The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
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Earlier this year, scientists discovered that there is about as much microplastics in the brain as a whole plastic spoon. The paper, published in Nature Medicinein February, revealed that the amount of microplastics—tiny plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters—in the human brain appears to be increasing: Concentrations rose by about 50% between 2016 and 2024. —Fortune, May 20, 2025
Reading about how NASA astronauts
grew edible zinnias while orbiting
above us in space, I think of ways
we've chosen to live on this earth.
Red lilies and oleander were the first
flowering plants to thrive in Hiroshima’s
charred remains. In the rubble, gamma
rays made the blooms even brighter.
Fields of sunflowers, grown in Chernobyl,
change the radioactive dirt effectively,
scientists say. Meanwhile, Agent Orange
is everywhere in the soil in Viet Nam.
Flowers that have grown mutations,
though near Fukushima, may be
a mistake. Could that happen anyway?
On islands in the Tasman Sea, birds
mistake ocean plastics for food to feed
their chicks, and dead birds were found
having ingested single-use soy sauce
plastic bottles, shaped like a fish.
When you mistake the song of a bird for the death rattle of another species,
Bonnie Naradzay’s manuscript will be published this year by Slant Books. For years, she has led weekly poetry sessions at homeless shelters and a retirement community. Poems, three of which have been nominated for Pushcarts, have appeared in AGNI, New Letters, RHINO, Tampa Review, EPOCH, Dappled Things, and other places. While at Harvard she was in Robert Lowell’s class on “The King James Bible as English Literature.” In 2010 she was awarded the University of New Orleans Poetry Prize – a month’s stay in Northern Italy – in the South Tyrol castle of Ezra Pound’s daughter Mary. There, Bonnie had tea with Mary, hiked the Dolomites, and read drafts of Pound’s translations.
On that clear, sunny morning, 7-year-old Howard Kakita stood on the roof of his grandparents’ bathhouse excitedly watching the vapor trails of an approaching B-29. The date was August 6, 1945. The city was Hiroshima. Howard was not supposed to be on the roof, his grandmother shouting as the air raid siren sounded. Then again, neither he nor his brother were supposed to be in Japan at all. Born in California, they were Americans, like their mother and father before them, like unknown numbers of U.S. citizens who were caught in that city on that day and forever after associated with the atomic bomb and the horrors it unleashed… Only as a young man did Howard begin to realize how miraculous his survival was. His grandparents lived less than a mile from Hiroshima’s ground zero. For several moments, he lay unconscious under the rubble then dug himself out. His grandfather rescued his grandmother from the mountain of debris that had been their house… Both Howard and Kenny suffered dysentery and lost their hair from the radiation exposure. Their maternal grandmother, they learned, had literally vanished in the blast. Their maternal grandfather would die within days. —The Washington Post, August 4, 2020. Photo: Howard Kakita, right, his older brother, Kenny, and paternal grandfather, Yaozo, all lost their hair because of radiation exposure from the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima. (Family photo)
glowing morning busy sidewalks
children playing or in carriages
a buzz in the sky
giant mosquitoes
a moment later
cinder and ash.
Daniel Brown is a retired Special Education teacher. He began writing poetry for his own pleasure but is now interested in sharing his work. Daniel has been an activist for environmental, anti-nuke, and social issues since the 80’s. He reads regularly at CAPS (Calling All Poets) in New Paltz N.Y. and has been published in Chronogram Magazine. He resudes in Red Hook, N.Y.
Never forget 9/11.
Never forget Trayvon Martin.
Never forget climate change.
Never forget to tell someone you love "I love you."
Never forget Emmet Till.
Never forget the Holocaust.
Never forget Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
Never forget not all cops are good cops.
Never forget not all cops are bad cops.
Never forget to be kind.
Never forget to say thank you.
Never forget it's an athlete's constitutional right to sit during the national anthem.
Never forget to fight against fascists.
Never forget to seek shelter during a hurricane.
Never forget the United States is a country founded by and for immigrants.
Never forget the lives of soldiers lost fighting for our country.
Never forget a homeless vet.
Never forget our children are watching.
Never forget we're all in this together.
Never forget, never forget, never forget.
Scott C. Kaestner is a Los Angeles poet, dad, husband, son, and dream weaver. Google 'scott kaestner poetry' to peruse his musings and doings.
A boy looks at a huge photograph showing Hiroshima city after the 1945 atomic bombing. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Japan August 6, 2007. Reuters/Toru Hanai via International Business Times.
Oh children of Japan,
the dot that inflated
to the size of a neutron star.
Oh children of Japan,
you watched your own feet
evaporate.
Oh children of Japan,
you clung to a rope
thick as an Egyptian obelisk.
Oh children of Japan,
an apology flying like
a bomber evading a blast.
Oh children of Japan,
your bodies, a pile
of blackened marbles.
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.
