“When We Talk About Mountains, We Talk About Memories”: a Conversation with Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour

January 28, 2022.Reading time 41 minutes.

New Ohio Review editor, David Wanczyk: I’m speaking today with Kari Gunter-Seymour, a 9th generation Appalachian, and the current Poet Laureate of Ohio. Her new anthology, I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices, will be published in March 2022. Kari, welcome. Can you tell us about the project generally and more specifically about your hopes for what it will bring to light about Appalachian poetry?

Kari Gunter-Seymour: I would love to do that, David. My hope is that people will become aware that Ohio is part of Appalachia. Because some people don’t know, and a lot of people forget that a quarter of the state of Ohio rests in Appalachia proper, and there are pockets of Appalachian families throughout Ohio, even in major cities throughout Ohio, that still practice those teachings and learnings from their Appalachian heritage and their culture. And so this book is all about bringing notice to that.

I think of us as being Central Appalachians. With roots deep in South and North. You know we had those who came up during World War II and the Great Depression to find work. To seek out the steel mills. We have to remember there was lots of coal and iron mining in Ohio early on, too. And so this book is specifically my dream of being able to give these voices an opportunity to sing. Because they’re different. We’re a little bit different.

We’re more of a mixing pot, I think, here in Ohio, because we are, as we’re finding out, Central. We’re not necessarily North; we’re not necessarily South, but we’re a really good mix of it all.

Our Grandmother

January 16, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Kari Gunter-Seymour

twisted silver-streaked strands
into a knot, pinned at the tip of her crown,
draped her bird-bones in crossback aprons
cut from calico, sewn on a pump pedal Singer,
bought brand-new just after the war,

baked flaky scratch biscuits
from White Lily flour, spoonfuls
of lard, a pinch of salt and sass,
danced the flatfoot clog around
an old wringer washer,
employed on Mondays without fail,

wielded a scythe and hoe
good as any man, grew cabbages
big as watermelons,
drew us maps, where we came from,
patchworks of bloodroot, furled fierce
along the face of the Appalachians,

orphaned us, laid out
under a pine branch blanket,
a rough-chiseled stone.
Daffodils regretted their unfurling.
Redbuds wept purple pearls,
the fields so bare they grew voices.

Mysterious Ways

January 15, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Kari Gunter-Seymour

Featured Art by Ross Di Penti

Nine weeks, no monthlies,
my body a nestling’s perch,
a tremoring tree, leaning

into a southeaster, hard luck
and poverty licking red-hot
flames against my bent back.

I scrimped, saved, still forty dollars
short of the cash I’d need to set
me and that little bird free.

No stranger to a bowed head,
I got straight to the appeal, laid out
my endgame and trading points.

The Lord coughed up two twenties
by way of a birthday card, sent postage due
from my granny, who wrote at length

about her late-night vision.
She saw me old, alone in the dark,
crying out for some little bird.

To Save a Life

May 19, 2022.Reading time 3 minutes.

Co-Winner of the Movable / New Ohio Review Writing Contest

by Kari Gunter-Seymour

Featured Art: Aperture, by John Schriner

We did what we could,
hid the bottles, drove what
was left of him deep
into the yawning hollow,
built a campfire, drank water
from a long-handled gourd,
a galvanized bucket.

We set up tents for triage,
counted his breaths, worried
over irregular heartbeats,
sweats, persistent vomiting,
his jacked up adrenal system.

We waited. Listened for a canvas
zipper in the night, each long slow
pull a call to duty, our legs folding
over duct taped camp stools,
tucked tight around the fire,
his gut-punch stories, stenched
in blood and munitions,
overpowering the woodsmoke’s
curling carbons.

Vernal Equinox

January 29, 2022.Reading time 1 minute.

By Kari Gunter-Seymour

Featured Art: Equinox by Eugene James McFarland

I’ve been thinking about last times
I never knew were the last—
grandma cooing me unconscious,
daddy whistling me home to supper,
my toddler’s toothless grin, tiny fingers
clenching wildflowers, the last time
I prayed, desperate for those departed,
how they flit ahead of us, flying.

Tonight the Big Dipper balances
on its handle. Tepid tree frogs peep
songs of resurrection. One morning soon,
I’ll eat a good breakfast, fill a water bottle,
pack a book, walk the fencerow into the holler,
rest beneath the eagles’ favored perch,
shake off this inexplicable sadness,
two cinderblocks where lungs ought to be,
let spring hold on to me for a while.

Features

September 18, 2019.Reading time 18 minutes.

Ohio Stories II

Reproductive Rights in Literature (issue 32)

Breaking the Silence: Abortion and Knowledge in Summer and Weeds by Jana Tigchelaar
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Birth Without the Gendered Body by Rebecca Richardson
Monstrous Body Horror in Transition: Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt and Jeannette Winterson’s Frankisstein by Emrys Donaldson
Getting It Behind Them by Wendy Rawlings
Unwinding Unwind by Hilary Brewster
Finding The Boundary Line: A Look at Ayelet Waldman’s “Rocketship” by Jennifer Furner
Tove Ditlevsen, Abortion, Dependency as Birthright by Anna Rollins
Hall of Mirrors by Lee Ann Roripaugh
Something Has Tried To Kill Me: Race, Poetry, and Reproductive Rights by Sarah Green
Abortion is like Art: Red Clocks and the Facts of the Body by Madeline ffitch

The Poetic Environment (issue 31)

Before Poetry Can Save the Planet, It Needs to Shift, by Marcia LeBeau
At Home in the Cosmos: On the Poetry of Don Domanski, by Tarn MacArthur
Indivisible, by Martha Serpas
How Blank an Eye? Seeing and Overlooking Nature in Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode,” by Matthew VanWinkle
Reflections in Lake District Mist, by Alycia Pirmohamed
Poetry as a Lakeside Trailer Park, by Tina Mozelle Braziel

Interview (issue 30)

When We Talk About Mountains, We Talk About Memories, by Kari Gunter-Seymour

Poets on Children’s Literature (issue 29)

