Poetry Is Back in the News

On average, poems in Rattle are published six months after they were submitted. Then they appear online six months after that. Real poetry is timeless, of course, so usually it doesn’t matter—but this is the age of information. News cycles rarely last more than a week, let alone a year. One reason poetry lags behind other forms of contemporary media might be this delay—how can poetry be part of the conversation when it enters so late? Moreover, poets do often respond to current events in real-time, so why make them wait for our print schedule?

Our solution is Poets Respond—a poem written within the last week about a public event that occurred within the last week will appear every Sunday. Our only criterion for selection is the quality of the poem; all opinions and reactions are welcome. Selected poets will receive $50. To have your own poem considered for next week’s posting, submit at the link below before midnight Friday PST. Any poems sent before the midnights of Sunday and Tuesday will also be considered for bonus postings mid-week.

Response Poems

	2017
	Barry Peters	We Saw Mother! (Sept. 24
	Raye Hendrix	Elegy for a Spacecraft (Sept. 19)
	Devon Balwit	That Feeling (Sept. 17)
	Bola Opaleke	Home That Would Not Let Us Stay (Sept. 12)
	Eric Steineger	She (Sept. 10)
	Jennifer Hartenburg	Houston Is the Body (Sept. 3)
	Hakim Bellamy	Dick Gregory (Aug. 29)
	Elizabeth Knapp	The Year of the Eclipse (Aug. 27)
	Jennifer Reeser	Forensic Anthropologist … (Aug. 22)
	Stephen Gibson	Killers (Aug. 20)
	Raquel Vasquez Gilliland	I Know All Mothers Say … (Aug. 17)
	Megan Fernandes	Nukemap.com (Aug. 13)
	Sonia Greenfield	Dear Kim Jong-un (Aug. 8)
	Jordan Durham	After Seeing Princess Diana … (Aug. 6)
	Bayleigh Fraser	Straight Shooter (Aug. 1)
	Aaron Brown	Old Man Watching Dunkirk (July 30)
	Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach	Every Musician’s Suicide … (July 23)
	Brittney Corrigan	Truck Carrying Live Eels … (July 16)
	Jennifer Rane Hancock	The Last Days of Baseball (July 13)
	Luisa A. Igloria	Another Argument for Trying to Live … (July 9)
	Megan Merchant	A Town Praying for Rain (July 2)
	Meghann Plunkett	In Which I Name My Abuser Publicly (June 27)
	Olga Dermott-Bond	Grenfell (June 25)
	Joan Colby	Lordy (June 18)
	Alejandro Escudé	Republican in Red (June 15)
	Carter Smith	After the Paris Accord (June 11)
	Jackleen Holton Hookway	The Untranslatable Word (June 4)
	Jose A. Alcantara	Violaceae (May 28)
	Matt Hohner	How to Unpack a Bomb Vest (May 25)
	Steve Henn	Suicide Note (May 21)
	Meg Pokrass	America (May 18)
	Alejandro Escudé	I Heart James Comey (May 14)
	Jen Karetnick	Nobody Dies Because … (May 9)
	Ali Sohail	Hummingbird (May 7)
	Amanda Yskamp	Time(s) (Apr. 30)
	Matty Layne Glasgow	What the Mountains Are Silent About (Apr. 23)
	Robert Keiser	The Anti-Protest (Apr. 18)
	Chaun Ballard	How I Survived (Apr. 16)
	Dante Di Stefano	National Poetry Month, 2017 (Apr. 13)
	Ellen Steinbaum	Bids for Border Wall … (Apr. 11)
	Amy Miller	What I Would Tell My Daughter … (Apr. 9)
	Rachel Custer	Togetherness in the Age of Terror (Apr. 7)
	Robert Peake	Homesickness (Apr. 2)
	Alison Luterman	What We Did in the Resistance … (Mar. 26)
	Emiliy Sernaker	Lawrence Ferlinghetti Is Alive! (Mar. 23)
	Nanci Lee	Happy (Mar. 19)
	Cristi Donoso Best	After a Long Journey (Mar. 12)
	Jed Myers	Jewish Cemetery Night (Mar. 7)
	Mai-Lan Pham	Pause (Mar. 5)
	Dore Kiesselbach	Goldilocks Zone (Feb. 26)
	Amy Elizabeth Robinson	Yesterday We Were Asked … (Feb. 21)
	Ananda Lima	When They Come for Us … (Feb. 19)
	Sonya Taaffe	An Obedience Experiment (Feb. 12)
	Craig van Rooyen	Why the Bobcat Returned (Feb. 5)
	Jamaica Baldwin	Call Me by My Name (Feb. 2)
	Richard Garcia	The Sublime (Jan. 29)
	Asiya Wadud	The Dog God (Jan. 24)
	Austin Smith	We Defy Augury (Jan. 22)
	Abby E. Murray	Poem for My Daughter … (Jan. 19)
	Gus Peterson	Nautilus (Jan. 17)
	Sarah Bates	When a Guy at the Bar Tells Me … (Jan. 15)
	Vicki L. Wilson	Shoveling Snow (Jan. 8)
	Lynne Knight	Year’s Beginning. Year’s Ending. (Jan. 3)
	Jill Talbot	Nobody (Jan. 1)
		. . .
