Sonya Lara evokes a lush, quiet moment at the edge of a desire almost–but not quite–uttered. Opening from scene into meditation, this poem is one in which every movement is felt, flowing like water from one image to the next.…
We get so excited over poems that really lean into their own forms, and Alexa Luborsky’s “Image Map” does just that. In an endless loop of stanzas mapped against visual object, the speaker’s strange and striking metaphors examine interpretation in…
A poem that in its concision sings hope against “the bane” of burdening histories, Samuel A. Betiku’s aubade claims tomorrow as a place not just of survival, but beyond it into “blossoming.” Aubade with Tomorrow This is the bane: history…
This is a poem that viscerally delights in its own language, even while acknowledging “the nomenclature is so / clunky.” In flashes of sensation, moments loaded with flavor and texture, the speaker flits in and out through the communication of…
It’s a joy to share this poem by Sara Elkamel, third place winner of our 2023 Hurt & Healing Prize. Join us in celebrating this piece, and if you haven’t already, you can see other winning poems published here. …
Today we invite you into this poem by 2023 Hurt & Healing Prize second place winner, Geramee Hensley! It’s an honor to publish this work. If you haven’t already, you can view other winning poems from this contest here. …
It’s a true delight to share this poem by the 2023 Hurt & Healing Prize winner, Eliza Gilbert! About Eliza’s poem, the judge Andrés Cerpa writes, “Each cutting line of “My Father Postpones His Appearance on Wheel of Fortune While…
Lush, unfolding in exquisite image toward a portrait of relationship, JC Talamantez’s “Insect” plays with the confines of the line as it prompts a consideration of “what words will make” and what we pass on. Insect to enter / the…
Mackenzie Duan’s “Thermal Hazard” is poetry as a place of mirroring: a lyric merging of landscape and speaker. Laced with tense, haunted images, it invokes climate with a strange intimacy and the urgency of survival. Thermal Hazard
In a poem that immediately draws into question the nature of truth and the power of language, Eliza Gilbert wields naming, the very action being interrogated, with grace and precision, piling image after image into an abundant, incisive reflection on…
