The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
Guidelines
Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.
Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.
An agreement by countries to phase out fossil fuels would be “one of the most significant events in the history of humanity,” according to Al Gore, amid wrangling by governments at Cop28. “If there were a decision here to surprise the world to say ‘OK we get it now, we’ve made enough money, we will get on with what needs to be done to give young people a sense of hope again and stop as much as suffering as possible and start the phase-out of fossil fuels,’ it would be one of the most significant events in the history of humanity,” the former US vice-president said. —The Guardian, December 4, 2023
I sometimes have a Gorey moment
wondering what could have been
if the hanging chads
hadn’t hung,
or if Gore had hung up
his gentleman’s suit
and cried “Fraud”
as loudly as Trump was to do.
No hate to fuel 9/11,
no war in Iraq,
perhaps
the end
of history
would be nigh
as Fukuyama predicated,
existing divisions becoming
historic
and no new ones
created.
With more Gore less blood
would be spilled.
There would be no Bushfires burning
the sun would be shining
but without its intensity,
the storms would be still
and the world would be stable.
It was hanging by a thread
and we missed it
missed the chance
to grasp those chads
hanging.
Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes. Find Lynn on Facebook.
Remember when Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, hurled his shoes at Mission Accomplished Bush, the man incapable of introspection? Bush ducked. Mission Accomplished. Bush painted himself relaxed in the bathtub, pink toes showing. “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” Zaidi shouted in Arabic. “You feel bitterness as you see people's pain 24 hours a day,” Zaidi said. Bush ducked. Mission Accomplished. Corporations made a lot of money off the unprovoked war. Bush painted himself relaxed in the bathtub, pink toes showing. You could hear cries of pain, muffled from behind a door, during the news conference. During the Q&A’s, blood spatters on the carpet. “You feel bitterness as you see people's pain 24 hours a day,” Zaidi said. Bush ducked. Mission Accomplished. Corporations made a lot of money off the unprovoked war. Bush painted himself relaxed in the bathtub, pink toes showing.
Bonnie Naradzay's poems have appeared inAGNI,New Letters(Pushcart Nomination), RHINO, Kenyon Review online, Tampa Review, Florida Review online, EPOCH, Crab Creek Review, Cider Press Review, TheAmerican Journal of Poetry, Poetry Miscellany, and other places. She leads poetry salons at day shelters for the homeless and also at a retirement center, all in Washington, DC.
Orel Protopopescu has written prize-winning works for children and adults. She won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010 and 2020. Her light verse has appeared in Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, and elsewhere. Her first biography Dancing Past the Light: The Life of Tanaquil Le Clercq (University Press of Florida, 2021) received a starred review in Library Journal.
Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
"Vice suggests that Cheney’s legacy is a soulless quest for power, rather than the advancement of fallacious beliefs that seriously damaged our nation." —James Mann, The Washington Post, December 28, 2018
Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it
—George Santayana
During the nineteen-sixties
he supported the Vietnam War.
And to show his support and backing,
five draft deferments he applied for.
When asked about those deferments
in nineteen eighty-nine.
He said he would have liked to serve
but was busy at the time.
During the nineteen-eighties, as a
Wyoming Congressional fella, he voted
no to Head Start, a holiday for Doctor King,
and a decree to free Nelson Mandela.
Though he spoke like a hawk when he
served Papa Bush as Secretary of Defense,
he cut military budgets and downsized our forces,
which when Clinton did it got him incensed.
After leaving Defense he opted for wealth
becoming Halliburton’s CEO.
And with his Pentagon old-boy connections
he set the firm’s stock all aglow.
But making money was not enough
for a man who relished power.
He was elected to be vice president
and our nation would rue the hour.
Following 9/11 he swore
Al-Qaeda was linked to Iraq.
He affirmed that conviction with vigor
though intelligence said unsure fact.
He was a fast and firm supporter
of fighting in Mesopotamia.
And a staunch defender of torture
that became somewhat of a mania.
While hunting quail in Texas
he shot a friend of his in the face.
He reported the incident the next day
so his alcohol levels couldn’t be traced.
In 2012 he published a memoir
with the catchy title My Time.
It was panned by numerous critics
who said it didn’t contain Cheney’s crimes.
In screwing the public and screwing the state
the man has been clever and quick.
In his memoir he screwed with his legacy,
which is what you’d expect from a dick.
Martin H. Levinson is a member of the Authors Guild, National Book Critics Circle, PEN America, and the book review editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He has published ten books and numerous articles and poems. He holds a PhD from NYU and lives in Forest Hills, New York.
