Rain Skinny
today, it never stops
raining
bloody
thundering
gunfire
raining
soldier
children
explosions
raining
it never stops today.
Cheryl Wang
8/1/2018
Cheryl Wang is a rising senior in Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California, and a poetry student at the UVA Young Writer’s Workshop. She thinks pineapple on pizza should be banned and made a capital crime. She has two pets: a dog, called Rory, and a stray cat that sometimes wanders into her yard looking for food called “Meow-Meow.”
***
how we play in the rain
I count the drops of water in your hair, they still fall from the sky,
shivering
like
love,
me
shivering
until
you
come
shivering.
I still count the drops of water in the sky, they fall from your hair.
summer comforts
Wrapping ourselves into each other while the thunder cries outside
blankets
on
our
forms
blankets
pessimistic
weather
reports
blankets
Wrapping each other into thunder while outside cry ourselves.
Vincent Mangano
8/1/2018
Vincent Mangano is a rising freshman at Virginia Commonwealth University. He was an editor at and was published in his former high school’s literary magazine. He likes mom & pop Thai restaurants, poetry that is optimistic about humanity, and all four-legged creatures.
***
No Justice
When you bleed, they don’t move
Screams
Of
Desperate
Students
Screams
And
No
Change
Screams
When they don’t move, you bleed
Sona Wink
8/1/2018
Sona Wink is a sophomore at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has received a Silver Key from the Scholastic Writing Awards and is a gun control activist. She enjoys practicing the upright bass, memorizing geography facts, and reading.
***
Rain Skinny Poems
Baby blue skies melt onto my thighs
Days
Painted
With
Watercolor;
Dazed
By
Raining
Sun
Days
Skies melt onto my baby blue thighs
Says pain has a neighborhood security camera
And
Light
Falls
Through
And
Sweat
Runs
Down
And
Security camera says a neighborhood has pain
Ella Harrigan
8/1/2018
Ella Harrigan is a rising high school sophomore at École Jeannine Manuel.
***
A Skinny for Makiyah Wilson –age(d) 10
O’ masked men of smoking guns & drive-bys
Makiyah
Deserved
Better
Cowards
Makiyah
D.C.’s
Martyred
Jewel
Makiyah
O’ men of masks, drive-bys & smoking guns
Derrick Weston Brown
8/1/2018
Note: The Skinny poems that appear above are–once again–the literary fruit of Derrick Weston Brown’s poetry workshop, crafted at the University of Virginia’s Young Writers Workshop, held on the campus of Sweet Briar College in the summer of 2018.
Derrick Weston Brown holds an MFA in creative writing, from American University. He has studied poetry under Dr. Tony Medina at Howard University and Cornelius Eady at American University. He is a graduate of the Cave Canem and VONA Voices summer workshops. His work has appeared in such literary journals as Little Patuxent Review, Colorlines, The This Mag, and Vinyl online. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. He worked as a bookseller and book buyer for a bookstore which is operated by the nonprofit Teaching for Change. He was the founder of The Nine on the Ninth, a critically acclaimed monthly poetry series that ran from 2005-2015 at the 14th & V street location of Busboys and Poets. He was the 2012-2013 Writer-In-Residence of the Howard County Poetry Literary Society, of Maryland. He is also a participating DC area author for the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s Writers-in-Schools program. He’s performed at such esteemed venues as The Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe and the Bowery. He has lead workshops and performed at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Sweet Briar College and Chicago State. He has appeared on Al-Jazeera and NPR as well. In May of 2014 he was also the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. He is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, and resides in Mount Rainier, Maryland. His debut collection of poetry entitled, Wisdom Teeth, was released in April 2011 on Busboys and Poets Press/PM Press. You can follow him on social media on Facebook and on Instagram @theoriginalDerrickWestonBrown as well as his author website DerrickWestonBrown.com
The Skinny Poetry Nation 