The Lady Whispering Hush, by Pichchenda Bao
When the World’s Worst Readers Met The World’s Worst Children, by Marcia LeBeau
Worth the Wait, by Jared Harél
Love for the World: The Poetry of Frog and Toad, by Sunni Brown Wilkinson
“Because they grow up /and forget what they know”: On the Strange Wisdom of Children’s Poetry, by Erin Redfern
You Are What You Read, by Adrienne Su
Over and Over, by Sarah Green
The Fabric, by Jeff Tigchelaar

Interview (issue 28)

On Ongoingness: a Conversation with Ada Limón and Jaswinder Bolina

The Technology of Poetry (issue 27)

Machines, Mortality, and the Lyric Poem, by Bethany Schultz Hurst
The Transitional Voice: Exploring Susan Blackwell Ramsey’s “Ode to Texting,” by Claire Bateman
The Technology of the American Sonnet, by Brian Brodeur
On Language, Bombs, and Other Things That Exist, by Kimberly Grey
Of Seeing, the Unseen, and the Useeable: Technology, Poetry, and “When It Rains in Gaza,” by Philip Metres

Poets and Poems On Screen (issue 26)

Kept in the Dark: Poetry, Collaboration, and Collapse in Pandaemonium and Tom and Viv, by Matthew VanWinkle
Jean Cocteau and Orpheus: The Poet as Filmmaker, by Steve Vineberg
Keep Me In By Keeping Me Out: Poetry On Screen, by Carrie Oeding
A Personal Affair: The Making of a Poetry Film, by Michele Poulos
Against Literary Biopics Generally, Unless, Maybe–But Definitely and Especially Against The End of the Tour, by Kathryn Nuernberger
Beautiful, Brilliant, and Dead: Portraits of the Female Poet in Film, by Danusha Laméris

Ohio Stories (issue 25)

Shadow and Shine: Ohio in the Literary Imagination, by Jana Tigchelaar
“On the Lip of Lake Erie”: Toni Morrison’s Ohio Aesthetic, by Dustin Faulstick
The Importance and Depth of “Ohio” in Two Poems by Rita Dove and Ai, by Marcus Jackson
Buckeye Sci-Fi: “Does Anything Exciting ever Happen Around Here”, by Christopher A. Sims
Sometimes a Vague Notion, by David Armstrong

Tony Hoagland on: The Wild, The Cold, the Unknown (issue 24)

The Pursuit of Ignorance: The Challenging Figuration of Not Knowing
The Power of Coldness
The Wild Life of Metaphor: Prehensile, Triangulating, Insubordinate

Gems of the 21st (issue 23)

Art Is Long, Planets Short: The Lasting Power of Carol Ann Duffy’s “The Woman in the Moon,” by Adrienne Su
“Gender’s Tidy Little Story”: On Stacey Waite’s “The Kind of Man I Am at the DMV,” by Emily Mohn-Slate
What Essy Stone Done to Us, by Anders Carlson-Wee
Speculative Solutions to the Political Poem: Ann Killough “Statue of Liberty,” by Tony Hoagland
“Your Body Everywhere”: Time and Forgiveness in Carl Phillips’s “Since You Ask”, by Chiyuma Elliott
“Arch-Talk” and the Postmodern Gall of Josh Bell and Mark Bibbins, by Keith Kopka
Stumbling into the Sublime: Claire Bateman’s “Another Poem on Blue,” by Veronica Schuder
The Present Deeply: The 21st Century Love Poem, by Mario Chard

Of Essays and Exes (issue 22)

Writing What You Know and Whom You’ve Known, by Joey Franklin
What Binds Them Together, by Rachael Peckham
More than a Vanished Husband: Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter,” by Holly Baker
Breakup, Break Down, Break Open: Intimate Partner Violence and Life Inside a Daily Ending, by Sonya Huber
On Breaking Up with the Dream of Your Former Self: Megan Daum’s “My Misspent Youth,” by Kelly Kathleen Ferguson
In Search of the First Person Singular, by Ned Stuckey-French
On Natalia Ginzburg’s “Human Relations,” by Dinah Lenney

The Villains of Poetry (issue 21)

On Being Asked to Contribute to the Villains Feature, by Richard Cecil
Villainous Villanelle, by Denise Duhamel
Milton’s Satan and the Grammar of Evil, by Kimberly Johnson
The Pleasures of Browning’s Villains, by Robert Cording
The Villain Who Shut Down an Epic, by Jeanne Murray Walker
“Guilt Is Magical”: Adultery as Poetic Villainy, by Catherine Pierce
Maker and Prophet: Frank Bidart and the Mask of “Herbert White,” by Mario Chard
The Unredeemed Villain?: Ai’s “Child Beater,” by Denise Duhamel
Villains of Confessionalism, by Kathryn Nuernberger

Fictional Politicos (issue 20)

Buzz Can Happen Here: Sinclair Lewis and the New American Fascism, by Michael Mark Cohen
“This Time I’m Going to Fool Somebody”: Willie Stark and the Politics of Humiliation, by Dustin Faulstick
Take Me to Your Lady Leader, by Kristen Lillvis
Of the People, for the People, by the Robots, by Christopher A. Sims

Manipulating the Reader (issue 19)

I Second that Emotion, by Rebecca McClanahan
Tell It Cool: On Writing with Restraint, by Debra Marquart
Staying with Argos: Odysseus and His Dog, by A-J Aronstein
Yeats and Heaney: The Poetry Without the Pity, by C.L. Dallat
Designs Less Palpable: Emotional Manipulation and Even-Handedness in Keats, by Matthew VanWinkle

Interviews (issue 18)

Uses & Abuses of Dialogue (issue 17)

Poems and Literal Truth (issue 16)

Should Poems Tell the Truth?, by Lawrence Raab
Truthiness Demands, by Daisy Fried
Where Are You Really Writing From? Reading and Writing Place and Experience, by Adrienne Su
A Brief Response, by Louise Glück
Telling the Truth in Poetry, by Carl Dennis
Pants on Fire, by Kim Addonizio
“Father,” by Michael Ryan

Beguiling Beginnings in Fiction (issue 15)

