A friend and inspiration of mine, Rachael Button, recently started up a new literary website seeking to publish works of poetry that respond to current events. The site is called This Week in Poetry. Her goal, she states, is "to fight apathy with poetry, by really focusing on understanding, empathizing with, and imagining my way into the news I hear on the radio or read on the internet," and her hope is "that other writers will want to do the same. That we can engage in poetic conversation about local, national, and international stories."
I find these to be lofty and worthy ambitions, and she is accepting submissions. Last week she published a poem of mine, called "On the President's Announcement of our Hashtag," which responds to President Obama's speech rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, near the end of which he voiced a slogan that has been important to the climate movement.
You can submit to This Week in Poetry by emailing your poem to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and you can read my poem here.