"When somebody says something about me, I am able to go 'bing, bing, bing' and I take care of it," T***p said. “You know, you have to keep people interested.” —CNN Politics, October 20, 2017 In the hours after President Donald T***p said on an Oct. 17 radio broadcast that he had contacted nearly every family that had lost a military servicemember this year, the White House was hustling to learn from the Pentagon the identities and contact information for those families, according to an internal Defense Department email.—Roll Call, October 20, 2017
Escher-like, America block after block,
stairway after stairway, the dead ends,
the verbal multiplicity—the ugly prank
that is this presidency. But I keep my hand
over my heart when we say the Pledge
of Allegiance where I teach high school.
I didn’t say it when Bush was the president.
During W, I abstained, and looked away.
Something in the drug works. I believe
we’re going to be better after the parade
of clowns ends. Holy soldier! I’m thinking
of his body having not known what he
signed up for. How the soul is a wreck.
Those fatherless children. The lights
over the coffin. The echoing of the war.
Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
A majority of Americans disapprove of Senate Republicans' refusal to consider President Barack Obama's pick to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows. —NBC, March 9, 2016. Image source: K Waghorn.
Words no longer have meaning,
nothing but interpretive jiggery-pokery
that makes flagpole sitting a fundamental right,
so get over it. Pure applesauce.
It’s a pro-abortion novelty
to uphold Second Amendment rights,
deciding it’s acceptable to execute the retarded,
the enduring Constitution of the adopted dead.
It’s a reduction to the absurd
to not harbor moral feelings against homosexuality,
much like murder. I’m not a scientist.
To my critics, I say, “Vaffanculo.”
Let 60,000 consenting adults
display their genitals to one another,
have them erect a conglomerate of the cross,
the star of David, and a Muslim half-moon.
Refuse jobs to haters of the Chicago Cubs,
to snail eaters and adulterers,
the gays don’t have special rights.
It’s fundamentally illogical to have gay sex.
States may permit abortion on demand. It’s easy.
We can’t cast a cloud on the legitimacy
of George Bush’s election.
I would hide my head in a bag.
This Supreme Court has descended
to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.
It’s attributable to racial entitlement.
Jesus Christ believed in the Devil. Case closed.
Jay Sizemore hates when you call writing a hobby. His work has appeared here or there, mostly there. He lives in Nashville, TN, though he often wonders if he really exists. This poem, written in reaction to Antonin Scalia's death, is constructed from actual phrases Scalia used in his legal writings.
corrupt Corps, Federal flood
blue roofs, insurance scams
trashed car, no house
no phone, no job
abandoned pets, missing corpses
toxic water, staph infections
black mold, asthma worse
dying patients, floating caskets
gangs of looters, schools gone
Danziger Bridge, shot in the back
lead exposure, can’t think
murdered dogs, suicide
recurring nightmares, lifetime Xanax
blame the victims, heck of a job
Diane Elayne Dees is a writer and psychotherapist in Louisiana. Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, including the 2006 anthology, Hurricane Blues: Poems about Katrina and Rita. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog about women's professional tennis.
He is painting dogs, we’re told.
So far, he’s done fifty. One shows
a fluffy terrier, another a Maltese,
both on backgrounds the color
of morning glories. His teacher says
he’s moving on to landscapes
like Winston Churchill. I’d like to see
studies of coffins offloaded from planes
in secrecy or one of a legless soldier
or an Iraqi child shot at a checkpoint.
This painting from the viewpoint
of one seated shows his feet
sticking up out of the bathwater.
Another depicts him in the shower.
I have to wonder why he favors
himself immersed like a baptism.
He has that cocky sense of humor
so you could almost like him.
I’d like a painting where he’s holding
a mandate to waterboard the constitution
or one clearing cedar brush, his previous hobby.
His teacher lauds his talent, says he
could be a master. He grins, brush in hand
to watercolor history.
Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize. Her latest book Properties of Matter is just out from Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.
of it down first. What could this
man know of bone
and muscle and ligament
having ignored so much gore in his
path:
the scraped and scalloped wartime
bodies,
the skulls looking like so many
bladders
emptied of their gray and red and
black,
the rubble made out of parlors and
kitchens? If that introspection
can come from making art,
if that is one of life's most
elusive gifts, if that
is the divine in the human coming
out,
I have to say, George: finally.
Louise Robertson has earned degrees (BA Oberlin, MFA George Mason University),
poetry publications (Pudding Magazine, New Verse News, Parting Gifts) and
poetry awards (Mary Roberts Rinehart, Columbus Arts Festival Poetry Competition -- twice). She is active as a poet and organizer in her local Columbus, Ohio
poetry.
Skill as an artist has nothing to do
With whether you’re evil or good.
Hitler and Churchill both wanted to paint
And the evidence says they both could.
Skill as a painter has nothing to do
With whether you’re stupid or smart.
“Fool and War Criminal Nude in the Bath” --
It might or might not be bad art.
Chris O’Carroll is a writer and an actor. In addition to his previous appearances in New Verse News, he has published poems in Angle, First Things, Lighten Up Online, Literary Review, Snakeskin, and other print and online journals.
