Better Than Starbucks
Poetry and Fiction Journal
. . . if you love diversity and creative writing in any and every form, then you’re in the right place . . .
August 2022
Vol VII No III
Published quarterly:
February, May, August,
and November.
Poetry for Children
with Robert Schechter
¡Sí, Se Puede!
No justice!
Under the blazing sun,
farm workers and their children
bend over in the fields,
picking grapes
from dawn until dusk
for pennies a day.
Listen up!
Dolores Huerta rallies
the farm workers
to fight for higher pay.
Bathrooms in the fields.
Fresh drinking water.
Safety from pesticides.
On strike!
No contract. No work.
Farm workers walk
off the fields.
Empty trucks.
Bare shelves.
Grapes rotting on the vine.
Solidarity!
Dolores puts on
a worker’s field hat.
¡“Sí, se puede!”
she shouts to the crowd.
Never give up.
“Yes, we can!”
Union Victory!
Higher pay.
Fresher water.
Still not enough pay.
Too many hours.
The struggle continues.
Her fight goes on.
Anna Malaspina is a children’s author and poet who often writes about social justice issues. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her YA verse novel KIKI IN THE MIDDLE is coming out in August, 2022.
Late Summer Nights
If the wind is right
when we go to sleep
at night, instead of sheep,
we count the sounds outside our window:
two neighbors talking,
street gravel pinging,
night critters stalking
the woods all around . . .
cormorants squawking,
evening frogs singing,
fishermen walking
as bats cross the Sound . . .
harbor boats rocking,
cricket wings ringing,
pine branches dropping
their cones to the ground . . .
If the air is light,
at our grandparents’ house at night,
we drift to sleep
counting the sounds outside our window.
Cynthia Grady is an award-winning author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for children and adults. To learn more about her books, visit her at cynthiagrady.com.
Skipping Stone
Beside the lake, one day I found
a nice flat stone — so smooth and round.
I flung it out and watched it hop
across the water . . .
skip,
skip,
PLOP!
Fine Feathered Friends
They squawk and chirp and sing and hoot.
They gulp down fish, and worms, and fruit.
They dive and swim in icy seas.
They build their nests in leafy trees.
They peck with beaks and slurp with bills,
and sometimes perch on windowsills.
To sum things up, in two small words:
They’re birds.
Diana Murray has published over twenty children’s books including the bestselling UNICORN DAY series, and Junior Library Guild Selections CITY SHAPES and GOODNIGHT, VEGGIES. Her poems appear in Highlights, Ladybug, and many anthologies. http://www.dianamurray.com.
School In June
There’s something strange about school in June,
When the sun beats down in the afternoon
And you know it will all be ending soon —
There’s something that changes in June.
And as much as I long to be out at the pool,
There is something, when teachers don’t stress every rule
And the tightly wound classroom begins to unspool,
That I love in these last days of school.
Coleman Glenn is a chaplain and professor of religion at Bryn Athyn College, as well as a contributing editor at Light. His poems have appeared in Light, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, THINK, and elsewhere.
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