	2016
	Ann Hart	Krampusnacht (Dec. 25)
	Zeina Hashem Beck	The Days Don’t Stop (Dec. 18)
	Sonia Greenfield	Ghost Ship (Dec. 11)
	Kate Peterson	Open Season (Dec. 4)
	Timothy Liu	Protest Song (Dec. 1)
	John Paul O’Connor	The Fall (Nov. 27)
	Karthik Purushothaman	Breaking News: Oscar Bait (Nov. 20)
	Katie Bickham	Villanelle for America 2016 (Nov. 15)
	Richard Garcia	Canada (Nov. 13)
	Barbara Crooker	Election Ghazal (Nov. 10)
	Meryl Stratford	My Mother Explains Why … (Nov. 8)
	Laura Esposto	Tradition (Nov. 6)
	Jess Rizkallah	T.S. Eliot in the Time of Trashfire (Oct. 30)
	Karthik Purushothaman	A Recommendation to the Committee (Oct. 23)
	Rachel Custer	How I Am Like Donald Trump (Oct. 18)
	Ned Balbo	Crybully (Oct. 16)
	Kathleen Lawrence	Trump’s Tip (Oct. 9)
	Samuel Hughes	Representation (Oct. 2)
	Steve Henn	Making Sense of This Election (Sep. 27)
	Hayden Saunier	Hard Facts 3 (Do Not Resist) (Sep. 25)
	Joe Balaz	In Dis Newfangled Oz (Sep. 18)
	Vicki Iorio	Why I Don’t Write Poems About 9/11 (Sep. 11)
	Raquel Vasquez Gilliland	Life on Earth (Sep. 4)
	M.K. Foster	Volta (Sep. 1)
	Mark Wagenaar	Poem for Max Ritvo, Perhaps (Aug. 28)
	Susan Comninos	How People End (Aug. 23)
	Megan Merchant	Road Closure, Aleppo (Aug. 21)
	Jackleen Holton Hookway	Olympia (Aug. 14)
	Julian Randall	The Search for Frank Ocean … (Aug. 7)
	Craig van Rooyen	Ode to a Nightingale in a Payload (Aug. 2)
	Meryl Stratford	A Brief History of the World (July 31)
	Sarah Wells	Of Thee I Sing (July 24)
	Scherezade Siobhan	The Mirror I Won’t (July 19)
	Frank Dullaghan	Promenade des Anglais (July 17)
	Nordette N. Adams	Digital Anthropologists … (July 12)
	Nicole Homer	The Dead Line (July 10)
	Bayleigh Fraser	Ghazal on Independence Day (July 5)
	Patricia O’Neil	Who Speaks for the Rock Snot? (July 3)
	Ryan Dzelzkalns	The World’s Smallest Snail … (June 26)
	Jackleen Holton Hookway	Alligators (June 21)
	Leila Chatti	While Reading the News … (June 19)
	Chris Emslie	Prayer for Anything but Prayer (June 14)
	Amy Miller	I Am Over Here Sobbing (June 12)
	Mark Wagenaar	Little Song (Altar) (June 7)
	Akua Lezli Hope	Endangered (June 5)
	Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee	No Urdu in Dilli, Mian (May 29)
	P.C. Vandall	At the Circus (May 22)
	Jana Harris	The Healthcare System (May 17)
	Jay Sizemore	Gun of a Bitch (May 15)
	Ilyse Kusnetz	Harbinger (May 10)
	Brody Parrish Craig	Profane Androgen (May 8)
	Maisie Williams	MTA (May 1)
	Luisa Muradyan Tannahill	Purple Rain (Apr. 24)
	Wederic Eubals	Jan Böhmermann the Great (Apr. 19)
	Sonia Greenfield	From Nigeria to New Zealand (Apr. 17)
	Bayleigh Fraser	To the Woman Who Ruled … (Apr. 10)