On Lauren Groff’s “L. DeBard and Aliette,” by Caitlin Horrocks
On Edward P. Jones’s “The First Day,” by Marjorie Celona
On William Maxwell’s “So Long, See You Tomorrow,” by Maura Stanton
On the Opening of Graham Greene’s “Under the Garden,” by David Lehman
On Barbara Comyns’s “The Vet’s Daughter,” by Maud Casey
On Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” by Alyson Hagy
On Stanley Elkins’s “A Poetics for Bullies,” by Tom Noyes
On Arthur Golden’s “Memoirs of a Geisha,” by Julia Glass

Translation Cruxes II (issue 14)

Like a Struck Tuning Fork: On Translating Sound in Tranströmer’s “The Station,” by Patty Crane
On Translating Choctaw Poems, by Marcia Haag
Sense and Serendipity: The Masochistic Art of Translating Surrealism, by Mark Polizzotti
Finding the Just Name: On Translating Ismailov, by Robert Chandler
Translating Thai Artist Wiser Ponnimit from Japanese to English, by Matthew Chozick
The Stones and the Earth: On Translating Wieslaw Myśliwski’s “Stone Upon Stone,” by Bill Johnston
On Translating Cavity’s “Come, O King of the Lacedaemonians,” by George Economou
The Homophobic Imagination: On Translating Modern Greek Poetry, by Karen Van Dyck

Translation Cruxes (issue 13)

On Translating Virgil, by David Ferry
From an Alphabet of Proust Translation Problems: Z, by Lydia Davis
On Translating Strand and Ashberry, by Damiano Abeni and Moira Egan
On Translating Tolstoy, by Rosamund Bartlett
On Translating Cavafy, by George Kalogeris
On Translating Szymborska, by Joanna Trzeciak
On Translating Eco, by Geoffrey Brock

Choice Cuts: Favorite Fiction Passages (issue 12)

On a passage from Alice Munro’s “Lives of Girls and Women,” by Ann Harlemann
On a passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” by Ralph Lombreglia
On a passage from Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse,” by Cornelia Nixon
On a passage from Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” by Elizabeth Searle
On two passages by Lewis Nordan, by John Dufresne
On a passage from Pam Houston’s “Dall,” by Melinda Moustakis
On a passage from Raymond Carver’s “Chef’s House,” by Bret Lott

Collaboration (issue 11)

Preface to “Making it Up ,” by Ron Padgett
Woody Woodpecker Goes to Paris, by Allen Ginsburg and Kenneth Koch
Some Remarks of Collaboration, by Tom Whalen
Love as Rehearsal for Writing, by Lee Carroll
Collaboration Queens (Or How The Chapbook, ABBA: The Poems, Came to Be), by Denise Duhamel and Amy Lemmon
Changing the Record: A Poetry Collaboration in the ’70s and ’80s, by Ron Horning and David Lehman
The Story Behind Penguins, by Patty Mitchell
Where the Path Leads: Collaboration, Revision, and Friendship, by Lawrence Raab

Six Poets on Six Movies (issue 10)

On 35 Shots of Rum, by Claudia Rankine
Antonioni at Nineteen, by Jeffrey Harrison
Death, Cashews, and No Country for Old Men, by George Bilgere
On Lubitsch’s Angel, by Lloyd Schwartz
On Tomorrow is Forever, by Laurence Goldstein
Acting the Truth, by Linda Bamber

Symposium: Poems Disliked and Poems Loved (issue 9)

On Susan Wood’s “In America” and Dana Levin’s “The Nurse,” by Wayne Miller
On Carol Ann Duffy’s “Rapture” and Michael Laskey’s “Offering,” by Helena Nelson
On Mark Strand’s “The Idea” and Dennis Schmitz’s “Kindergarten,” by David Rivard

Altered Views: Fiction Reconsidered (issue 8)

On “In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All” by Grace Paley, by Michael Griffith
On “I Used to Live Here Once” by Jean Rhys, by Sylvia Watanabe
On Rereading Gabriel García Márquez, by Julianna Baggott
On Rereading Donald Barthelme, by Peter Ho Davies
On “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Truman Capote, by Peter Turchi
On “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf, by Karen Brennan
On “The Window’s Children” by Paula Fox, by Charles Baxter

Altered Views (issue 7)

From a Broken Ant-hill, by Peter Campion
On James Merill, by Rachel Hadas
Resisting The Rape of the Lock, by Laurence Goldstein
Cellular Change, by Marianne Boruch
Tight Spots, by Brad Leithauser
A Fish and a Pity, by Steven Cramer
Self Beyond Recall, by Eleanor Wilner
Just a Goll-durn Minute…, by Stephen Corey
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers, by Nancy Eimers
Disinhibited, by Stephanie Burt
On the Author of “The Paddiad,” by Christopher Ricks

Stories You May Have Missed: Fifteen Fiction Writers Reflect on Underappreciated Contemporary Stories (issue 6)

On Lucia Berlin’s “Maggie May,” by Lydia Davis
On Gerald Shapiro’s “Bad Jews,” by Stuart Dybek
On Stephanie Vaughn’s “Dog Heaven,” by Carol Anshaw
On Donal Barthelme’s “The School,” by Max Apple
On Bernard Malamud’s “In Kew Gardens,” by Alan Cheuse
On John L’Heureux’s “The Comedian,” by Erin McGraw
On Gilbert Sorrentino’s “The Moon In Its Flight,” by Robert Cohen
On John Fowles’s “The Ebony Tower,” by Nicholas Delbanco
On Anita Desai’s “The Accompanist,” by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
On Alice McDermott’s “Enough,” by Tracy Daugherty
On James Kaplan’s “In Miami, Last Winter,” by Steven Schwartz
On Mavis Gallant’s “The Remission,” by Andrea Barrett
On Mavis Gallant’s “Mlle Dias de Corta,” by Francine Prose
On Robert Stone’s “Helping,” by Jim Shepard
On Charles Baxter’s “Fenstad’s Mother,” by Rosellen Brown

Considering Wislawa Szymborksa (issue 5)

Thinking Out Loud, by Lawrence Raab
On Szymborska, by Carl Dennis
That Threshold (If It Is A Threshold), by Sally Ball
Vaster: Wislawa Szymborska and Elizabeth Bishop, by Kathy Fagan
“Non Omnis Moriar”: Reading Szymborska in Translation by Jennifer Clarvoe
On Szymborka’s “Travel Elegy,” by William Olsen
To Keep On Not Knowing, by Michelle Boisseau
All the World’s a Stage: Some Thoughts on Szymborksa, by Rachel Wetzsteon
Everything, All At Once, by Marianne Oruch
Heaven by Subtraction – Szymborska’s Skeptical Wonder, by Tony Hoagland

Frederick Barthelme Feature (issue 4)

Sun Deluxe, by Frederick Barthelme
Interview with Frederick Barthelme, by Gary Percesepe
Rereading Frederick Barthelme’s “Shopgirls” (Minimalism and Prosaics), by B.W. Jorgensen

NOTE: Issues 1-3 did not feature a feature.

