Poetry Month Newsletter Banished Poets Society: Katherine L. Gordon, editor

 

NEWSLETTER APRIL 2026  For National Poetry Month  THE BANISHED POETS SOCIETY APR 14   READ IN APP   This April, National Poetry Month Newsletter, The Banished Poets Society honours the power and passion of poetry to influence and impact the world with hope of transformation into peace and justice for every culture, every part of society. We salute George Elliott Clarke for his dedication to promote black culture in poetry and music. We note with pride that the first black astronaut went on the moon voyage, accompanied by a skillful woman and an astronaut wearing the indigenous wisdom of the cosmos, insignia embroidered on his jacket, examples of the equality of all cultures, the wondrous aspects of humanity seeing the dark side of the moon for the first time. They showed us a radiant Earth, pure poetry in cosmic music. This issue includes poetry from Italy, Israel, the U.S. many great Canadian poets and emerging poets from a variety of backgrounds who have found herein a platform to express past suppression, present hopes of healing and esteem. All reflect on the beautiful vulnerable humanity we all share, our growing recognition of evil politics that threaten liberty and life for so many. Speaking out now against cruelty and injustice we save democracy, we help to transform the Earth into its glorious potential. -Katherine L. Gordon. Editor. April, 2026 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcendence We have seen the glowing Earth from the dark side of the moon, rare, beautiful, worthy of cherishing, though its ancient dust no longer undisturbed or home to quiet craters of possibility but a frantic mix of bombs, bodies poverty and fear held hostage to the evil policies of tyrants. Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, the evil trinity eclipsing democracy. Yet the people are rising from the mountains and valleys the deserts and plains, the sea-shores, the forests, discovering that voices joined can change the world. This is the power of united human courage, poetry and passion, the music of the cosmos vibrating in waves that shape the future. A new era of transcendence is born. -Katherine L. Gordon ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gaza City Across the water across the bobbing, yellow-striped fishing boats in the long late light— we see the gold of Gaza City, sitting on the Mediterranean— its sandstone minarets, concrete apartment blocks, Byzantine architecture. And now more war is coming, bringing with it the weapon of enforced starvation. Omar Mukhtar Street, is soon to be blanketed with the gray powder of exploded and collapsed buildings. Soon to be like the rest of Gaza, where we see tens of thousands of the strewn dead, of whom other thousands are children. And other thousands of children are amputees— maimed children wander in the dust, maimed children, wandering in the dust. -Gene Grabiner ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shimmer and Slime I have strolled down paths aglow with marigold shimmer, breathed in the tang of forever friends who've wandered along with me... side-stepped cracked and broken culverts skulking along the edges, their scent of brackish water as they seek their reflections at all costs. Marigolds are not famously fragrant, but their scent is one of honesty. - B. Alexander ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Washing Bananas I want to tell you how washing bananas is like writing a poem but the truth is more complicated than that I watch a woman working in the factory noise in Costa Rica music blaring over loud speakers roaring in the air like midnight torture in a American prison at Guantanamo Bay and she moves the bone machine of her body dipping her arms in the banana-floating water that washes the yellow crop with drippings of shipwrecked berries in clutchable bunches gripping each rinsed cluster and lashing them one by one into plastic baskets she pulls and shove pulls and shoves thereby filling her quota she’s dressed in a rubber bib running past her knees her hands gloved to the elbow a costermonger of the daily harvest she’s a cog and wheel of the human spirit paid by the dreary hour of each dolorous day the greengrocer’s serf and slave -John B. Lee ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dominion Day in Jail (celebration 1975) I spent last Dominion Day in jail in a cold cell on a steel bench - cold, sleepless, angry and proud tho almost wanting to feel foolish. Fed a cheeseburger and a coffee in 24 hours fingerprinted stripped of my shirt frogmarched - mugshot insulted. All this for the patriotic crime of daring to say YANKEE GO HOME! to the Yankee Shriners parading thru downtown Toronto. They thought it was the 4th of July (Canada Division). Cold, sleepless, hungry, angry PROUD that I was cold, sleepless, hungry, angry and not enjoying the July sun lounging on the green grass in Queen's Park or lining the parade route for the Shriners. This growing pride made my solitary jail cell a celebration of Dominion Day. -Chris Faiers ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grave Digger, or Not Another Ode About the Trees I’ve learned I’ve pondered the trees in a fallacious way. Yes, I’m aware the poets gorge on oak & ash. A sycamore is less. Their buds outnumber the sand. But all this time their branches have been roots—roots have been their scions— stretching to a sacrilege of light, the undertow of earth. This is why the moles are nearly blind. Treasure at the bottom of abyss. Squinting’s a game for the quick & not the dead. Who decides what’s sky? Behold the flight of worms. Our grandson stomps on leaves to hear the crunching of their bones. This is something beauty cannot offer. Supple’s invariably soundless— which only the deaf can hear. A surface yet to wrinkle hasn’t lived. To wither is to feel the sigh of God. There below the stratum. Every stone a star. The basis for why you’ll stop at six feet down. Why you’ll roll your beloved over once the mourners sob & flee. Her dreams had always burrowed never soared. Your shovel like a staff that splits the sea. -Andreas Gripp -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rise Of The Hydra We have been driven deep into the heart of our yearning, . . . — Robert Duncan Another spring-tide is threatened by war — war follows war as far back as memory lasts: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran. Maybe Cuba’s next? And still, human longing for peace persists. Today, government thugs in black masks beat and murder civilians, merely citizens who only desire freedom from violence. In this game there can be no winners; we will all be losers, or even dead. Six decades ago, Robert Duncan saw the Hydra break loose destroying bridges, temples, schools, rice fields, entire villages — entire villages. An ancient people faced the utter destitution of years of war. The young women and men who believed they could stop the