Public Service

I have provided technical support for several online reading series since mid-2020. Each reading is streamed live to Facebook, archived there and on YouTube.
Cultivating Voices Live curated and hosted weekly by Sandy Yannone and Kim Ports Parsons
International Poets and Writers Studio curated and hosted monthly by Sudeep Sen and Indran Amirthanayagam
International Poets and Writers Conclave curated and hosted monthly by Fiona Sampson and Sudeep Sen


I have just released We in America.

Please click here or on the image of the cover to the right to download it.

I want everyone to have it without charge or obligation and hope you find value in reading it. Please feel free to pass it on.

Don, 7Oct2024

Downloads as of 06Dec2024: 7,500
Download WeInAmerica


"We could do better sooner, even when we don't want to," says the speaker of Don Krieger's When Danger is Passed, Who Remembers? (Milk and Cake Press, 2022) Why can't a society that cooperated enough to ban the greenhouse gas Freon, perhaps preventing a pandemic of skin cancer, eradicate the racism, violence, and inequity at the nation's core from the beginning? In a work that spans firsthand adventures in rocket science in the 1970s to life under the Trump regime, Krieger reminds us of the dangers of forgetting the lessons of the past and invites us to bear some of the collective responsibility for remembering our way toward a better future. -- Lauren Russell -- author of Descent (Tarpaulin Sky Press)

Discovery
A hybrid collection, 100 pages, three sections: America, Childhood's End, To Save A Life -- available now directly from the publisher, Cyberwit, or from Bookstore.com, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon India, UK, France , Canada , or US.

"... this is writing that will touch anyone ..."
Judith R. Robinson, author of Carousel

"... poems that are political in their soul ..."
Mark Pawlak, editor, Hanging Loose Press

"... heartfelt, lyrical, pungent, and wise ..."
Margo Taft Stever, founder, Slapering Hol Press


To obtain a digital copy for review, please contact dkrieger @ alum.mit.edu
You will find Discovery entertaining and readily accessible on first read. I hope you enjoy it. -- Don
Audio Poetry Hosting Webite
Under Development
Finalist: National Book Award
Don Krieger

Don Krieger
bright night sky / great migration / streets on fire




Our Shared Humanities

Nothing is deadlier:
dogma

so beautiful
courage

riskier
faith

seductive
privilege;

more noble and just
war

more profane and hurtful
indifference

more cowardly
forgetting

crueler
God;

no greater truth
kindness

nor greater lie
color;

nothing
more human
discovery.

Reviews
Discovery by Lenora Good in Rainy Day Reads

Review of Discovery by Angela Dribben in Cider Press Review

Discovery -- Poetry from a Brain Expert by Karren Alenier in Scene 4

Anthologies
Spring, 2024: Memorial Day, 2019 and Grandma's Honey Cake appeared in The CAPS 25th Anniversary Anthology edited by the "Calling All Poets" editorial board.
Spring, 2024: Our Dead Are Different From Yours and Sparrow Generations and No One Was There will appear in The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain edited by Doralee Brooks, Poet Laureate of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Apr2023 Memorial Day 2019 and Sunday Drive and appeared in American Graveyard, Calls to end gun violence edited by Marissa Prada.
Jun2022 Curly Red Hair appeared in English and Italian in Correnti Incrociate 2 (Italian Edition) from Mosaique Press, edited by Linda Barone and John Eliot.
May2022 To Be Right appeared in Work Lifespan Vol. 5 from Pure Slush Press.
Nov2021 That Familiar Comfort appeared in Echoes of the African Drums compiled by William Warigon.
Nov2021 When Will We Reap the Whirlwind? and Strange Days appeared with poetry from all over the world in many languages in Spring's Blue Ribbon International Poetry, edited by Gino Leineweber.
Nov2021 Memorial Day, 2019 appeared in The Disasters of War from Moonstone Press.
Oct2021 Not My Nightmare appeared in World Poetry Anthology published by Cooch Behar Magazine.
Oct2021 Not My Nightmare appeared in Protest 2021, 1000 Poets for Change published by Moonstone Press.
Sep2021 The Big Lie is a folio of four pieces: In the Beginning, Martha's Dowry and George's Will, My Dear Friend, Shameless. It appeared in Fixed and Free Poetry Anthology 2021, edited by Billy Brown.
Sep2021 Our Shared Humanities appeared in 25th Anniversary - Poetry Ink Anthology from Moonstone Press.
Mar2021 Sunday Drive appeared in Spread the Word: A Pandemic Open Mic Anthology
Feb2019 Breendonk Generations and Discovery appeared in The Dreamer's Anthology: Writing Inspired by the Lives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Anne Frank
Aug2018 Yard Sale, appeared in English and Farsi in Persian Sugar in English Tea III
Feb2018 Bob and Autumn and Dream Street appeared in English and Farsi in Persian Sugar in English Tea I


