In the wake of current political developments, Katie Kemple’s “COBRA,” feels a little too close to home. Kemple describes a scary reality, one a little too close to home for many, making decisions that seem trivial—which kind of beans or…
Emily Adams-Aucoin’s “Bedtime Aubade,” is brimming with intimacy as we peek into the terror and beauty of new motherhood. There’s something scary about the way that Adams-Aucoin describes the love she feels for her child, but there’s also something magical,…
Welcome to LINE LEVEL CHAT! Launched in 2023, LINE LEVEL is a monthly column started by writer, editor, and educator Joanna Acevedo, focusing on craft lessons from the recent or forthcoming work of contemporary poets of color. LINE LEVEL CHAT…
Grace Manning’s “ambiguous grief” swirls with a kind of push-and-pull that feels all too familiar in our current world of identity politics, where it’s too easy to say the wrong thing, or make the wrong post. It’s hard to know…
Carson Wolfe’s poem begins with an almost tender description of this person who, through the course of the poem, becomes a kind of icon for fragile masculinity, the way that women and femmes allow a kind of mutually agreed-upon ignorance…
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi’s poem, “Acoustics,” requires a few reads before you can hear its silence. The poem needs some close attention, but when the reader plays close attention, it becomes clear that the precision and sonic rhythm of the poem are…
Welcome to LINE LEVEL: Craft Lessons from Poets of Color, a monthly column in which writer, editor, and educator Joanna Acevedo zooms in on an element of craft from the work of BIPOC poets. LINE LEVEL unfolds in three parts:…
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, we see Kit Siskin’s quadtina, which is a variation of the sestina, a poetic form requiring six stanzas of six lines with a final triplet, with the final words of each line repeating in a specific…
Michaella Sangiolo toes the line between fear and the erotic in her poem, “Prayer for the high school girls giving head behind the bleachers,” which is a memorable start to our first few New Voices of 2025. There’s an ominous…
Welcome to LINE LEVEL CHAT! Launched in 2023, LINE LEVEL is a monthly column started by writer, editor, and educator Joanna Acevedo, focusing on craft lessons from the recent or forthcoming work of contemporary poets of color. LINE LEVEL CHAT…
