Lyric and sharp, this is poem drives home the importance of considering the relationship between form and content. Visibly contained yet multiplying language within its own confines, Sher Ting Chim’s triptych trains an unflinching eye on the power-enforced distances between…
Stranging moments of romantic intimacies and distances, Gabrielle Grace Hogan brings us a poem full of unmirrored longings contained by the domestic image yet entirely new, given to the reader in unexpected renderings of the everyday. Devotion In the kitchen,…
A portrait of a grief observed, Alexandria Peterson’s new poem reminds us of the power of the carefully-attended-to image that overflows the space of a moment. Through the detailing of simple actions, the reader receives the weight of the speaker’s…
In Matthew Tuckner’s elegy, the poem becomes a microcosm of the world and writing the urgent act of capturing “the many things / I don’t want you to miss,” the precision of its speaker’s language laden with the highest stakes.…
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. …