Evolutionary biologist Timothy Mousseau and his colleagues have published 90 studies that prove beyond all doubt the deleterious genetic and developmental effects on wildlife of exposure to radiation from both the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters, writes Linda Pentz Gunter. But all that peer-reviewed science has done little to dampen the 'official' perception of Chernobyl's silent forests as a thriving nature reserve. —The Ecologist, April 25, 2016
Thirty years after Chernobyl’s accident
spilled radiation equal to twenty Hiroshimas,
wolves, roe deer, boar, bison, and moose thrive
between abandoned apartment buildings and once-
tended fields and gardens. Animals too contaminated
to eat. Appearing to be normal, they meander
within what is left of Pripyat. Tourists travel
to photograph the haunting beauty of decaying
buildings, trees flowering in spring, ignore long-term
threats of gamma particles that enter their bodies—
silent with their sinister destruction. This zone
is an unintentional wildlife sanctuary,
while Fukushima fallout spreads eastward
across the Pacific Ocean toward the west coast
of the Americas. Southern California seaweed
holds five times the normal radiation. What this
means for other foods, for long-term human
health, we don’t yet know. The ocean maps show
the field widening, contaminating fish, plankton,
and mammals, dumping tsunami debris on islands
along the way. Another natural experiment.
Perhaps another surprise nature reserve. We wait
to see what it brings, which of the fittest survives.
No one will be excluded from this test.
Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Kestrel, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, Buddhist Poetry Review, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.
China has said Japan is endangering peace in the region after it passed controversial laws expanding the role of its military abroad. Japan should learn "profound lessons from history", China's defence ministry said after Japan's parliamentary vote. The vote allows Japanese troops to fight overseas for the first time since the end of World War Two 70 years ago. Tensions between China and Japan have escalated in recent months over a group of islands to which both lay claim. The security laws were voted through Japan's upper house late on Friday, with 148 lawmakers voting in support and 90 against. It followed nearly 200 hours of political wrangling, with scuffles breaking out at various points between the bills' supporters and opposition members attempting to delay the vote. —BBC News, September 19, 2015
I am Senkaku,
tiny islands embattled
by China & Japan.
Please remember
the crack of air
& shrieks of life
at the fulmination
of an A Bomb
burning Hiroshima.
Please remember
Mr. Abe, as you order
more drones & destroyers,
fighters & amphibians,
in blind opposition to your
beloved model of pacifism.
Marilyn Peretti lives in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She has been published on The New Verse News, Christian Science Monitor, Journal of Modern Poetry, Talking River, Kyoto Journal and others. She has published several books on blurb.com. She takes interest in international politics, the conflict, the violence, losses, threats and sadness, still hoping leaders will make the right choices.
Honorable Americans:
there are not many of us left who were there,
to remind you that seventy August 9ths ago
you finished your war job
and 75,000 of our lives on green Kyushu island
three days and three mourning hours after killing even more--
Who knows how many?--
on big Honshu to the north, you well know the name,
Hiroshima, you teach it in your schools.
To be sure, we are linked with her
our second, final, high
superheated mushroom of death
Your Mr. Truman
didn’t give a speech about Us, we guess he just left
our boiling harbor, our children’s ashes
floating down
like leaves
for days,
to work things out
for themselves.
Frederick Shiels teaches American foreign policy and history at Mercy College in New York. He has published in Sixfold, The New Verse News, The Hudson River Anthology, and elsewhere. He lived with his family on Kyushu Island, Japan, as a Fulbright Scholar, in 1985, the fortieth anniversary year of the bombing of Nagasaki, not far south. He is the author of a book of foreign policy case studies Preventable Disasters (Rowman & Littlefield) among others.
Shin’s Tricycle. Exposed at: Higashi-hakushima-cho, 1,500 meters from the hypocenter. Donated to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum by Nobuo Tetsutani. Shinichi Tetsutani (then 3 years and 11 months) loved to ride this tricycle. . . . This tricycle was donated to the Peace Memorial Museum. Image source: Hiroshima Peace Site. See also "A tricycle, a toddler and an atomic bomb" —CNN, August 6, 2015
Shinichi was buried
with his favorite Red Tricycle
and best friend, Kimi
Who lived down the street.
Their trusting toddler fingers
Intertwined in a back yard
Grave, after
Brilliant flash, Waves of
Whipping oven fire, Mothers
Screaming at rivers of
dead children.
Oh, to see Shin
Riding his tricycle again.
Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer, who first studied poetry at Boston University while receiving a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science. Gil started writing his own poetry last year. Since then, his poems have been published most recently in The Potomac, The New Verse News, The Antarctica Journal, Third Wednesday, and To Hold A Moment Still, Harbinger Asylum’s 2014 Holidays Anthology.
Listen to the snow falling.
Some might hear distinct words;
others, only a high squeal.
Still others will experience difficulty
in finding their way around.
In which case, stay away from the windows.
