“America is a code word – always has been.”
The Neighbor on Fort Panic Road
"When the meaning of patriot changed for the worse /and the troops hadn’t returned, she took the yellow /ribbon off the door and the blue star from her window."
“When the meaning of patriot changed for the worse /and the troops hadn’t returned, she took the yellow /ribbon off the door and the blue star from her window.”
A Culture of Fear
"Now we have only the dirge of distant tires, the percussion of closing doors, /this horror movie at the point all goes black /and we know the next sound will make us jump."
“Now we have only the dirge of distant tires, the percussion of closing doors, /this horror movie at the point all goes black /and we know the next sound will make us jump.”
Jazz in a Small Town
Dwight Gray evokes the smells and sounds of a small town in the South, where "So much of what I see /already has words, images and judgment attached."
Jazz in a Small Town So much depends on a thick southern air fused with honeysuckle, lilac; a little carcass and cowshit adds. One scent riffs of the next. So much of what I see already has words, images and judgment attached: green to life, white and pure, blue skies and calm. But smell a…
Churning Through This Room
The electricity of the living and the dying churns through Dwight Gray's poem.
The electricity of the living and the dying churns through Dwight Gray’s poem.
A.M. Radio
In this timely poem, U.S. Army veteran Dwight Gray offers a stateside soldier’s take on xenophobia.
Old War Movies and the News
Army veteran and GMP favorite Dwight Gray shares a winning poem on war, socialization, and one boy’s path to soldierhood.
Shooting Silhouettes
U.S. Army veteran Dwight Gray writes of fear and bravado on the shooting range.
Shanty Hollow
Dwight Gray writes of family and fishing, in a poem where much lurks beneath the surface.
The Fear Mongers
Dwight Gray brings home the ISIS beheading of journalist James Foley, and does so in a way that challenges cliche and oversimplification.
The Foyer of a Soldier’s House
Poet and U.S. Army veteran Dwight Gray captures how war changes soldiers in this poem of departure and homecoming.
Mapmaking
Dwight Gray’s “Mapmaking” makes the simple act of a child drawing appear as profound and miraculous as any myth of creation and destruction.
The Butcher
While this piece from Dwight Gray can be seen as a love poem (of a sort), it’s so much more than that. It’s a meditation on uncertainty and aging, perseverance and emptiness, the ill-defined “edges” of the “marriage bed.”
Orange
Retired soldier Dwight Gray presents a haunting meditation on youth, Halloween, and gun culture