Interviews

Reviews

All-Time Table of Contents

January 20, 2000.Reading time 137 minutes.

NOR 34

Poetry

Wisteria by Sara T. Baker

Go, Went, Gone by Sara T. Baker

My Mother’s Breast Prosthesis Falls Out by Sara T. Baker

Relics by John Bargowski

Safety Deposit by John Bargowski

The Chaplain by John Bargowski

In Praise of the Hand Tool by Megan Blankenship

Reading Shackleton During My Husband’s Cancer Treatment by Michele Bombardier

Oatmeal by Billy Collins

The Cardinal by Billy Collins

Keats by Robert Cording

Driveway Toad by Rob Cording

Ode by Steve Coughlin

Unifying Theory by Steve Coughlin

Distant Shore by Steve Coughlin

Sleep Singing by Sara Fetherolf

The Museum of Death by Sara Fetherolf

JUST by Charlene Fix

Obituaries by George Franklin

Evicted by George Franklin

The Hair Cutting by Ockert Greef

In Center Field by Ted Kooser

Tree Service by Ted Kooser

Pop Cooler by Ted Kooser

My Sister by Veronica Kornberg

My Soul Refuses to Write Itself by Veronica Kornberg

Cost of Living by Mark Kraushaar

Magnets by Mark Kraushaar

Visiting the Museum of Natural History with my 97-Year-Old Dad by Michael Mark

Pantoum by Maria Martin

I Look For You by Jen McClanaghan

Alcobaça

NOR 33

Poetry

Self-Portrait as Someone Not Supposed to Be Here by Brad Aaron Modlin

Fortune Cookie by Brad Aaron Modlin

At Home in the Dog Days by Elton Glaser

Theory of Knowledge by Fay Dillof

Hey, You by Fay Dillof

Archipelago by Fay Dillof

Different Planet by Fay Dillof

helen of troy recalls the tenth date by Maria Zoccola

Has this happened to you by Rebecca Foust

We All Know That Something Is Eternal by John Gallaher

How to Sweep a Garage Floor by David Thoreen

Eavesdropping by Taylor Byas

Hunters in the Snow by Linda Bamber

What’s With All These Foxes by Gwendolyn Soper

High Stepping by Angela Ball

Étude en douze exercices, S.136 by Weijia Pan

Red Tulips by Stephanie Coyne DeGhett

Viper by Kimberly Johnson

The Shades by Kimberly Johnson

All I Want by Justin Rigamonti

The Great Conjunction by Sarah Green

Barred Owl by Robert Cording

My Vera Cruz Road by Steve Myers

Canary by Nick Flynn

Irish Traveler’s Writer’s Block by Joanne Dominque Dwyer

Inherit by Joanne Dominque Dwyer

Essay on the Devil by Adele Elise Williams

Yes, There Is a Paris, Idaho by Bethany Schultz Hurst

Visit With My Daughter by Joyce Schmid

Drought Interrupted by Craig van Rooyen

Human Observed Preserving Cucumbers by Wes Civilz

The End of the World by Susan Browne

29th Anniversary by Susan Browne

Circus School by Cassie Burkhardt

On Our Way Home by Jill Michelle

Why I Don’t Want to Be Young Again by C. O’Sullivan Green

Avenue of Soviet Heroes by Andrew Payton

Self-help by Andreas Nussbaumer

Potentially Anyway by Matt Hart

That Evening Sun by Kate Fox

Questions for the Singer of the Last American Folk Song by Matthew Church

Fiction

Mythology by Chi Siegel

Errands by John Honkala

Red Skies by Danielle Batalion Ola

I Am Cunigunde by River Adams

Devices by Claire Bateman

The Self-Correcting Language by Claire Bateman

Baby Suits by Jonathon Atkinson

Smithereens by Tyler Sones

Encounter by Xingzi Chen

Nonfiction

Grieving with Wordsworth by Robert Cording

Shed by Ashlen Renner

I Am No Beekeeper by Arya Samuelson

Feature: Ohio Stories II

“Enduring Mystery” and the Ferryman Farmer in Mary Oliver’s “The River Styx, Ohio” by Rachel Rinehart

“Above the River”: James Wright’s Ohio “Bloodroots” by Therese Gleason

Elegies for Home: An Interview with Amit Majmudar by Betsy K. Brown

Ohio Geometry: Hanif Abdurraqib and the Shape of Home by Vrinda Jagota

A Writer in America by Molly Rideout

Ohio Hip: In-betweenness in Michael Cunningham’s “White Angel” by Caitlin Horrocks

“An Other for Ohio’s Self”: David Foster Wallace’s Great Ohio Desert by Michael O’Connell