killing displayed a raw courage and a truth that created a green place within the blind earth, a calm centre in the hurricane of fear. And yet the United States has resumed the slaughter of the innocents, the reign of wrath. How often will Herod return to inhabit the White House? School girls are hunted down in their classrooms, deserts have been turned into mass graves. As Ramadan and Lent fall together, waves of bombers thunder overhead. A whole region is laid waste. How many times must the Hydra rise? With each new war we are driven ever deeper into the heart of our yearning, deeper into our desperation for true brotherhood. We seem to have been fighting the Death Cult for generations, fighting the servants of evil forever. The sky’s aflame over the Persian Gulf. Outside, months of snow have been replaced by rain; we hunger for the new life we pray spring will bring. -James Deahl ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Mother Wise i Soft earth opens like a woman. Bulbs crown from her thighs and bloom. Fish swim from the river’s hips. But Mama is so small I am born of a wound. ii In a womb of time the midwives lay their hands on my twins’ damp heads. They will bury the placenta in the herb garden. Its fine hairs will sprout from the earth’s skin. Excerpts from Good Grief Shortlisted for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and the Global Book Awards - April Bulmer ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- War Effects Child wanders in hunger this is not what life should be She looks to nearby adults does not understand differences Food must come from somewhere plentiful on shelves, not UN Aid boxes Enjoyment is not known to child only suffering amidst war rubble How dare nutrition is not available even worse as a tool of ultimate power Primary school should be for education not as a missile or drone target The word ‘War’ to stay in dictionaries What happened to classmates and teachers her playground to enjoy recess Rubble and dust landscape broken in wonderment Friends spontaneously cry over friends to never see again Someday, when this is over reunions will have somber moods Adult recollections of this disaster will forever need illness treatment - Ed Woods -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lament for a Homeland After Edwin Muir The anguish of plane engines in the night heading to one of our never-ending wars shatters our dreams; nightly we hear them roar, rumble like thunder, fade sound-smeared into the sky. Why? What has made this land so plagued, its promise unfulfilled, afraid of yet impatient for its doom, unable to make room enough between the river and the sea for both to share? Must it forever be all mine or only yours? We were beguiled like refugees returning to a lost isle by the mirage of a land, that once was ours, of milk and honey, eager to drink our fill; we were betrayed by decades of assumptions wrongly made finding not sweetness there, but bitter gall, the milk and honey turned to blood and dust; considering ourselves just, we did not heed the prophets warning us of future ills, telling us milk will curdle, honey clot, fruit slashed with swords will rot our silos will be empty in time of need; we, who through millennia never forgot this land, imagined they, its later conquerors, would fade away quietly, or let us in without a fight. While they believed false prophets who urged them to savage deeds for decades taught their children to hate, to kill and do so still. Extremists on both sides have sown this seed. Beguiled by We are right, betrayed by those who promised We will win, no need to compromise, ignoring even now the words of the wise, both sides, lying awake in darkness, hear over and over, these last hundred years the anguish of plane engines in the night. -Judy Koren ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Green to Heal Time does not pass In this garden of citrus and thyme With a sprinkling of dove And sunbird Where anemones thrive And a blackbird praises Spring And greens The colour of calm and healing Greens that ease The pain of war… -Helen Bar-Lev -------------------------------------------------------------------------- For March 1 Oh, Love, we were bubbles In the flotsam of time Part of this river Part of some rhyme All promises fulfilled All projects on hold We had so many rivers Before we grew old The March wind was singing Some wild hero’s song The canoe was ready The evenings grew long And now we’re a couplet In the epic of time We followed our rivers To the end of our rhyme All dreams and all rivers To the end of our rhyme - Lenny Everson -------------------------------------------------------------------------- APPEAL TO POETS Poets, come out of your closets, open your windows, open your doors, you have been holed-up too long in your closed worlds. Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Populist Manifesto Poets, let’s write words of Hope for every country at war where homes collapse, like sandcastles at high tide, where an opaque veil fills the air and eyes are full of terror where children’s laughter is too often silenced…. Poets, let’s spread words of Peace on the far horizon there is a promise, waiting to bloom. -Lidia Chiarelli --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gift of India gift of india gift of bones gift of colour in the trees silver round the ankles glass around the wrist dust in cloudy eyes, and clouds, themselves, like ash i asked my eyes they sang inward, nameless tunes my ears rang dry through all the drenching dazzling afternoons i asked for nothing but to crouch within the crowds the feet trampling the dust below the clouds above the music of the anklets set a ringing and a numbing while the heat-dazed insects stared i asked no gift, but it was given anyway for the sound of the cicadas for the smell of tamarind and tangy urine for the incense toiling upward for the small waxy flowers with no voices for the mindless march of feet beating even in the rain they have taken all my numbers and the letters of my name and given me these inward eyes, overcast and tuneless like the eyes of the beggars in the lanes -kymme sun ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Transformation Nature in eternal cycle, greens the Earth rainbows her fields with flowers buds fruit trees with promise of sustenance. Poets transform war-burdened lands with hope and forceful voices visioning equality of justice, truth and sharing. Speak your protests, embrace every culture, all the dispossessed and weary. Together we create transformation. -Katherine L. Gordon -------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BANISHED POETS SOCIETY's Substack is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell THE BANISHED POETS SOCIETY's Substack that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments. Pledge your support   LIKE COMMENT RESTACK   © 2026 THE BANISHED POETS SOCIETY 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104  Unsubscribe