Remembrances

On May 2, 2019, Yom Hashoah, a group of us held a memorial reading for the holocaust of World War 2 at the Riverdale Hebrew Home in the Bronx, NY: Deborah Kahan Kolb, Pinny Bulman, Janet R. Kirchheimer, Nina Kossman, Alyssa A. Lappen, Mindy Rinkewich, Geza Rohrig, Sarah Stern, Alan Walowitz, and Zelda Fassner. Here is the Recorded video. Tribute to the Class of '66 describes the occasion and appeared in The Blue Nib.

On October 27, 2018, a gunman opened fire in the Tree of Life Synagogue. Unveiling appeared a year later in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. and in Vox Populi on 27Oct2020.

August 6 and 9th, 2020: The 75th anniversaries of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Three photo-haiku appeared on August 6, 2020, at Vox Populi


Interviews and Recorded Readings

April 14, 2022, 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific It's About Time Writers' Reading Series. with Nicole Hardina and Larry Crist. Here is the recording..

January 9, 2022, 7:00 PM Eastern, 4:00 PM Pacific West-East Bicoastal Poets of the Pandemic and Beyond. with Andrea Carter Brown and Heidi Seaborn Ravi Shankar Here is the recording..

November 4, 2021, 8 PM Eastern time, Interview with Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram on Quintessential Listening Poetry Online Radio.

October 30, 2021 Squirrel Hill Poets Anniversary Reading with Rosaly Roffman, Joan Bauer, Nancy James, yours truly, Christime Michaels, Randy Minnich, Pam O'Brien, Shirley Stevens, and Arlene Wiener

October 1, 2021 Interview with The Boom Project Anthology editors, Kimberly Garts Crum and Bonnie Omer Johnson.

May 27, 2021 (Thursday), 7 - 8.30 PM Eastern, 4 - 5.30 Pacific. Series curated by Malaika King Albrecht Book Launch & Open Mic with Redheaded Stepchild

November 29, 2020 Sandy and Beth Yannone's Cultivating Voices Live Poetry with Lauren Russell and Jan Beatty.

24Oct2020, The Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop sponsored by the C.C. Mellor Memorial Library with Pam O'Brien, Nancy Esther James, Chris Michaels, Arlene Wiener, Rosaly Ruffman, Randy Minnick, and Shirley Stevens.

12Aug2020, Cafe Muse and The Word Works with Reuben Jackson and Marianne Szlyk

9Aug2020, Sandy and Beth Yannone's Cultivating Voices Live Poetry Open Mic, with Archana Sahni, Sashwata Gangopadhyay, Seth Lowe, Ann Tweedy, Amy Barry, Gary Lilley, Sheridan Fitzgerald. A play list may also be found on Youtube.

29Jul2020, The University of Pittsburgh's 2020 Art of Diversity Showcase with dozens of artists and poets.


The Times of Israel:
14May2024: Religious Fundamentalism: Setup for Failure.
9Oct2024: Indifference to Innocents' Suffering is a Sickness.
13Oct2024: Unveiling on Yom Kippur.

