Our Hermit Crab 10 Day challenge this fall invited submitters to try out a new technique, and poets were writing and submitting “hermit crab,” poems, which are poems that borrow form found in other sources—a poem built from a grocery…
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…
There is something addictive and fantastical about Peihe Feng’s “Autobiography of the Fox Woman.” The poem, written by the Fox Woman herself, supposedly provides insight into the mystical and mysterious life of Daji, who is explained to be the paramour…
Christian Paulisich’s “Aftermath,” veers in an out of focus. The voice of the speaker is haunting in their self awareness. We see their consciousness of craft in the deliberate inversion and observation of the simile and metaphor they employ from…
Josiane Kouagheu is the undisputed master of implication. In this brief poem, she reveals a powerhouse indictment and accuses the centuries of colonialism which have led to the dominance of English as a global language—and the Western world at large,…
Noreen Ocampo’s “First Notes on Tennis,” is intimidating, plain and simple. The structure of the poem is a little scary. But when you look closer, the poem, which mimics a tennis court, is full of lyrical and inventive moments of…
New Voices opens the year with Robert Pearson’s “What the Fuck,” which is a poem that expresses more than meets the eye. At first glance, the poem is almost too simple, absent of the kinds of elements we talk about…
“People / from the Bay always say they’re like upper-middle-lower-class / when they’re actually a South Park punchline. But we like to believe / we’re funny. I want to believe that I’m in on the joke.” Here is a fresh…
As New Voices wind down for the year, Christy Ku brings us “Hi Everyone!” which is an exercise in irreverence. We see her repetitive in form, which at first feels like a comic trick, but rises into a fever pitch…
Our last installment of finalist bring us three poets intimately engaging with language, but not always in the ways you’d expect. Starting with Chennelle Channer’s poem, “Talkin With My Hands These Ain’t Gang Signs,” we find ourselves thrust into Channer’s…