Mothers and children, men and beasts,
hang from the branches of trees
where a roaring wind has blown them.
Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.
"Custer's Last Stand" by Harold von Schmidt. Image source: Smithsonian.
Veterans Day Weekend 2014
On November 11, honor the brave dead
from Afghanistan and Iraq, heroes against
German and Japanese imperialism
and the sacrificed souls in “the war to end
all wars.”
But also thank Custer’s soldiers
for not completing the genocide.
I went to bed and dreamt that Sitting Bull
saw Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in a vision quest
and then dropped an A-Bomb on Washington, D.C.
to stop invading Custer
from killing his women and children
like so many insects.
Upon awakening, I discovered that America
attacked Iraq for weapons of mass destruction
after murderous
pecuniary munitions manufacturers
crumbled twin towers
with their boomerang missiles
because recipients of evil often do evil in return.
Russian troops rhythmically
marched in the Ukraine,
a cruel video
beheaded a journalist,
ruinous bombs reined down
on rubbled villages of the weak,
and a bullet to a private’s leg became gangrene
as sepsis spread to amputation and death.
An obscure philosophy book said
that Custer should have refused
to attack renegades
because the Black Hills were the Lakota’s by treaty
and that God had ordered Custer’s men to lay down
their weapons or be shot for insubordination.
By river rapids, a sweating grimacing squaw
watched the blue cavalry approach as
she gave birth to a red son,
who drew his first breath,
wailed loudly and coveted white milk.
Gil Hoy received a B.A in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Gil also is an elected member of the Brookline, MA Democratic Town Committee, and served as a Brookline Selectman for 12 years. Gil studied poetry at Boston University, and started writing his own poetry in February of this year. Since then, Gil’s poems have been published in Soul Fountain, The New Verse News, The Story Teller Magazine, the Clark Street Review, Eye On Life Magazine, and Stepping Stones Magazine.
"A newly conservative board for the Jefferson County School District, which is Colorado’s second-largest, raised the possibility of pruning the curriculum of books and material that could be seen to exalt civil disobedience and promote unpatriotic thoughts. Where does that leave the civil rights movement? Vietnam?" --Frank Bruni, “The Wilds of Education, NY Times, September 27, 2014 "The organization that oversees the Advanced Placement curriculum, whose history course is being defended by massive, ongoing student protests in a Denver suburb, has now said that it backs those protests. The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program supports the actions taken by students in Jefferson County, Colorado to protest a school board member’s request to censor aspects of the AP U.S. History course," said a statement from the College Board released on Friday. --HuffPost, September 27, 2014
In Colorado
students march with teachers protesting
the school board’s agenda to change
the AP history curriculum.
Why teach evolution, climate change,
the civil rights struggle, the exploitation
of Indigenous People?
Why teach critical thinking?
Just erase the chapters of the past that might
cast a negative light—
the bombing of Hiroshima, slavery.
Rip whole chapters from history books.
Red-flag for omission accurate facts
that show Americans
treating others as less than human.
The scholarship of history in question.
Yet these students
keep their eyes on the prize,
demanding an education aligned with truth,
knowing
ignorance is not bliss.
Janet Leahy writes poetry in New Berlin, Wisconsin. A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, she has two collections of poetry, The Storm, Poems of War, Iraq and Not My Mother’s Classroom.
BBC Panorama has released footage of an apparent incendiary bombing of a
playground in Aleppo, northern Syria, with 15-year-old Ahmed (pictured)
among those injured. --The Independent (UK), Aug. 30, 2013.
We sang we ain’t gonna study war no more no more, no more, no more no one really believed it
we boomers the children of sixteen million who came home after the nuking of Hiroshima, Nagasaki children of ones who liked Ike we cowered under desks, in pencil dust, from atomic bombs everyone said wars were cold we couldn’t watch the war in Korea over dinner some people forgot
no one said World War II was the war to end all wars there’s no believing that in death camps there’s no hiding the snow and dust of camps in Tule Lake
Viet Nam: our lovers talked about Canada
we sang, we marched, we swore
war was no longer cold, just secret
the agents were orange
we heard death counts
veterans came home, stooped
to pick up pieces
We have been there
green rocket traceries on the night sky
friendly fire, civilian casualties
surgical intervention minus surgeons
Operation Desert Storm Panama Libya
Afghanistan Iraq Somalia
Syria
we declared wars
on poverty hunger terror
in the name of enduring freedom
I stand here today tempted to lay my burdens
down -- but there’s no safe place for rusted freedoms.
Our children are hungry.
They cannot afford higher education.
We are still afraid.
Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet whose work has appeared in many journal publications. She is a regular contributor to The New Verse News.
the sky erupting
in abrupt reds
& parsimonious purples
like God’s own
fiery flesh,
until nowhere
is everywhere,
& our faces are flecked
with sharp grains
of martyrs’ bones.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun
from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times
for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology.
goodh51(at)gmail.com.