The Tallahassee Democrat:
Dec2023: Is college athletics about education or financial profits?.

oddball magazine:
May2023: The Apologists for Fukushima, an Essay
Mar2024: Is It Supreme Court Justice or Is It Just Cowardice?
Apr2024: A Higher Standard of Conduct: The Appearance of Wrongdoing

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
13Oct2021: Unveiling
11Sep2022: America Still Cowed by 19 Terrorists
16Mar2024: The only way to resolve Donald Trump's legal responsibility

Oct2022: Our Dead Are Different From Yours
appeared as the closing piece in Lynn Butler's Flames Against the Darkness, Saving America's Sacred Sites.

Haiku appeared in The Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's national newspapers, 19Jul2019, 2Aug2019, 15Nov2019, 21Aug2020, 18Nov2022, 5Jul2024, 1Nov2024,

These poems appeared in Prodigy Magazine in December, 2022: Discovery, Uncounted, and Strange Days. Discovery and Strange Days originally appeared in 2020 in Our Shared Humanties, a microchap from Origami Poems Project. Strange Days was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

These poems appeared in Beltway Quarterly:
March2022 (Without Borders): Long Time Coming, Alien Creature at the Door, Christmas at Grandma's, Teflon, Coming in off the Farm.
Fall2020 (Art in Times of Crisis): Sunday Drive, Legacy of the Golden Calf, Lock-Down Three Times, Social Distancing Three Times.

These poems appeared in The Red Wheelbarrow Poets
Oct2021: Demi-God 20/20
Oct2022: For No Reason

Dec2020: Sunday Morning Surgery, appeared in American Journal of Nursing

Apr2021: Cassandra, Daughter of Troy appeared in Greek (translated by Sarah Thilikou) in Peri Ou Journal
Apr2023: Cassandra, Daughter of Troy appeared in English in Lothlorien Poetry Journal and again in Apr2024 in Aphelion

These poems appeared in The Raw Art Review
Dec2019 (Summer Issue): Memorial Day, Obeah, Somebody to Love,
Jun2020 (Winter Issue): That Familiar Comfort, Not My Nightmare To Save a Life Is to Save the World,

These poems appeared online in I Am Not A Silent Poet
Oct2019: Just Another Sinner, White Out Three Times, Hall's Bayou on CNN, Close-Captioned

Oct2019: Election Day appeared online in Trailer Park Quarterly.

Jun2019: Long Time Coming appeared in print in The Boom Project Anthology.

Sep2019: Patriot Act Three Times appeared in Dissident Voice & The Taj Mahal Review.

Jul2019: Ascent from Purgatory appeared in The Ekphrastic Review ...reading....

Mar2020: The Wren on the Sidewalk appeared online in
Foxglove Journal

These poems appeared online in Tuck Magazine.
Jul2016: Passover Prayer (Vox Populi)
Sep2016: All the Same
Nov2016: On The Block
Dec2016: Gladiator, Our Dead Are Different From Yours
Nov2017: Dear Judge Moore
Feb2018: Discovery (Vox Populi), Rain and Fog, Marching Orders
Mar2018: We Should Have Known
Jun2018: Why He Said It -- Helsinki
Sep2018: Artekovite Forever!

Feb2018: Florida Daydream
appeared online in These Fragile Lilacs Magazine.

The Mid-Atlantic Review:
May2024: That Familiar Comfort appeared as part of the journal's celebration of black history month.
Jul2024: In the Beginning and Our President's Prayer

Mar2022: Apr2022: My Dear Friend appeared in Poetry Super Highway

Mar2022: No One Was There appeared in Drunk Monkeys and in the English language pieces curated by Tanya Ko Hong for the Korean anthology, Flowers Blooming on Top of Scars.

Oct2021: Remembrance in the Mist appeared in Transiti Poetici: I See Bellagio from My Terrace in both Italian (trans: Susana H. Case) and English.

