a white mother, might not mess up raising a brown boy. I assumed he would face racism (I didn’t yet grasp that he would also face my own racism1). Then, when he was around 3, I started trying to write poems about whiteness.

Oct 3, 2023 | aprweb.org | Dorothea Lasky

vol. 52  |  no. 05 Created with Sketch.

Aug 7, 2023 | aprweb.org | Ama Codjoe

IThe teenaged girl is searching for a placethat goes through, the holeto put the tampon inside. When she finds itshe asks her mother, Is this where the penis would go? Yes, her mother explains. Then I will never have sex. IISweltering New York City. She wears a red dress with a silver necklace, bangle, and earrings. A college friend she’s known for years says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your body.” He’s right.

Jul 2, 2023 | aprweb.org | Jane Hirshfield

and can be generous. Just so, letthe gods take what they wantof this world and its high nectars—Know they will leavethe stews and the nipple's erectness,