In September of 2017, Poets Reading the News collaborated with the podcast Interesting People Reading Poetry to curate their “Haiku Hotline” installment. We chose three short poems to feature about the sea. Highly recommended: listen to the whole episode above!
NASA sees the swirl
of currents across the globe
in a vast Van Gogh.
Ocean, give me strength.
I’ll submit to your green pulse.
I’ll roar in a shell.
The sea swallows me
and spits me out promptly:
I’m much too salty.
-MAUREEN SPAGNOLO
Runners-up
Ocean’s belly bloats,
overspills every levee,
laps up our tables.
it’s coming for us
with reef-limbs dead, plastic breath.
vengeance will be slow.
This cliff is power-
less, leaning into the waves’
persistent hunger.
