Tag: ICE

Winter 2026 by Marjorie Maddox

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Winter 2026

The snow. All morning
I’ve been shoveling it:

stab, scoop, lift, hurl,
almost the same motion

as digging a plot deep
and wide enough

for a country,
but not quite,

almost strenuous enough,
breath-stuck-in-the-frigid-air-

enough for the ultimate
attack on 350 million hearts

and their owners trying
to stab, scoop, lift, hurl

some kind of sense into
the brittle air. Now

the side of the driveway
has white walls two feet high,

but the path to the house—
a word no longer characterized

anywhere as safe—
remains a sheet of ice,

the less dangerous kind,
but still lethal. Nothing

here is anything
like okay. Stab, scoop,

lift, hurl. Get out
but don’t turn your back,

don’t put the car
in reverse. It is almost

the same motion. Who’s to say
how a movement

is interpreted
in the cold?

*

WPSU-FM Poetry Moment host, Presence assistant editor, and Professor Emerita at Commonwealth U, Marjorie Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry—most recently Hover Here—a story collection, 5 children’s books, and two anthologies. Her middle-grade biography is A Man Named Branch: The True Story of Baseball’s Great Experiment. marjoriemaddox.com

Broken Sonnet by Susan Rich

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Broken Sonnet

How do you begin a poem when you know
How the story ends? Even with a dog,
Joule! who traveled everywhere with him,
Even with his student whom he taught to listen
To each human heartbeat, to open a central line;
Even caretaking U.S. Veterans and with just one
Small camera curled in his right palm like a charm, he—
A kind man (in each account) an activist, Minneapolis—
Light-skinned, bicycle fanatic, in a resonant voice he keeps asking
Are you okay? helping the woman being pepper-sprayed
up from the cold street, making sure she can breathe.
Even then.

                                            for Alex Pretti, 1988-2026

*

Susan Rich is the author of six collections of poetry and co-editor/editor of three anthologies. Her recent books include Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds,  Blue Atlas,  and Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems. Susan co-edited Demystifying the Manuscript: Creating a Book of Poems with Kelli Russell Agodon and co-edited, The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Crossing Borders with Ilya Kaminsky and Brian Turner. Her other poetry books include Cloud Pharmacy, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, Cures Include Travel, and The Cartographer’s Tongue–Poems of the World, winner of the PEN USA Award. A winner of the Crab Creek Review Prize, Times Literary Supplement Award (London), and a Fulbright Fellowship. Rich’s poems appear in the Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere. 

Outpouring by Alison Luterman

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Outpouring

A bucket of water tossed on the frozen streets of Minneapolis
for the ICE agent to slip on while running at the crowd of protesters;

a river of souls streaming through the avenues
chanting Renee Good’s name, waving posters of her sunflower face;

a tsunami of people all over the world sending money and encouraging notes
to the ones buying groceries for the ones who are hiding,

afraid to go to work, or school, or the store;
everyone marching together in zero degree weather, scared

and defiant, weathered activists arm-in-arm with new-to-this Gen Z kids–
those with nothing to lose, those with everything,

blowing their whistles, following the black SUVs,
banging pots and pans outside the Hilton where the agents are trying to sleep,

saying No, not in my neighborhood, saying MacBeth
shall sleep no more, crying Murder most foul, sleep no more;

What is this outpouring? Where’s the source? Will it be enough?
Today, we’re all Minnesotans, from California to Maine: we’re tired,

hoarse, footsore, at the ragged edge of endurance from getting up before dawn
to protect our schools, our neighbors; still, there’s no stopping this

outpouring of people, in all the states and every weather while the sky itself
pours snow and sleet all over the blasted heath they are trying to make

of our country. Outpouring of disgust at the mad king and his masked army,
a united swell, an upsurge, a tsunami of courage and outrage

flooding the streets and highways and byways
with humanity declaring itself human in the face of the faceless,

singing Hold On in four-part harmony, testimony rising up
and pouring forth in faith; a cascade, a deluge, a torrent of love.

*

Alison Luterman’s five books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life, See How We Almost Fly, Desire Zoo, In the Time of Great Fires, and Hard Listening. She also writes plays, song lyrics, and personal essays. She has taught at New College, The Writing Salon, Catamaran, Esalen and Omega Institutes and writing workshops around the country, as well as working as a California poet in the schools for many years.

This Poem, Full of Cliches by Eileen M. D’Angelo

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This Poem, Full of Cliches

This poem is too new to be out
unsupervised, too new to know
that it’s substandard, that it’s missing
it’s mark— too fresh to know
it should be humbled by its shortcomings.

This poem is not ready for prime time
with its rambling pointless lines,
lines that can’t pin down how it feels
to read the headlines every goddamned day,
lines that fail to state the sense of fear,
chaos, and impending doom.

This poem should say something
shocking— something, anything
to save us in these turbulent times,
steel us from this tense political climate—
something stunning— but it’s mute.

After all, on a clear, snowy January day,
a woman, a mother and a poet
had her face shot off by an ICE agent
who muttered as he strode off, fucking bitch,

and the country goes on, as the machine
churns out lies for an alternate narrative,
as we each wait for someone else to step in,
or for someone to save us.

I want a poem for her—
but where are all the words
that should come easily— words
to rain down justice and humanity?
Words to raise a candle in the dark?

*

Eileen M. D’Angelo, author of several books, including “The Recovering Catholic’s Collection,” (from Moonstone Press, 2023), is the Executive Director of Mad Poets Society and former Editor of Mad Poets Review, has coordinated over 2000 special events in the tri-state area and was the subject of a tribute event and anthology by Philadelphia’s Moonstone Arts Center. She has twice been nominated for a PA Governor’s Award in the Arts and Pushcart Prize, and published in Rattle, Manhattan Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, Drexel Online Journal, Wild River Review, Philadelphia Stories, Philadelphia Poets and others. Additionally, D’Angelo has commentary in an anthology from WordFire Press, Shadows and Verse: Classic Dark Poems with Celebrity Commentary, edited by NY Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry. She judged open auditions for the pilot program of Russell Simmons’ and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, at New Market Cabaret, as well as conducted workshops and performed original songs and poetry on WXPN’s (88.5 FM) World Café Live, BCTV (Berks County Public Television), at the Painted Bride Art Center, at South St. Arts Festival at Rosemont College, Hedgerow Theatre, St. Joe’s, Montco Writers’ Conference, Kelly Writers House, Manayunk Art Center, Delco Community College, National Federation of State Poetry Societies, and Delco Women’s Conference, Philly Fringe Festival, and other venues.

Dust Rag Blues by Nicole Caruso Garcia

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Dust Rag Blues
      For Renee Nicole Macklin Good (d. January 7, 2026)

Steadying the globe, I thumb Caracas.
We snatched Maduro and we seized Caracas?
Our Thug-in-Chief’s illegal orders mock us.

My index finger rests on Minnesota:
ICE shot a mom (unarmed) in Minnesota.
She dared stand up to goons who have a quota.

These men stretch latitude—our country reeling.
I clean the hemispheres, set gently reeling,
And smooth the strip of red: equator peeling.

*

Nicole Caruso Garcia (she/her) is the author of OXBLOOD (Able Muse Press), which received the International Book Award for narrative poetry. Her work appears in Crab Orchard Review, Light, Mezzo Cammin, ONE ART, Plume, Rattle, RHINO, and elsewhere. Her poetry has received the Willow Review Award, won a 2021 Best New Poets honor, and has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is an associate poetry editor at Able Muse and served as an executive board member at the annual conference, Poetry by the Sea. Visit her at nicolecarusogarcia.com.