Motif

Category: Poetry

  • The Poet of our Times

    The Poet of our Times

    The Langston Hughes Community Poetry Reading is returning for its 31st consecutive year, to begin black history month. The annual free event will celebrate the powerful work of poet Langston Hughes with community poetry readings as well as live jazz music by Emmanuel Escobar and Avi David, as well as a presentation by guest speaker Dr Ikea Jackson. All presenters and readings will be done in line with this year’s theme of “The Poet of Our Times: With Joy, Faith, and Resilience – The Future Belongs to Us,” The event is open to the public and will be hosted at the RISD Auditorium Center for Community Partnerships, in Providence, on Sunday, February 1 2026 from 1 – 3pm. 

    “We’re especially excited because this year the reading falls on Langston’s actual Birthday 125 years ago, February 1!” explains April Brown, co-director of the LHCPR Committee. Brown points out that despite its longevity, the reading almost didn’t happen this year – and may not be possible next year – because of dramatic reductions in funding for the arts at the national, state, and city levels over the last year. It’s a pain almost every arts organization is feeling currently. The project, a well-loved local staple, has released a fundraising video for fans. “It’s always been free, and it still will be, but this year we’re asking the public for support to keep the organization going,” says Brown.

    Catch the video and contribute here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-MVQ3x0_qOtyYAvMsHuOxrAlnmkfOB9_/view?usp=drivesdk

  • Duty, after Jenny Joseph: Poetry

    I cannot wait for my days of purple.
    As it stands,
    my empty womb and I
    have received detailed instructions
    to leave the five cats with my best friend
    to tan naked in Ibiza.
    With breasts and hips that are a little too sexy,
    not correctly womanly enough,
    to care about this country’s future,
    I must party ‘till despair in Cyrene
    until I’m finally humble enough
    to ask a decent lady for her Crock Pot recipes,
    until I too,
    with a line of eight little ones,
    have staked my colored cotton and hymns
    in what really matters,
    deep into the ashy graveyard no Tesla driver rubs their toes in.
    I don’t even own any purple.
    But I shall buy and sport some,
    right after I secure the airline ticket and my sixth cat,
    until I finally taste spitty milk and vote right,
    love right.
    — Lux S


    A modern reprise of Joseph’s “Warning” honing in on the rising trad wife/conservative movements.
    Lux S. is a writer based in Providence with an interest in social movements and the effective responses to hateful pseudo-intellectualism.

  • Headline: Poetry

    Headline: Poetry

    Hate laced lead projectiles

    pierce through a peaceful Providence. 

    A rush to usher innocents

    towards shuttered confinements 

    that smell of fear.

    Ivy League opulence

    left tarnished by trauma.

    A city in mourning. 

    A community canvassed. 

    A campus locked down. 

    An inexhaustible entourage

    of law enforcement

    enveloping the East Side. 

    A grisly demise 

    for a miniscule man. 

    We are fragile human beings,

    who understandably break,

    but always piece it back together

    somehow…

    Dedicated to the families and victims of the Brown University shooting

    Photo from the author

  • We Used to Feel Safe Here

    Saturday, December 13th, 2025


    Their iron gates were open to all who shared the spirit of creativity, and to those whose minds yearned for brand new thoughts to challenge their hearts.
    The green grass swayed happily as pedestrians from all over the city of Providence walked with their dogs, or hand-in-hand with friends or lovers, speaking gleefully of every future endeavor they dared to pursue.
    But these days, the gates are lined with roses, and no one treads the grounds anymore.
    No one flies their kites or dances around the trees and…
    There are two less of us than there used to be.


    ­— Hellen Schweizer

  • POEMS: by Hellen Schweizer

    The Fox

    Are you quite certain that you’re safe in your bedroom?

    Were you not warned about the fox that’s been let loose from the zoo and prowls the hills of this city?

    Did you not see that he already passed your house?

    How did you not notice his paws resting on the window

    as he props himself up

    to take a tally of things you own in your home.

    The fox licks his lips.

    What a cute little kitty you have.

    Providence

    Fog clings to the worn bricks for comfort,
    and street lights hold fast to the quiet descent of dusk.
    Providence breathes slowly,
    a city half-asleep, contemplating,
    knowing it once stood elsewhere,
    beneath the waters, or beyond our concept of earth.

    The trees of College Hill lean inward,
    listening for footsteps that glide rather than echo.
    Windows gape with spectral light,
    illuminating rooms no person has touched in years.

    Below, the river loops like a repeating thought,
    reflecting pieces of earth that do not belong to us.
    The air tastes faintly of salt and ink and
    something older than soil or life. 

