oct2023-front-cover.jpg

October 2023

Cover artist: Carlo Cadenas
By nature, we poets tend many unquenchable flames.
 Kiki Petrosino
  • Patricia Spears Jones
  • CooXooEii Black
  • Kimiko Hahn
  • Ray González
  • Paul Guest
Table of Contents

From this Issue

Poem

poetry-magazine

I Am Trying to Love the Whole World

By Jenny Browne
but you can’t keep everything.

You can only enter the sleepless
 rooms repeating, more slowly

& in alphabetical order

the names of birds: albatross bunting cormorant dove. Albatross
 bunting cormorant

instead of your dead friends
don’t you mean?

Mean egret. Mean grackle. Mean humming.
Keep humming. Keep jay.

Say kingfisher…
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Poem

poetry-magazine

Sidewalk

By Richard Siken
I crawled to the front door and swung it open so the ambulance could find me. It seemed like a strange thing to do, since I hadn’t called for an ambulance, so I crawled to the end of the sidewalk and sat there, which still didn’t make sense. All the condos look the same, so it was going to be difficult to find me if the door wasn…
Read More
Poem

poetry-magazine

Abuelo,

By Gabriel Ramirez
I couldn’t be who I am
today if it wasn’t for you
being dead. It was time
for glitter, nail polish, and locs.
Glitter in my nail polish.
Glitter in my locs.
You wouldn’t have
loved me loving myself;
my joy rendered
inconvenience.
Sucked teeth keeping me
your grandson.
My love for the men
in our family
is complicated but
still love…
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Table of Contents

Poems
HARD FEELINGS
RUTH LILLY POETRY PRIZE
NOT TOO HARD TO MASTER
CONTRIBUTORS
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