What Anticipated Wonders We’d Have Summed by Thomas MixonWhat tallied courtesies, hedged bits of reaffirming pushnotifications we will never eat, foreverlodged between incisors of what could have been.I’ve found warm columns of an august Aprilwe will never live, next...
The Sky's Reflection by Amy ManionWhen will I let myself outside?My back faces the window; acomputer screen faces me.Barricaded in a glass cage.And there she is: with her piercingeyes. Still through glass she sees me. Featured in the Massachusetts Coalition for...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I think my first encounter with poetry was in nursery rhymes and jump-rope chants. Through them I learned about rhythm and rhyme. Then in high school, I fell in love with the...
Dreamed Weddingby Sarah Delice melts in boot treadsdrips onto the floor forming a puddle below the high table in the bar area empty, save for twograndparents, a six year-old...
I overhear a boy humming "Jolene" while he practices long division by Carolyn Oliverand, sudden as a train’s blue note—I know I don’t deserve it—Dolly Parton becomes the president.The West Wing’s garlanded in rhinestones, fringedin bushels of Tennessee River...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I started studying poetry because I felt I knew nothing about it. I have an extensive background in American literature, and I made sure that when I began teaching at the college...
Groundhogby Laura RodleyThe groundhog’s fur is silver, silkily rippling in the windas she chomps ends of grasses, clover, not yet have I seen her eat anything that causes consternation;she has scoured the walking path festoonedwith acorns that have...
How to Skip Stones by Ed MeekDo you remember keeping your eyes openfor flat, oval rocks to pocketon walks to the pond?Saving the best for last, you’d leanto one side and flick your wristflinging the stones just off the water.It isn’t easy to defy gravityand make a...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I only remember loving the idea of poetry as a kid, the little daydreamer I was. I wrote a bunch of poems before the age of ten, a couple of which were published...
Social Distancing Becomes Me by Kerry LoughmanRemotely I discard the sentiment of hearts beating as onewhen no two hearts can beat equally without cost. I am the least trod path and mask my fearswith the polished nicetyof a forced smile....
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? My mother instilled my love of reading. She encouraged me to get my library card at a young age and to take out as many books as I wanted. Then I crashed my bike riding home from...
Ms. B by Megan ScudellariIf tonight’s raincontinues its dogged dropsdrops will wash away the egg scentscent to barricade bunnies from the tulipstulips bursting from bulbs entombed in the fallthe fall after the bunnies picked the impatiens to deathspring impatiens...
A Word from Death during the Pandemic by Deborah Gorlin These days when I feel distanced from ceremonies in honor of my undoings, a memory arises unbidden, of a cliffside funeral in a tiny village, one of five, linked by rocky paths through...
Safe Passage by Brad CrenshawIAll said, things are settling down.It’s that sort of world, definitelyhaunted, but those who know report that roadsare open in Los Angeles, where peopletry to breathe again, and citizensin India can see the Himalayaswhite as frozen...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I had a writing teacher in middle school who really loved poetry, and urged me to keep writing outside of school after he found out I was going through some really dark...
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Life Before the Virusby Lesléa NewmanI.I remember shaking hands:damp sweaty hands and dry scratchy hands,bone-crushing handshakes and dead-fish handshakes,two-handed handshakes, my hand sandwiched between a pair of big beefy palms.I...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? When I was growing up, I could get lost in books and this escapism was very comforting, but I didn’t write poetry until college. When I entered college majoring in music, I...
exist by Naomi JonesBlack people let’s write you a love letter 1,For the way you never dim, always vibrant,Laughing.Exploding.Let’s let you experience joy and waterFor the width of an ocean and the depth ofreleasePressure.Let’s cause an earthquake with your laughbring...
Flowers for Sarah by Talia Grossman David says “flowers might be nice.” His face, a worn map of waiting rooms.His eyes, reels of prescriptions,tired of doctors playing the slots. He can’t decide between tulips or canterbury bells,between yellow, pink, or purple. I...
Angel Oak by Therese Gleason CarrGreat treeteach me how to live,to bear thousands of days and nights,how to witnessand survive.What your hollow eyes have seen—how heavy your twisted limbsoutstretched in tortuous pursuit of heaven,how sinewy your rootsmooring you to...
When did you first encounter poetry? How did you discover that you wanted to write poems? I began writing poems in a high school creative writing class. Back then I thought I wanted to write fiction, but as soon as I started writing poems, I was hooked. There...