Jordan Ranft isn’t conflict avoidant. The first poem we’ve picked might be about manipulating one’s own feelings, but if we had to guess his love language, it’s probably not words of affirmation. It’s probably something else. His words were intense…
Poet Nancy Miller Gomez chose the winner of our 2024 Debut Chapbook Contest, Examining a Dress, by Jessie Leary, which will be out in the fall. She also did us the honor of answering a few questions about poetry, her own poetic…
Geoff White’s poem is quietly brilliant in its repetition and its devious device. The way it plays with spacing, flipping, and mirroring creates all kinds of possibilities. No matter what our beliefs, we all understand the way people we love…
“Speech,” by Edward Manzi doesn’t give us much, but there is a slightly tongue-in-cheek aspect to this tiny little gem of a prose poem. The poem is ostensibly about speech, but it’s really about much more. Manzi’s poem is about…
There’s a dream-like quality to Ian Powell-Palm’s “Self-Portrait.” It’s hard to pin down precisely what about this poem is so arresting, but the tone, the mood, the state of mind—all of these swirling, intangible and ephemeral characteristics manage to haunt…
“I think, Oh my goodness that’s the voice of a god,” writes Liz Davis in “Stars as my soul,” which takes us on a journey from the speaker’s childhood in the 90s all the way to what is presumably present…
Smriti Bhoker brings a levity to her poem, which easily could turn dark, as she taps into the well of fear that lives in every writer’s heart—what if we find ourselves suddenly unable to write? It goes beyond writer’s block…
Sim’s use of the characters in the title of her poem are contributing to an ongoing debate in the world of contemporary poetry, and particularly concerning Asian and Asian-American poets. Writers like Cathy Linh Che were some of the first…
New Voices is taking a hiatus this week, since everyone is having the time of their life at AWP. If you’re stuck at home and feeling the FOMO, you’re in luck! Our New Voices contributor Angela Sim (whose poem, “무인도”…
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…
