ON THE DEBATE STAGE

by Anna Evans

via The Washington Post

He states (quite earnestly, for what it’s worth)
that Dems want babies murdered after birth.

The question on the Capitol disorder
he answers, “On Jan 6 we’d a great border.”

Opioid crisis? Claims the demagogue,
“We solved it when we purchased the best dog”

then boasts, although the stakes are very high,
about how far he makes a golf ball fly

and adds another lie that’s as bizarre:
no European drives an American car.

Yet somehow, all we’re saying the next day
is that the other guy is not okay.

Anna M. Evans is the lone Democrat on her five person Township Council. Her poems are widely published and she teaches poetry at West Windsor Art Center and English at Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection States of Grace is forthcoming from Able Muse Press in the fall of 2024.

MUSEUM OF IMPEACHMENT

by Anna M. Evans

After W.H. Auden

About the Republic, they were never wrong,
the Founding Fathers: how well they understood
Its vulnerability: how it could be taken down
While the people are ordering off Amazon or streaming Netflix dully along;
How, when the activists are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous vote, there always must be
Young people who did not specially want it to happen, eating
Avocado toast in a trendy new brunch place:
They never forgot
That probably the dreadful presidency must run its course
Anyhow on Fox News, the unlikely spot
Where the talk show hosts deny all facts (which is torture)
And then cut to a story about a horse.

In this Impeachment, for instance: how everyone turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the Republicans may
Have read the "transcript," considered forsaken Ukraine,
But for them it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the House Articles disappearing into the biased
Senate, and the expensive, delicate congressmen that must have seen
Something amazing, a president abusing his powers,
Had an election to get to and sailed calmly on.


Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.

TRUMP'S TAKE ON THE MUELLER REPORT

by Anna M. Evans

I didn't say the things it says I said.
We didn't do the things it says we did,
and if it says we did, I say it's lying

because it also says it caught me lying
when there's no record of the things I said,
and no one witnessed anything we did.

I had my reasons for the things I did.
Everyone twists my words and says I'm lying.
You can't believe a single word that's said.

I didn't say I said I never lied.


Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.

NOT MY SON

by Anna M. Evans

McAllen, Texas, June 2018

Last night a woman crossed the Southern border—
heat haze and scrub, to armed men with blank faces
and rumors of a presidential order.

She had a baby with her who adored her
and sang him lullabies of safer spaces
last night. This woman crossed the Southern border

leaving her town of ruin and disorder
because she trusted others knew what grace is,
and hadn't heard the presidential order.

She didn't fear the men who came toward her,
explaining she would be one of their cases
last night. This woman crossed the Southern border

and begged asylum. First, the men ignored her,
then warned the women to stay in their places
while they enforced the presidential order.

No mi hijo! the refugee implored, her
stricken mind confused by legal phrases.
Last night a mother crossed our Southern border.
We took her son by presidential order.

Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.

FOR EMMA GONZALEZ

by Anna M. Evans





This girl looks like a younger Joan of Arc,
whose mission, burning in her, was the spark
that helped to light her nation in the dark.
This girl looks like a younger Joan of Arc.

Her mission, burning in her, is the spark
that kindles the crowd to chant, Never again!
The NRA can’t stop this hurricane.
Her mission, burning in her, is the spark.

The crowd is solid, chanting, Never again!
They’re marching with their families for our lives,
and for the dead, whose spirit still survives.
The crowd is solid, chanting, Never again!

We’re marching with our families for our lives,
led by this girl, a younger Joan of Arc,
showing us all the way to leave our mark:
by marching with our families for our lives.

This girl, though young, is like her: Joan of Arc.
Her mission, burning in her, is the spark
to light and lead our nation out the dark.
This girl’s a heroine, our Joan of Arc.

Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College, and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press.

THE ARMED TEACHER

by Anna M. Evans

I own an arsenal of ways to think,
and choose the weapon just as I see fit.
I’m packing color markers and red ink;
my Power Points are reinforced with wit.

I used a Glock once, at a rifle range,
but, even muffled, couldn’t stand the sound.
I wasn’t a bad shot, but it was strange,
the way the target swung with every round.

Sometimes I think, what if it happened here?
I’d lock the door, of course. I know the drill.
But every day we need to fight the fear,
and fear’s not something you can shoot to kill.

So, you can keep your bullets, guns and knives.
I’m armed with words, and working to save lives.

Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College, and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic is out now from Able Muse Press, and her sonnet collection Sisters & Courtesans is available from White Violet Press. 

THE DIVIDED STATE OF AMERICA

by Anna M. Evans

I wonder how they sleep at night, those folk
who disagree with me. Although their views
are driving current policy, the joke
is on them when they watch the nightly news
and see the protest rallies everywhere—
each witty hat, each cutely-worded sign.
Aren’t they ashamed? Do they not even care
the country will remember them as swine?

But then I see they think the same of me:
that they're the strong, while my kind are all flakes.
Impossible for either side to see
the other’s merits or their own mistakes.
By day, we all shake our self-righteous heads;
at night we lie uneasy in our beds.

Anna M. Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, American Arts Quarterly, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College, and is the Editor of the Raintown Review. Recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award, she currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan University at Burlington County College. Her sonnet collection, Sisters & Courtesans, is available from White Violet Press.