Poetry Is Back In The News For A Day Anyway--By Howard Richard Debs--United States

Poetry Is Back In The News For A Day Anyway

“I, Too” the poem emblazoned on

a full page of the New York

Times on September 22;

a newspaper page is huge

equated with a smartphone,

e-readers, and tablets that we use

it is gigantic, like a billboard on

the highway, designed to attract

attention like the Stuckey’s

signs, attention grabbers.

Saying all it needs to say

in few words, terse like

a headline from the news,

pulling us in; no embellishment,

accompanying pictures

are all in our minds

as we read the final line

“I, too, am America.”

Howard Richard Debs received a University of Colorado Poetry Prize at age 19. Finalist and recipient 28th Annual 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards, his work appears internationally in numerous publications. His photography will be found in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge" artist and guest editor. His full-length work Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words, Scarlet Leaf Publishing, is forthcoming in early 2017.