NOR 32

Poetry

Front Page by George Bilgere

Insult to Injury by George Bilgere

Nine by George Bilgere

Car Talk by Constance Campana

Women Alone in Cars by Pamela Davis

Heist by Chris Greenhalgh

What I Am Telling You, Jessica, Is That Those Chickens Are Fine by K.T. Landon

Dependable Lies by Isaac George Lauritsen

Unspirit by Matt Hart

Gown by Dobby Gibson

Sometimes it feels so animal— by Alice White

Blink Once for Yes by Mark Cox

The Triple Goddess with a Bird’s Head, on My Dad’s Side by Sue D. Burton

The Numbers by David Dodd Lee

8 Ball at Sportsmen’s Bar & Grill by John Bargowski

In the Red Vinyl Booth of the Horseshoe Cafe by Carol Tiebout

The Happening by Josh Luckenbach

Aubade by Josh Luckenbach

Their Every Yellow Leaf by Sarah Sarai

The End of the Story by Damen O’Brien

Patience as a Crocodile by Damen O’Brien

Oncology by Corinne Wohlford Mason

The Stories That Told You by Carolina Hotchandani

Leaving by Kevin Boyle

Rabbit by Kevin Boyle

Job Interview: Where do you see yourself in five years? by Carrie Shipers

The Hiring Committee Makes Its First and Final Offer by Carrie Shipers

Questions for the Tech Founder by Carrie Shipers

7-Eleven Sermon by Craig van Rooyen

Omen by Sydney Lea

Halfway to Vermont by Owen McLeod

The Exaltation by Ronald Okuaki Lieber

Sometimes I believe by Dion O’Reilly

Shelf Life by George Kalogeris

In Memory by Bruce Beasley

Superglue by Robert W. Cording

Phone Calls by Robert W. Cording

Fearfully & wonderfully by Stacey Forbes

Revealed by Jessica E. Pierce

Hard-boiled Elegy by Lynn Emanuel

The Unassuming Objects of Film Noir by Lynn Emanuel

Lucidity by Ken Holland

Betwixt and Between by Ken Holland

Mother Standing in the Atlantic by Eben E. B. Bein

Looking Through My Mother’s Dresser as a Child by Joyce Schmid

Dandelion Is the New Guru by Lisa Bellamy

Our Grandmother by Kari Gunter-Seymour

Mysterious Ways by Kari Gunter-Seymour

Fiction

Costumes by Carlee Jensen

Wolf by Julia Strayer

Hair of the Dog by James Sullivan

A Blueprint for Escape by Anna Farro Henderson

Our Trouble by David Hansen

Nonfiction

The House, the Russian, and the Dying by Raphael H. Kosek

Ode to My Minivan by Cassie Burkhardt

Feature

Reproductive Rights in Literature

Breaking the Silence: Abortion and Knowledge in Summer and Weeds by Jana Tigchelaar

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Birth Without the Gendered Body by Rebecca Richardson

Monstrous Body Horror in Transition: Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt and Jeannette Winterson’s Frankisstein by Emrys Donaldson

Getting It Behind Them by Wendy Rawlings

Unwinding Unwind by Hilary Brewster

Finding The Boundary Line: A Look at Ayelet Waldman’s “Rocketship” by Jennifer Furner

Tove Ditlevsen, Abortion, Dependency as Birthright by Anna Rollins

Hall of Mirrors by Lee Ann Roripaugh

Something Has Tried To Kill Me: Race, Poetry, and Reproductive Rights by Sarah Green

Abortion Is Like Art: Red Clocks and the Facts of the Body by Madeline ffitch

NOR 31

Poetry

Near Miss by Bill Hollands

August, Incessant by Catherine Harnett

Heatwave by Laura Linart

Our Bedroom by Rebecca Foust

Who knows why the bay was that color by Rose Auslander

Residue by Maria Dylan Himmelman

Self-Portrait as a Half-Deserted Town in Germany by Greg Nicholl

O Isn’t This Just Easy by JC Andrews

Sneaking Out to Play House with Ana by JC Andrews

Fugitive by Karen Pojmann

Tails by William Wenthe

Little Manifesto by Jeffrey Harrison

A Message from Tony Hoagland by Jeffrey Harrison

Homework by Tony Hoagland

Siberia by Tony Hoagland

Why I Like the Hospital by Tony Hoagland

Ode to My Father’s Body by Jeri Theriault

Winter Solstice by Natalie Taylor

Late, Dark, and Windy by Kathleen Lee

Sad As Is by Kathleen Lee

Assimilation by Kelly Rowe

Reading Li Bai During Social Distancing by Jenna Le

Dollhouse by Aneeqa Mazhar Wattoo

Allegory, NJ by Julian Koslow

Opportunity by Robert Wood Lynn

What I Could Not Take by Erin Redfern

There, There by Erin Redfern

Ode to the White Girl at the Gym by Shavahm Dorris-Jefferson

Before We Rushed Our Daughter to the Hospital by Lina Herman

Mood Lighting by Lara Egger

The Age of Reckoning by Lara Egger

Caveat Emptor by Lara Egger

To Avoid or to Embrace by Matthew T. Birdsall

Sand by Justin Rigamonti

On the Cusp by Carol Moldaw

Donation by Linda Hillringhouse

Intersection by Linda Hillringhouse

A Business Problem Arises by Alan Feldman

A Story Often Grunted Across the High Plateaus of Our Island by Rich Smith

I’ve Always Wanted to Be Truly Alone by John Sieracki

O Youthfulness by Dean Young

Fiction

The Windowless Room of Wisdom by Drew Calvert

The Pillow Museum by Claire Bateman

Sometimes Creek by Steve Fox

A Good Thing Going by Marguerite Alley

Listen by Pamela Gullard

Eyrie Hours by Stephanie A. Pushaw

The Mentor by Lexi Pandell

Nonfiction

On Throwing Things Away by Amelia Mairead McNally

How Do You Name a Hurricane? by Amy Lee Scott

Feature

The Poetic Environment

Before Poetry Can Save the Planet, It Needs to Shift Our Souls by Marcia LeBeau

At Home in the Cosmos: On the Poetry of Don Domanski by Tarn MacArthur

Indivisible by Martha Serpas

How Blank an Eye? Seeing and Overlooking Nature in Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode” by Matthew VanWinkle

Reflections in Lake District Mist by Alycia Pirmohamed

Poetry as a Lakeside Trailer Park by Tina Mozelle Braziel

NOR 30

Poetry

A Mind at Home With Itself by Marcia LeBeau

A Covered Dish by Katie Condon

Poem in the Romantic Tradition by American Adult by Katie Condon

Befuddled by Kim Farrar

The Classical Archaeology of My Skeleton by Michael Derrick Hudson

On Finding Out My Genome Includes About Three Percent Neanderthal DNA by Michael Derrick Hudson

