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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com.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.
While tanks roll through our streets We want you to know We are vulnerable and resilient like you This police state wannabe is not us We are the fish jumping in the Potomac The magnolia filling the air We are fireflies testing the night The bullfrog and the cathedral bell The convergence of rivers As this martial maelstrom Storms land and sky Our osprey nestlings hope only to fledge
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a Washington, DC naturalist and author of Wild Walking, A Year in Rock Creek Park, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island and City of Trees. Her poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and Plenty Magazine.
The fish crows in my neighborhood Are engaged in conversation Not the sharp caws of their cousins More of a quiet how are you I am too In nasal tones that don’t hurt for sounding French Small Andrena mining bees Are on the wing in Rock Creek Park Gathering pollen from peppermint striped spring beauty flowers Then flying home to feed their young An osprey pair is nesting on the Potomac In a marriage surviving biannual journeys Of thousands of miles We too are nesting and gathering And quietly conversing all across America Wishing to be seen and heard Or not seen and heard Wishing to carry on
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and author of several nature books, including City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island and Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons. Many of her poems have been featured in The New Verse Newsand Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice.
Today Roberta Flack reunites with Donny Hathaway at a Carter Barron concert among crowds of Washington’s famed cherry trees peeper frogs visiting dignitaries
Marvin Gaye in attendance an alternate inauguration out of doors among glorious birds
Ben Shahn might paint a syrinx chorus oh how the capital creek flows Amanda Gorman
Richard Blanco Robert Frost Maya Angelou read their work
I grew up here and I’ve strolled the park with the crows and the deer
watching winter turn to spring
from far away its song of the public good is still softly killing me
Roberta Flack is about as well known among the mandarins in the Maison Blanche
as Richard Wright James Baldwin and Ralph Bunche Emmanuel Macron comes to town
and between correcting facts and straightening records he says France isn’t just a remembrance
of past things like the Somme the Ardennes and Maginot it’s also Nina Simone Josephine Baker
I grew up here have often wondered
where is the love?
not among trees and flowers natives and exotics imperial gifts and the green thumbs
of Lady Birds in our quondam swamp of Camelot the Brain Trust on the Potomac
Rather within those amnesiacs who cannot see what it takes to get to be how great we already are
the ranging octaves and ingenious melodies rhapsody of a people who keep offering everything
after every betrayal because getting my own means putting it out but as Ms. Flack asked
Compared to what?
Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes Region of Canada. His latest book is the short fiction collection, Captain's Kismet (Alien Buddha Press, 2025). You can follow him @Sandcounties on Substack.
Lithe buffleheads and mergansers Newly down from Canada Tandem dive into the rough blue Potomac
Wind whips the sycamores Causing their spheres of seeds to Dance as clouds race above
Next week Jimmy Carter will lie in state And then Donald Trump returns
Today ducks are diving Let’s just watch them dive
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a Washington, DC naturalist and award-winning author of eight nature books, including Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons, City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, and Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island. She has had several previous poems published in the TheNew Verse News and many poems published by Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice, including four that have won “Moon Prizes.” Her poetry has also been featured on nature-oriented websites.