Apr2021: Apr2021 Not My Nightmare appeared in Dissonance Magazine Revised from a version which originally appeared in Raw Art Review.

Feb2021: Martha's Dowry and George's Will appeared in Poetry Super Highway

Nov2020: Gluten Free appeared at PoetryXHunger's World Food Day

Jun2020: Invisible appeared in the 50th Anniversary Issue of Seneca Review

These lyric essays/poems appeared online in The Blue Nib. 2Jun2020: A New World, That Which Is Missing, Tribute to the Class of '66,
2Jul2020: Legacy of the Golden Calf, Sparrow Generations,
11Aug2020: The Glass House
26Sep2020: Police State

13Oct2019: Unveiling appeared in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. and Vox Populi.

These poems appeared in print and online in Live Mag!
Dec2019: Celebration of Claudia, 1970.

These poems appeared online in Entropy Magazine Nov2017: Hall's Bayou on CNN, Close-Captioned
Oct2019: The Laugh with the Lilt

These poems appeared online in VerseWrights
Oct2017: Eighth Grade Shop, Bob and Autumn, Uncounted

These poems appeared online in (Verse-Virtual
Jun2019: Dream Street
May2021 In the Beginning, Martha's Dowry and George's Will with Afterward from the Writing Workshop, My Dear Friend, ((Verse-Virtual) Breendonk Generations (Vox Populi)

Feb2019 Why He Said It appeared online in Writers Resist

This poem appeared online in Vox Poetica
Jul2018 White Out Three Times

These poems appeared online in Uppagus
Dec2017: Yard Sale,
Jul2018: Standing By

These poems appeared in print and online in Neurology
Sep2017: A Difficult Kind of Listening,
Sep2018: (Neurology) Saturday Night On Call, Battle Fatigue

Sep2019: Razor String Mantra appeared in Spillwords.


Breendonk Generations

Anna and Isaac met in an orphanage
where they were hidden as Catholics.
They married in Antwerp. The house door
was six inches thick. Two great bolts
shot into the frame. The floor safe held half a million.

Their son, Len, drove me to see Breendonk,
Belgium's first camp, a feeder for Dachau,
dorms filled with wood bunks, a museum,
gallows outside.

I felt only faintly what it was to live there
yet I will not visit another.
Len waited for those hours in the car.

2.
An hour after Leah gave birth
her room was filled as they do in Belgium,
eating and laughing.
She lay in exhausted sleep. Bobby was in an anteroom
absent fingernails and eyebrows, asleep like his mother,
too small to be held, they felt. Knowing no better,
I was the first, held him with these hands.

I bought a crib, clothes, everything
the next day, as they do in Belgium. That evening
we sat together, new family, full with each other.
Anna, Bobby's grandmother, showed an old picture,
her father and his 5 brothers
murdered when she was a girl.

Bobby is 18 now, his sister, Amy, 10.
Leah and Len are divorced.
We're all on Facebook.

Text+Audio
Oct2017, VerseWrights
Mar2018, Jewish Literary Journal,
May2018, Vox Populi,
Apr2019, The Dreamer's Anthology,
Apr2020, Poetry Super Highway,

Hall's Bayou on CNN, Close-Captioned

Out Front with Erin Burnett is on TV at the gym,
Ric Saldivar tells how it happened.
His brother, Sammy, turned off toward the bridge.
The water was half up the guard rail. He hesitated,

then drove slowly across. On the other side
the road dipped and the van floated,
Sammy got out through the side window,
left his parents and his four grand children screaming.

He told Ric: They went to heaven holding hands.
Your cheeks flushed, Erin, when he said:
flood water covered the bridge. You hid your face
when he said: left them screaming.

They're still finding bodies in the Freetown mud slide,
more than a thousand, and this year's monsoon,
twelve hundred dead, millions homeless. Erin, why
do I care nothing for them?

Entropy Magazine, Dec2017