Sonnet with Acne and Hawk by Robert Thomas

Bad News, Baby, Good News, Dog. by Britt McGillivray

Deep Nostalgia by Peter O’Donovan

Scene of the Crime by Peter O’Donovan

The Cabbage by Peter O’Donovan

The Last Day of America by Benjamin Grimes

Despots by Peter Maeck

Black Site by Peter Maeck

Adrift by Peter Maeck

A View of the World by Linda K. Sienkewicz

Snapchat at the Magical Arctic Puffin Exhibit by Shelly S. Cato

Graduation Day by Ian Christopher Hooper

Nobody wants to hear about other people’s dreams by Nina Reljic

A Flaw in the Mirror by Ted Kooser

A Stained Glass Window by Ted Kooser

Dancer by Ted Kooser

Alone by Ted Kooser

Picking Up After the Dead by Ted Kooser

Mimicry by Allison Funk

What Else the Grapefruit Said by Sharon Kennedy-Nolle

Chain of Custody by Sharon Kennedy-Nolle

October by Hannah Sullivan Brown

Not Seeing Lorca’s House by Hannah Sullivan Brown

Chiba by Amy Alvarez

In Jezero Crater by Kate Gaskin

Lightning Dragons by Kate Gaskin

Mukahara by Jessica Poll

Our Eyes Can See Colors that Don’t Exist by Lisa Alletson

205 Bistro by Brock Guthrie

Future Perfect by Susan Kress

Nothing Will Happen by Jeff Tigchelaar

A Day at the Museum by Kathleen Holiday

A Fortune in Trades by Cecelia Hagen

Open Mic at Tony’s Bar and Grill by Tracey Knapp

A Working List by Tracey Knapp

Absolution by Kathleen Loe

Tapping by John Bargowski

Upcountry Detour by Sydney Lea

The hardest part of losing her mother in 2020 by Nancy Miller Gomez

My Family by Nancy Miller Gomez

Cultural Appropriation by Nancy Miller Gomez

Siren Song by Nancy Miller Gomez

Watching the Wind by Roger Mitchell

After Petrarch by Emily Wheeler

The Missing Poem by Emily Wheeler

Vernal Equinox by Kari Gunter-Seymour

Fiction

Doppel by Max Bell

The Dog Run by Anne Cooperstone

Callejeros by A.J. Rodriguez

The Hofstetters Go Back to the Hotel by Will Kelly

Keepsakes Tanya Bomsta

Abu Hani’s Middle Eastern Foods and Gifts by Sarah Cypher

Nonfiction

Winter by Faith Shearin

One of Us and The Other by Lisa Buchanan

Feature

“When We Talk About Mountains, We Talk About Memories”: a Conversation with Ohio Poet Kari Gunter-Seymour

NOR 29

Poetry

Ode to the Fresh Start by Susan Blackwell Ramsey

Entropy by Elton Glaser

A Summer Wind, a Cotton dress by Kate Fox

4D by Jon Fischer

Heron of Plastic Bag by Jon Fischer

What the Drawing Explains by Jon Fischer

Spring Reflection by Stephanie Choi

In the Garden by Kelly Rowe

Garden Sitting by Jennifer Dorner

Raw Numbers by Jasmine V. Bailey

Ocean City, New Jersey by Jasmine V. Bailey

All Animals Want the Same Things by Jeanne-Marie Osterman

Encore by Maura Faulise

Heels by Justin Rigamonti

Anne Lester by Emma Aylor

Mt. Athos by Emma Aylor

We Don’t Die by Darius Simpson

Essentials by Todd Boss

Tracers by Todd Boss

He Divides His Time Between by Todd Boss

At the Coffee Shop on Rogers by Robert Wood Lynn

The Delay by Emily Sernaker

January Dispatch by Emily Sernaker

Palm Beach International Airport by Roy Bentley

Tapestries by Jennifer Schomburg Kanke

She Asks Me, Who is Roger? By Chrys Tobey

Me/n by Sarah Jones

Incubus by Emily Nason

Doctor’s Office Behind Plank Country Store, Feet in Stirrups, I Think my Grandmother’s Hand Deveining Shrimp by Emily Nason

Sertraline by Emily Nason

Widow’s Weeds by Courtney Huse Wika

San Francisco Bay View, November 2018 by D.R. Goodman

Moon Facts by Dan Pinkerton

Exile by Margot Kahn

Ditch by David Thoreen

Prayer to Mercury by Justin Jannise

Ordinary Ode by Michael Lavers

Unvocation by Michael Lavers

Three Buttered Muffins by Michael Lavers

November Elergy by Michael Lavers

Great by Emily Blair

The Emperor of Mashed Potatoes by Emily Blair

Pomegranate by J.C. Scharl

An Answer Without a Question by Robert Cording

Koi Pond: Failed Meditation by Robert Cording

Doves in Morning Fog by Robert Cording

Everett Avenue Facing East by David Gullette

The Unanming by Hadara Bar-Nadav

Saturday by Ruth Baumann

epitaph for time travel by Amy Bagwell

Amends by Samantha Padgett

Dark Forces by Tara Orzolek

kind of by Dylan Ecker

Prairie Box by Peter Krumbach

Last Request by Theresa Burns

A Fox by Ted Kooser

Fiction

How to Peel an Orange by Stephanie Wheeler

Albuquereque Sunrise by Ashley Hand

Violent Devotion by Gwen Mullins

Landfall by Jermey Griffin

Fetus Egg by Annie Trinh

The Sisters Jeppard by George Choundas

Before He Made love He Made Light by David Lerner Schwartz

Nonfiction
The Frozen Shoulder by Rose Strode

Swamp Lunch by John Hazard

Feature
Poets on Children’s Literature

The Lady Whispering Hush by Pichchenda Bao

When The World’s Worst Readers Met The World’s Worst Children by Marcia LeBeau

Worth the Wait by Jared Harél

Love for the World: The Poetry of Frog and Toad by Sunni Brown Wilkinson

“Because they grow up/and forget what they know”: On the Strange Wisdom of Children’s Poetry by Erin Redfern

