Portside

Illinois poet Jeff Balch takes some liberties with Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” turning the verse into something like the voice of our president, if he were poetic.

California poet John J. Brugaletta explains the silent magic of Houdini and why the public adores escape artists.

Idaho poet Alexandra Teague takes us back to a child’s innocent, albeit cloudy, view of the world (in contrast to its perverse current state.)

“Yet another story” of a black woman “getting shafted by white women” knocks the poet off her feet, literally, and she rises to the continuing struggle.

In this season of gay pride and the varieties of love, Walt Whitman speaks to us on the 200th anniversary of his birth.

“When a thought from the past fires the soul,” writes the poet Joseph Zaccardi of a wartime memory, “time is no more.” And yet it clings to the present.

Tanuja Wakefield, daughter of Indian immigrants, depicts the anguish and anger of being taunted for the color of her skin.

Peter Neil Carroll’s “Sanctuary” honors the work of Proactiva Open Arms, a non-governmental volunteer group of lifeguards who rescue refugees at sea.

Peter Neil Carroll's poetry pays homage to the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who left a legacy of fighting fascism.