Had I been raised by doves wouldn’t I have learned to fly
By wolves to hunt in packs
Had I been raised by gods wouldn’t I too be godlike
In the movies the orphan is the killer not loved enough unwanted
But wasn’t I most wanted
My mother fish goddess dove into the sea for the sin of loving a mortal man
I love a mortal man too
At night I coax him from sleep rousing him with my mouth
By day we build high brick walls around us our Babylon
Had my mother lived to see me rise from this boundless deep would she recognize me as I have grown large and my arms have become the long arms of the sea reaching over and over for the shore
"Epic poetry has for much of history been used to define social values and shape nations’ political identities. The new books explore subjects ranging from Apollonius Rhodius’s 'Argonautica,' a Greek epic from 300 B.C. that predates the 'Aeneid' by three centuries, to Edmund Spenser’s 'The Faerie Queene,' published in England at the end of the 16th century."
Resources for Supporting and Uplifting the Black Community
An Antiracist Reading List: Ibram X. Kendi offers a list of books “to help America transcend its racist heritage.”
People of Color in Publishing: This grassroots organization "offers a six-month mentorship program; providing entry-level publishing professionals with 'a personal resource for support, guidance, and encouragement.'"
Teaching Tolerance: "A project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance provides free resources on anti-bias and social justice to educators working with children from kindergarten through high school."
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter.
"For days I could go nowhere. The temperature dwelled stubbornly below freezing. The roads were too slick to walk on. My car was encased in ice, a solid blue cube, and, quite comically, a red bicycle, leaning against a nearby shed, seemed to be waiting for me. I sat at the window, wearing two sweaters, looking at it."