You Are What You Read by Adrienne Su

Over and Over by Sarah Green

The Fabric by Jeff Tigchelaar

NOR 28

Poetry

The Time Traveler Chooses an Arrival Point by Emily Blair

Broken by John Glowney

The Other Big Bang by Mason Wray

Gone by Jennifer Burd

Ruthless by Emily Lee Luan

When My Sorrow Was Born by Emily Lee Luan

I Was Startled It Was Death by David O’Connell

Love Song by David O’Connell

We’re Thinking of the Black Hole at the Center of the Galaxy by David O’Connell

America as a History of Arterial Circulation by Alison Powell

Force of Habit by Kathleen Winter

What is There to Do in Akron, Ohio by Darius Simpson

It Was As If We Were on Vacation by Jen Ashburn

Self-Imposed Exile by Lucas Cardona

Invisible Bodies by Aza pace

Daughter Poem by Lisa Dordal

A Coyote Runs Down Michigan Avenue by Sara Ryan

Circumstances and Disappearance by Sara Ryan

the grove again by Aurora Lee Shimshak

Chickens in Your Backyard by Miriam Flock

Live From the Met by Miriam Flock

Another Refugee Poem by Pichchenda Bao

I’m Only Dancing by Chris Ketchum

Love Letters by Susan Browne

Icarus by Robert Cording

Epistle to Myself on my 70th Birthday by Robert Cording

Ode to the Impossible by Matthew T. Birdsall

(R)egret by Danusha Laméris

Anachronism by Terese Gleason

Blue Camaro by Owen McLeod

The Elks at the Watering Hole by Steve Myers

Aubade From the Snake Pit Alehouse by Maggie Glover

Something Implausible by Gregory Djanikian

Prenup by Marcia LeBeau

Eleventh Anniversary by Marcia LeBeau

Lucky by Marcia LeBeau

The Love Poem by Marcia LeBeau

Fulminate by Kimberly Johnson

Fusion by Kimberly Johnson

Ode to the Wild Heart by Mary Jo Firth Gillett

Thursday Night, DivorceCare by Jana-Lee Germaine

The Measuring by Veronica Corpuz

The Bees by Rick Viar

how we end by Paula Harris

sisters by James Lineberger

Tree with ice, under amber light by James Lineberger

North River Shad, c. 1910 by Lindsay Atnip

Long Division by Jessica Tanck

Last Night I Told a Stranger by Mary Leauna Christensen

Life Through Glass by Jonathan Duckworth

Polar Bear by George Bilgere

The Scar by George Bilgere

Homecoming by Christopher Brean Murray

Currency of Survival by Natalie Taylor

Gothic by SM Stubbs

Jesus and My Way of Seeing Him Go by Jeanie Walker

forecast for tomorrow says snow by Bernard Ferguson

My IRS by Adam O. Davis

The Arachnologist by Benjamin Gucciardi

Leaf Light by Emily Tuszynska

Night Train by Emily Tuszynska

Awe by Peter Krumach

Amtrak Psalm by Craig Van Rooyen

“Take the Neck Step Against Aging” by Craig Van Rooyen

Requiem with “Little Wing” by Craig Van Rooyen

Fiction

The Names You Choose by Nicole VanderLinden

The Ways You Lose by Samantha Edmonds

Memorial Day on Fire Island w/ Laughing Buddha by Ed Falco

Prime Cuts by Lara Palmqvist

We Are the Bachelorettes and We Insist by Susan Finch

Nonfiction

Exodus by D. Gilson

There Will Be Salvation Yet by Tania De Rozario

Feature

On Ongoingness: a Conversation with Ada Limón and Jaswinder Bolina

NOR 27

Poetry

Someone Threw Down a Wildflower Garden in an Empty Lot in Newark by Theresa Burns

I propose we worship the mud dauber by Jessica Pierce

This is a Love Poem to Trees by Hannah Marshall

How I’ve Wanted You by Mark Anthony Burke

Wants by Chris Greenhalgh

Final Visitation by Dan Albergotti

Watching for You by Connie Zumpf

Run in such a way that you will obtain it by Justin Danzy

Interrogation Scene by Allison Elliott

What I Meant to Say by Emily Alexander

How it Ought to Be by David J. Bauman

St. Cuthman of Steyning by Edison Dupree

Stolen Hard Drive by John Moessner

No, Nothing by Daryl Jones

Suite Ending with the Middle School Symphony Orchestra by Erin Malone

Learning by Kelly Michels

The Pasture Ponds by John Bargowski

Tackle by John Bargowski

Knife and Salt by Justin Hunt

Smoke by Jerald Walker

The Worst Thing Ever Done to Me by Rodney Jones

American Horror by Jessica Alexander

Chip’s Laundromat by Stephanie Rogers

Dear Sister of My Childhood by Stephanie Rogers

Tilt-A-Whirl by Nancy Miller Gomez

Bayou Newlyweds by Rome Hernandez Morgan

Fireworks: Albuquerque by Kate Fetherston

Lap Dance with No Ending by Kathleen Balma

Photo of Betty at Mass Ave and Third by Mark Kraushaar

Layover by Caitlin Cowan

When a Friend Writes of her Pregnancy by Josephine Yu

When the Doctor Calls After the Final Round of IVF by Josephine Yu

CVS by Erin Redfern

The Wild Barnacle by Billy Collins

Cahoots by Suzanne Cleary

Brief Guide by Suzanne Cleary

Thinking vs. Feeling by Katie Brunero

Sonnet with Hound and Sequins by Robert Thomas

When They Were Handing Out Superpowers by Robert Wood Lynn

God Is Going to Be Late to the Party by R. Bratten Weiss

New Year’s Resolution by R. Bratten Weiss

Immediately Following Mandatory Happy Hour with the Boss by Molly Kirschner

Saturday by Veronica Kornberg

Ode to My Pink Bathroom by Julie Danho

Love, Again by Sarah O. Oso

Rodeo by Sarah Brown Wilkinson

Palacios by Mark Alan Williams

Free Association by Henrietta Goodman

Second-Hand Tongue by Tamara Miller

Donovan by Susan Browne

Fiction

Squids by Liz Breazeale

The Tour by Erica S. Arkin

The Problems of the Wild by Abby Horowitz

Miss USA 2015 by Yxta Maya Murray

Feature

Machines, Mortality, and the Lyric Poem by Bethany Schultz Hurst

The Transitional Voice: Exploring Susan Blackwell Ramsey’s “Ode to Texting” by Claire Bateman

