“Do not be fooled / by this impenetrable face. / I am origin,” writes Roxanne Cardona in her poem, “Luquillo Entre las Nubes.” There is a timeless, ancient feel to these tercets, and Cardona manipulates her voice into the specific…
Ali Wood’s emotionally charged depiction of this speaker’s experience shows the rise and fall of a Hallmark wedding commercial featuring lesbians, comparing it to the love story of her own two mothers and their wedding. Both bitter and sweet, Wood…
Katie Mihalek expertly evokes a power dynamic that feels all too familiar for many young girls when she writes: “Smile when they tell you / you are cute, not beautiful.” Her poem, “A Body is a Body is Anybody,” explores…
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:…
In this powerhouse of a poem, Emma Buckley mixes images of desire with images of religion, swirling together sensuality and sexuality with holy writ to create images and language which feel recognizable until she suddenly stands them on their head.…
“Pure wonder, / and jealousy of the twisted universe’s / eye for both strategy and detail.” Anne Menasché brings existentialist dread and the world’s sheer, shocking and sometimes painful beauty into sharp and stunning relief in this quick but affecting…
Carling McManus brings us queer yearning with a thumping, rhythmic beat, accessing alliteration to bring us into an unfulfilled and all-too-familiar longing that reeks of adolescence. She writes: “I studied the figures, pictured them / shirtless, sweaty, sleeping or showering,…
“What does a dead boy talk about? / Who does he love?” In a long and storied tradition of queer longing, Jonathan Carroll spins a tale of Southern yearning with a heartbeat of danger that thumps throughout the poem, effortlessly…
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:…
“I arrive at the zinfandel-vineyard wedding in a lipstick-pink wrap dress with light jade-green nails. /At the altar, the groom expands his mouth to the size of a small Grecian grotto and swallows the bride.” Jackie Sabbagh uses slight surrealist…