March with Icy Armour Repels Seductress Spring: Katherine L. Gordon poem

 

March With Icy Armour Repels Seductress Spring

Weary of winter I spread

a tapestry cloth of flowers

across the old dining room oak table,

a runner of tulip and daffodil baskets,

a place-mat of soaring birds, hand -stitched

winters ago by a yearning grandmother.

These soothe my longing for an end to cold and drear,

the hair-shirt of winter bleakness and fear.

I long to fill the silent skies,

finger-brush the imminent snowdrops,

hoping more for a kite than a canoe

to wind-whisk me from this barren ground up

to endless seas of skies more blue

than human consciousness can bear.

Katherine L. Gordon,   March 2nd. 2026.

Katherine, I wanted to have a spring graphic for your poem, but I didn't want to break copyright. So I used a pic from Anna Yin's website - hope she doesn't mind being our goddess of spring!  (it's the lavender dress)

The Banished Poets Society: poems by James Deahl and Anne Marie Kristiansen

 When The Dark Stars Come

October twenty-first, night of the new moon,

autumn’s constellations hidden behind

clouds. Perhaps more rain will blow in before

dawn summons a fresh day, or maybe

the storm will pass over to strike elsewhere.

It seems there is always another storm.

Democracy’s fragile, could slip away

easily. This has happened before;

like the dikes in Holland that hold back the sea,

and need constant repair, our humanity,

our rights require defending. We’ve seen

this in Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain,

Italy’s Mussolini. The bulwarks

failed and the sea of hate and fear swept over

all we cherished. When the night of dark stars

rages, the brightest dawn won’t save you. 

James Deahl   

                                         ~.  ~.  ~.  

Chosen

On a canopied crowded street, a woman

with almond eyes plucks my

shirt, pulling me close. She hs no scent

or lines of age. Her voice is

glass. Her breath in my ear lily white.

As she murmurs the truest tale of my

life, a volcanic ache erupts below our breast.

I cry out, clutching, Here it

hurts!  A fews heads turn in distaste. She yanks my

rigid hand away, hushing, urging, Do not let them hear

you. She shrouds herself in patchwork blankets,

relinquishing this realm for the next. The pain follows

her. I feel unglued. Alive.

Chosen.

Anne Marie Kristiansen 

Both poems from the February 2026 edition The Banished Poets Society:

A Periodic Poetry Newsletter Produced by Valley Press

Katherine L. Gordon

                                          ~.    ~.    ~.  

Thanks Chris.  I forwarded to Anne. 

Loved your issue and especially Charlie Angus.  

Love and light from Katherine.

February Fancies: Katherine L. Gordon poem

 

February Fancies

A warmer sun prowls his return,

his adoring moon drinks the heat,

casting her provocative ribbons

upon all who stir below.

Flowers awake, whispering renewal beneath the melt.

Village heroes test the earth for fertility,

ladies blush and shed their hoods,

eyes begin to glance beneath lowered lashes,

arms slowly reach for warmth and twine.

The cosmos smiles amid pinkening clouds,

softer winds carry the sweetly secret messages

          of Saint Valentine.