	E.E. Lampman	Letter to a Tardigrade (Apr. 3)
	Clint Margrave	Candidate (Mar. 29)
	Judith H. Montgomery	B-Word (Mar. 27)
	William Fargason	Images of Kurt Cobin’s Shotgun … (Mar. 22)
	Meera Jhala	I Don’t Quite Know … (Mar. 20)
	Catherine Pond	March 9th, Dusk (Mar. 15)
	David Miller	Elegy (Mar. 13)
	Victoria Kornick	On Access (Mar. 8)
	Kai Carlson-Wee	Signs (Mar. 6)
	Lea Tieger	Electorate (Mar. 1)
	Cortney Lamar Charleston	Chillary Clinton Said … (Feb. 28)
	Elizabeth Weaver	Electing Hell (Feb. 21)
	Peg Duthie	Look at That, You Son of a Bitch (Feb. 14)
	Rebecca Starks	Politicians (Feb. 11)
	Jonel Abellanosa	To the Red Fire Monkey (Feb. 9)
	Cade Leebron	I’m Drinking in Bed (Feb. 7)
	Aliki Barnstone	Late January Thaw, Refugees … (Jan. 31)
	Rosemerry Trommer	After My Friend Phyllis Shows Me … (Jan. 26)
	Maureen Doallas	Elegy: #LeilaAlaoui (Jan. 24)
	Maggie Clark	Whatever It Is It Comes in Waves (Jan. 17)
	Colin Pope	Major Tom Turns into Light (Jan. 12)
	Pepper Trail	This Refuge from Its Inception … (Jan. 10)
	Chaun Ballard	What Would You Say If You Were … (Jan. 3)
		. . .
	2015
	Wendy Videlock	A Toast (Dec. 27)
	Lorna Davis	The Campaign Before Christmas (Dec. 25)
	Ramandeep Johal	Watching the Sunset … (Dec. 20)
	Lisa DeSiro	Trumped-Up (Dec. 13)
	Deborah P. Kolodji	Haiku (Dec. 7)
	Lynne Knight	America Listen Allen Ginsberg … (Dec. 6)
	Susana H. Case	Level 4: Brussels (Nov. 29)
	Lisa Martin	If You Aren’t Really a Racist … (Nov. 24)
	Jessica Goodfellow	Perpetuation of the Species (Nov. 22)
	Joanna Lee	Moments of Silence (Nov. 15)
	Akua Lezli Hope	Resignation (Nov. 8)
	Katherine Lo	The Headline Reads, Processed Meat … (Nov. 1)
	Ariana Brown	Ossuary (Oct. 25)
	Emmalee Hagarman	Things That Happen (Oct. 18)
	Conor Kelly	The Gun and the Gown (Oct. 11)
	Gary Leising	Two Variations on a Triolet … (Oct. 4)
	Kayla Rae Candrilli	Daraprim (Sept. 27)
	Alejandro Escudé	The English Teacher Who Mistook … (Sept. 20)
	Sam Cha	I Am Michael Derrick Hudson (Sept. 13)
	Zeina Hashem Beck	Ghazal: Back Home (Sept. 6)
	Conor Bracken	I Worry That in the Blue Mornings (Aug. 30)
	Dore Kiesselbach	Mignon (Aug. 23)
	Rayon Lennon	Sky Beer (Aug. 16)
	Rhina P. Espaillat	Rhymes With Banish (Aug. 9)
	Amy Elizabeth Robinson	What Do You Give (Aug. 2)
	Tiana Clark	Sandy Speaks (July 26)
	Bayleigh Fraser	Let Me Tell You About … (July 19)
	Kerrin McCadden	In Praise of Jonathan Matthew (July 12)
	A.M. Juster	Hillanelle (July 5)
	Stevie Edwards	After the Vigil … (June 28)
	Patrick Ryan Frank	Landscape with Questions (June 21)
	Ace Boggess	Escape Envy (June 14)
	Suzanne Langlois	To Caitlyn Jenner (June 7)
	Abby E. Murray	Memorial Day 2015 (May 31)