    This place does not speak loudly.
    It hums…
    low, beneath the breath,
    a music that unsettles but does not repel.
    You do not visit Providence.
    You become it,
    as if it had always been waiting
    in the corners of your mind,
    dreaming with you. 

    Of you.

  • Vaina

    Dejate de esa vaina, compadre

    Let your pulse slow down

    We’re siblings, you and I

    Not much different, yet not similar 

    In any way

    Even though our parents complain

    In vain, a path to make way

    For judgements to simmer and sink into our pores

    I never understood the back and forth

    Of why this, and true that

    Boricuas don’t pronounce their ‘Rs’ sometimes 

    While Dominicanos say the funniest things

    I cringe when I think of it now

    Uh-oh, No

    It’s always ‘them’ or the ‘other’

    When in reality they are brothers 

    From not a different, similar mother

    The space is always heavy when we ask ‘where you from’

    It’s either DR or PR

    Can’t be both, can’t be none

    We have the best mofongo, our Bacardi Rum’s the one

    Now that’s some vaina 

    From what I know of the word 

    It’s just stuff, drama, politics

    It’s really dirt under the rug

    Don’t we get enough

    Hate, ambivalence, injustice

    From those not on our turf

    Sacudete, ya, deja eso

    Ven pa’ca Hermano

    Cercano pero lejano 

    Let the dust settle 

    Or is that how it be?

    You tell me

    Don’t you get it?

    We are we

    Latinos, hermanos, comadres

    And we fight 

    With our might over who’s right

    Like all families

    Please don’t forget unity

    And our roots, which run the same

    Am I talking vaina? 

    Well now, that’s the question 

    Who’s to say

    LuzJennifer Martinez is a North Providence resident and Emerson College MFA graduate who just recently reconnected with poetry, and also enjoys writing plays, fiction, and non-fiction. She began her current role as Deputy Editor for The Valley Breeze in 2023, and is also a member of the BIPOC Advisory Committee at LitArtsRI. Aside from covering local news, LJ spends her time running local creative writing group Diverse Voices of Rhode Island and can be typically spotted around town with a medium iced tea in hand.

  • Poems for October: Work by Patricia McAlpine

    Poems for October: Work by Patricia McAlpine

    Patricia McAlpine is a poet residing in Burrillville, RI.  She has a BS in English from Northeastern University and has participated in several writing workshops and was coordinator of the Galway Kinnell Poetry Contest/Festival in Pawtucket, RI.  Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, including: Crosswinds Summer 2024, Notable Works publication, “Voices of the Earth – The Future of Our Planet, Vol. II  & III and “In the Midst – A Covid-19 Anthology.”

    An Acrostic for October

    Owls make your presence known.
    Call of wilderness
    To The 
    Otherworld grows strong.
    Beneath a silvery moon,
    Earth decays, grows silent.
    Restless souls awake

    Halloween Origins

    We convene to honor the dead
    set out Jack O’Lanterns to ward off evil,
    treats for those we have loved
    As the Celtic year comes to an end,
    we gather the final harvest and share
    in the abundance with gratitude.

    Samhain Ritual

    As sun rises at dawn,
    a veil of mist and shadows
    reveals the vibrant fire of autumn

    When mist returns at dusk, I walk
    leaf-laden paths in wooded groves 
    following sound of owls’ haunting screech

    Shrouded in the shadows of darkness, 
    I dance with ghosts and goblins
    unawares from the rest of the world.

  • Poetry

    Poetry

    What a pleasure and an honor to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, alongside community treasure Marta Martinez, in this issue of Motif magazine. Poetry is an integral part of any truly vibrant cultural landscape, and the writers featured here are among the best contemporary poets writing today. It is heartening and important that poems be included, since poetry has been a rich tradition in Spanish-speaking cultures 

    across the globe for centuries, and remains deeply connected to all forms of creative expression. It is also heartening and important that poetry appears in places where a general readership can encounter and enjoy it, as they might any other form of writing. 

    One of the most important insights I gleaned from my tenure as Poet Laureate of Rhode Island (2016-2024) was the extent to which all types of people and communities need and instinctively seek out poetry. There’s a reason why even those who never read or write poetry choose to share poems at important events or to commemorate milestones. Something about breath and form, the synthesis of emotion and intellect, speaks to many people on an intuitive level. Revered but often mystifying, poetry is, nonetheless, a form that in many cultures enjoys a less rarified and more accessible place than it does in the United States. This is why it’s important for poems to find their way to the people. This is why I brought the Poetry-in-Motion program, which features monthly poems on digital displays, from the New York City Transit system to our state-wide buses. It’s also why I started our state’s first Youth Poetry Ambassador program, in which high school students apply to become public poetry advocates who can reach young people as peers and serve as role models.