Katherine L. Gordon, February 2026

this poem was just published in Italy

Banished Poets Society looking for poems for Feb. issue/Katherine L. Gordon

 Hello all, I am collecting poems now for the next print issue of the BPS which I hope to produce in February.  Please post requests for submissions.  We need poems to reinforce our democracy and equality, our environmental care, while still keeping the beauty of poetry, our joined voices to overcome tyrants and oppression, all the societal pressures that oppress people.  We can make a difference.

I will of course forward to my M.P.   The U.S. is waking up and we know we can have an impact.  We have several new members who have just subscribed and you will see their work in the Feb. Issue.

Poetry peace and power as Chris would say,

love and light from Katherine.

klgordon@gmail.com

Saving The Nations: Katherine L. Gordon poem/ The Banished Poets Society

 

Saving The Nations (with a nod to Democrates)

THE BANISHED POETS SOCIETY JAN 7

READ IN APP

Time to “extricate”

the villain who threatens

the safety of the world,

who diminishes democracy,

demeans our women, our artists, our scholars,

all those who do not salute his agenda.

Restore respect to every culture

a world-wide strike against this wicked plunge into tyranny,

every voice raised in songs of protest.

Save the alliances,

find a padded cell where Putin, Netanyahu and Trump

can play cards together

in their private Dante-circle of Hell.

Let us all be free again

to shake hands and make peace

with one another.

There may yet be time for a future.

Katherine L. Gordon, Epiphany, January 2026.

THE BANISHED POETS SOCIETY's Substack is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell THE BANISHED POETS SOCIETY's Substack that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.

Anna Yin arranges Katherine L. Gordon's poetry into YouTube songs

 Longtime poetry friends Anna Yin and Katherine L. Gordon have collaborated on a selection of YouTube videos. Anna used AI tools to bring Katherine's spiritual poetry to a vibrancy beyond the printed page. 

There are several more vids of their collaboration on YouTube. Search the blog for poems by Anna and Katherine.

Farewell to the Moon Men

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GmED4HWxsQ&list=PLX1AAtT2GiktAScA39xdGcvgfGehora8i&index=2

announcing The Banished Poets Society

 

July 30, 2025

Dear Chris,

         I think this may be of interest to you:

Announcing the Advent of The Banished Poets Society.

Some of the founding members include Becky Alexander, April Bulmer, James Deahl, Katherine L. Gordon, Andreas Gripp.

No fees required, no costly contests or arranged readings. What you will receive is a monthly printed newsletter with every contributor's work published in that month, mailed to them each month. Poets are free to read their newsletters in whatever setting they choose.

We are hoping for poems that represent all cultures: Palestinian, Jewish, immigrants of every culture, black and indigenous poets who need their voices heard, the marginally suppressed in a tough economy, those who yearn to find their unique places, their own spirits and meaning in a challenging era. We hope to reflect the true spirit of the turbulent 21^st, the glory of its diversity in loving and living.  Poetry is a universal language as is music. Your work will not be channelled or changed to suit the opinions of others. Just express it beautifully.

It won't be boring, it might be startling, but it might open the door to the harsh reality and sometimes wonder around us. It is time that we allowed our poetry to do that.

Please send suggestions and inquiries to: klgordonpoet@gmail.com

Send your monthly poem to:

Katherine L. Gordon

104 Alma Street South

Guelph, Ontario

N1H 5W9

         Perhaps you could help spread the word.

Fraternally,

         . . . James

email from Katherine L. Gordon:

You are a welcome member now. Just a poem a month and you will get a newsletter.  Please send me your return address for the mailing.

We have to change the current stagnant poetry scene and hear from suppressed and side-lined poets, no fees, this is my work of the heart for all of us. We need 

diverse points of view, all cultures. You are certainly a new era poet.  I am well Chris  Hugs from Katherine.

The 

Banished

Poets

Society 

 

      A Periodic Poetry Newsletter Produced by

Valley Press

The Heart Of An Exile: Katherine L. Gordon

I consider Katherine L. Gordon a kindred spirit poet. A spiritual poet who also remains active in our confusing political realm. 

This little town holds

a fragile charm

where my elsewhere birthed spirit

learns to survive.

My sustaining friends candle it into home

though shadows shimmer in contained corners.

The land of ancestors buried is hard-won

sacred soil calls out to my waiting bones …

I am forbidden to answer,

grieve for my moment to come

when alien soil covers restless remains

and spirit hovers between

the world that barely embraces me

and the pulsating claim of blood and ligament,

heart, spirit and tribal ties

that scream for my absorption

back into fiery particles that stoked my entity.

Wine cannot placate, bread and other fields

          seldom satisfies,

a communion I must re-learn. 

After Midnight: Selected Poems by Katherine L. Gordon 

Chinese translation by Anna Yin

2024 Sureway Press

www.surewaypress.com