	A.J. Bradley	Inheritance (May 24)
	Susan Cohen	The Boston Marathon Bombing (May 17)
	Bayleigh Fraser	Unsigned Mother’s Day Card (May 10)
	Jennifer Givhan	The Polar Bear (May 3)
	Will Nixon	National Poetry Month (Apr. 25)
	Meryl Stratford	Section B, Page 6 (Apr. 18)
	Cortney Lamar Charleston	Feeling Fucked Up (Apr. 11)
	Jackleen Holton Hookway	The Poetry Lesson (Apr. 4)
	Chera Hammons	The Descent of the Germanwings (Mar. 29)
	Janice D. Soderling	Dolphin Legend of the World Before (Mar. 22)
	Damian Caudill	How Florida Lost Its Edge (Mar. 15)
	Marie-Aline Roemer	Questions for Lyudmila (Mar. 8)
	C. Wade Bentley	Perfidious Under Fire (Mar. 1)
	Dante Di Stefano	Elegy for Philip Levine (Feb. 22)
	Leila Chatti	The Words Come, They Choke Me (Feb. 15)
	Beth Gylys	Levels of Shit or Thom Tillis … (Feb. 8)
	Vincent Toro	Gratuitous Super Bowl Poem (Feb. 1)
	Andrew Collard	Realism: For an Infant … (Jan. 25)
	Conor Kelly	Words for a Craven Editor (Jan. 18)
	R.G. Evans	Pussy Nation (Jan. 11)
	Chera Hammons	Sparrows (Jan. 4)
		. . .
	2014
	Emily Yoon	Hello Miss Pretty Bitch (Dec. 28)
	Russell Colver	The Night Before Christmas 2014 … (Dec. 25)
	Mihir Vatsa	In the Winter of 2014 … (Dec. 21)
	Lynne Knight	Dark Prison Ledger (Dec. 14)
	Marjorie Lotfi Gill	The Gun in Its Holster (Dec. 7)
	Lynne Thompson	Sonnet Consisting of One Law (Nov. 30)
	Rachel J. Bennett	Unsent Letter from Philae … (Nov. 23)
	Lynne Knight	On Hearing of Robin Williams’ … (Nov. 16)
	Kevin Heaton	The Electorate (Nov. 9)
	Sneha Madhavan-Reese	Nathan Cirillo (Nov. 2)
	Cortney Lamar Charleston	Miley Cyrus Presides Over … (Oct. 26)
	Jay Sizemore	How to Remove a Hazmat Suit (Oct. 19)
	Devin Kelly	Fear Of (Oct. 12)
	Amy Miller	For Those Who Would Kill … (Oct. 4)
	Julie Henson	I’m Not Calling It a Chasm (Sept. 28)
	Christopher Kempf	I Shot an Arrow … (Sept. 21)
	Sonia Greenfield	The Spokesperson Said … (Sept. 14)
	Peter E. Murphy	Labor Day: Atlantic City (Sept. 7)
	Lynne Knight	The Letter from James Foley (Aug. 31)
	Mark Smith-Soto	Streamers (Aug. 25)
	Sonia Greenfield	Corpse Flower (Aug. 24)
	Gabrielle Bates	Of the Lamp (Aug. 18)
	Jason McCall	Roll Call for Michael Brown (Aug. 17)
	Marjorie Lotfi Gill	Picture of Girl … (Aug. 10)
	Elise Liu	She Runs from the River (Aug. 3)
	Zeina Hashem Beck	Ya’aburnee (July 27)
	Megan Collins	How I Fathom the Crash (July 20)
	Elly Bookman	On July 8 (July 13)
	Rebecca Schumejda	Black Banana (July 6)
	Megan Collins	After the Memorial (June 29)
	Kari Gunter-Seymour	A Letter to Jani Larson … (June 22)
	Albert Haley	Presidential Poetry Briefing (June 15)
	Alejandro Escudé	The Other Me (June 8)
	Tria Wood	Instructions (June 1)