    Here, in this issue of Motif, the act of sharing poetry feels especially crucial. Not only to give a wide readership access to these important voices, but also to assert and affirm the right to celebrate — explicitly and with expressed purpose — heritage. Of all kinds. At all times. So, please enjoy these poems by Roberto Carlos Garcia, Octavio Quintanilla, and Tomás Q. Morin. In subsequent issues will be poems by Sheila Maldonado, Sussy Santana, and LuzJennifer Martinez as part of Motif’s ongoing Hispanic Heritage series.  And look out for a new weekly poetry feature I will be curating for the online journalism initiative, The Providence Eye, starting in October!

    Tina Cane is the founder/director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI, and, from 2016-2024, served as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island, where she lives with her husband and three children. Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought, Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, poems with art by Esther Solondz, Once More With Feeling (Veliz Books,2017), and Body of Work (Veliz Books, 2019). She was a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and the creator/curator of the distance reading series, Poetry is Bread, as well as editor of the forthcoming Poetry is Bread: The Anthology (Nirala, 2025. Her most recent poetry collection is Year of the Murder Hornet (Veliz Books,2022), and her debut novel-in-verse for young adults, Alma Presses Play (Penguin/Random House), was released in September 2021. Her second verse novel for young readers, Are You Nobody Too? (Penguin/ Random House), was published in August 2024.

    Photo credit: Jonathan Pitts-Wiley

  • To Write a Poem: Poetry

    To write a poem,

    they say, you must seek a beautiful 

    moment, at least one a day, so I walk 

    into some parking lot landscaping 

    & hug a Japanese Maple—force the issue;

    play at fables & go deeper into the woods

    but the Twisted Orange Tree is spikey & low

    to the ground, so I kneel because its ok 

    to grovel for a taste of that sweet thing

    you’re begging after; if it could my need 

    would burst—a Flowering Dogwood—or lie

    naked—like Kentucky Coffee trees.

    My face in the wooded mirror house 

    of a Bald Cypress; the ground turns from leaf dust

    to moss & mold & the greener grass of discontent

    lies waiting, Common Persimmons perfume the air,

    Red Horse chestnuts lob shadows & hold the chill,

    dead tulips haunt a circle of Tupelo trees 

    short enough to climb, wide enough to hide behind.

    I stare into this beautiful moment; where trees 

    aren’t burning & the sky isn’t crying white phosphorous 

    onto families in tents on the streets & the pm count 

    is under 50 & no attack drones buzz across 

    the spring sky & no ICE agents lurk around the bend.  

    About the poem: This poem came out of a walk I took at the campus where I teach. I needed to get away from the news cycle and the doom scrolling, so I took my time getting to know all the trees. Still, the world was right there when I got back to it.

    Roberto Carlos Garcia is a 2023 NJ State Council of the Arts Fellow. He is the author of five books, including four poetry collections—Melancolía (Cervena Barva Press, 2016); black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric (Willow Books, 2018); [Elegies] (FlowerSong Press, 2020); and the recently published What Can I Tell You: The Selected Poems of Roberto Carlos Garcia (Flowersong Press, 2022)—and one essay collection, Traveling Freely, (Northwestern University Press / Curbstone Books, 2024). Roberto is the founder of Get Fresh Books Publishing, a literary nonprofit.

  • First Mercy and They Open Their Arms: Poetry

    First Mercy

    I am holding in my hand

    an invisible poem.

      I can’t read it.

    I don’t know what it says.

    I want to make it visible.

    Want to see my wife in it.

    Want to see her at 22

    before our daughter was born,

    before I developed 

    the imagination 

    to hurt another 

    human being. 

    They Open Their Arms

    I found out trees are afraid of fire. 

    How the young ones tremble 

    at the striking of a match

    to light a cigarette.

    When no one is looking, 

    the trees bow their heads

    in prayer. 

    The felled ones eventually 

    give up on God

    and welcome the burning. 

    About these poems: In writing these poems, I kept rewriting them by hand, on a notebook. Over and over till I felt all the words were indispensable. These are new poems, so it’s possible that you are reading the most recent iteration of what they will become. 

    Octavio Quintanilla is the 2025 Texas Poet Laureate and the author of the poetry collections, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets (University of Arizona Press, 2025).  

    Octavio is the founder and director of the literature & arts festival, VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published and exhibited widely. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of the Lake University and was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.