“I hope to encourage others to find ways to weave their own blankets, to tell their own stories. We all have so much to contribute. So many stories are still buried due to systemic inequities. I write to crack the earth and say: we are here and our stories are bountiful and necessary — just look at us, we’re beautiful.”
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To conclude a year of poetry, we’ve explored the broad philosophical questions of how someone becomes a poet and what it means to sojourn through the creative process. We posed these questions to Allegheny county’s four poet laureates; Vincent Folkes, Paloma Sierra, Mj Shahen, and Celeste Gainey.
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“I was sentenced to 99 lashes just for shaking hands with the opposite sex. … In another instance, when I sent my book to get permission to be published, they censored some of my words. As a woman, if I imagine or write about a romantic connection between two people, it’s censored.”
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“I will continue to want
with no getting
your warmth, your love
your arms, your thighs.
Missing you is the real disease
no vaccine can prevent it.”
– Bewketu Seyoum
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by Debbie Wilkinson
“Will you tuck me in?”
Years ago picking through stones
worn down in the nestling sand,
I showed you how to slip them smooth across the rustling water,
while waves shimmered into sleep. …
by Richard Schnap
“The train from Pittsburgh to New York/ Felt like a magic voyage to him then/ As he watched the green pastures of Pennsylvania/ Pass by with their fields of wheat/ And herds of cows that dozed in the sun”
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by Brian Richards
“But this is a sideglance world and to the lowering eyes/ Of even my friends I have grown tall but dangerous/ Childless and dark dark dark darkling of intention/ With who knows what lessons to share”
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