The Technology of the American Sonnet by Brian Brodeur

On Language, Bombs, and Other Things That Exist by Kimberly Grey

Of Seeing, the Unseen, and the Unseeable: Technology, Poetry, and “When it Rains in Gaza” by Philip Metres

NOR 26

2019 Contest Winners

IN FICTION

Coyotes by Terri Leker

IN POETRY

The Flash by Jennifer Givhan

IN NONFICTION

Promised Lands by Christie Tate

Poetry

Sad Rollercoaster by Jared Harel

The Men at Snowbowl Teaching Their Daughters to Ski by Henrietta Goodman

Lisbon Haibon by Melissa Oliveiera

The Summer Before Your Birth by Christine Fraser

Keeping Warm by Faith Shearin

From a great height by Natalie Taylor

Goodly the Sum by Julie Hanson

Postcards by Eleanor Kedney

Virga by Joyce Schmid

On the First Day That Feels Like Fall I Think of Her Then, the Age I Am Now by Beth Marzoni

What If We Wake Up Dead by Jennifer Sperry Steinorth

Valentine by Susan Browne

No Good After Midnight by Jessica Hincapie

You Once Felt Gigantic by Jonathan Greenhause

Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning by Elton Glaser

Until We Do by Sydney Lea

Note to My First Wife by Steven Cramer

How Young Boys Survive the Ghetto: 101 by Taylor Byas

Sunday Service by Taylor Byas

Failing to Master the Art of Erasure by Wendy Taylor

Throwing Rocks by Wendy Taylor

At Sixty-Two by Dion O’Reilly

Liberal Father by Dion O’Reilly

Silbar by Dion O’Reilly

My Beautification by John Gallaher

Pollution by Amelie Meltzer

Meg Francis by Kate Sweeney

Love as Invasive Species by Ellen Kombiyil

Twilite Motel and Lounge by Mark Kraushaar

A Letter to My Former Employer One Week After My Untimely Death by Nancy Miller Gomez

Suspensions by Claire Bateman

The Virgin Mirror by Claire Bateman

Scatter by Claire Bateman

The Strategic Plan by Carrie Shipers

Rules of Order by Carrie Shipers

Questions for the Office of Public Relations by Carrie Shipers

When the AI Program That Writes Biographies for Every Human Who Ever Lived Gets Around to Writing Mine by Walker Pfost

How to Be Better by Being Worse by Justin Jannise

Wethersfield by Michael Pontacoloni

Moving the Piano by Kathryn Petruccelli

One Step by Betsy Sholl

Alexa by Ruth Bardon

The Oldies, at Island Pond, Vermont by Allen Stein

Morning Rig by Angela Sorby

The Dog in the Library by Catherine Stearns

Anti-Confessional by Catherine Stearns

Exile Queen by Bethany Schultz Hurst

Fiction

16 Days of Glory by Jill Rosenberg

Soda Money by Emily Johns-O’Leary

Melbourne Beach by Eric Boehling Lewis

Nonfiction

On the Walls by Julialicia Case

Feature

Kept in the Dark: Poetry, Collaboration, and Collapse in Pandaemonium and Tom and Viv by Matthew VanWinkle

Jean Cocteau and Orpheus: The Poet as Filmmaker by Steve Vineberg

Keep Me In By Keeping Me Out: Poetry On Screen by Carrie Oeding

A Personal Affair: The Making of a Poetry Film by Michele Poulos

Against Literary Biopics Generally, Unless, Maybe- But Definitely and Especially Against The End of the Tour by Kathryn Nuernberger

Beautiful, Brilliant, and Dead: Portraits of the Female Poet in Film by Danusha Laméris

NOR 25

2019 Contest Winners

IN POETRY:

Quail on the Airfield by Ellen Seusy

IN PROSE:

Rabbit Summer by Jane Marcellus

Poetry

Work in Progress by Lance Larsen

Compost by Lance Larsen

No Blueprint by Mary Jo Firth Gillett

Poem for the Peony by Mary Jo Firth Gillett

Landscape with iPhone by Emily Mohn-Slate

Roost by Janice N. Harrington

Selling by Judy Kronenfeld

What is your favorite past time? By Robert Danberg

My Life Is Like This by John Mark Ballenger

Marriage Prayer by John Mark Ballenger

Manhattan Afternoon by Ansie Baird

Portrait of Love as Failed Vocabulary Quiz by Kristin Robertson

Toyota Yaris by Dan J. Vice

You Want to Go Back by Fleming Meeks

Miracle of Life by Joanne Dominique Dwayer

Shallow Person by Joanne Dominique Dwayer

Success by Tony Hoagland

Sunday at the Mall by Tony Hoagland

Learning Swedish in Secret as a Joke by Bobbie Jean Huff

You Are My Sunshine by Bobbie Jean Huff

Spring by Lauren Shapiro

Poem Beginning with “My Father” by Craig van Rooyen

Three Bells by Craig van Rooyen

Mailing a Letter by Dawn Davies

Graduation by Maria Nazos

I Go Back to Mykonos 1976 by Maria Nazos

Without Pain by Kelly Michels

Lucky by Steven Dawson

Repossession by Steven Dawson

Train Prayer by Steven Dawson

Then and Now, the Essex Street Market by Roger Mitchell

Thief by Owen McLeod

Confirmation by John McCarthy

In Dog Dreams by Karla K. Morton

Trattoria Tagliati, Positano by Karla K. Morton

The Illusion of Belief by Kate Fox

If Your Spouse Dies First by Stephanie Johnson

After the Date by Lana Spendl

World Order by Lesley Wheeler

Uncivil by Lesley Wheeler

Monarch by Kathleen Radigan

Drag Heavy Pot to Shed (Ars Poetica) by Janine Certo

Fiction

Recovery by Max Bell

Devil’s Advocate by Becky Hagenston

Tough Love by Paul Hansen

A Fistful of Dirt by Sujatha Fernandes

Bliss by Amber Wheeler Bacon

Flower World by Jeremy Schnotala

Nonfiction

An Oral History of Hands as Told to Me by My Grandmother by Mercedes Lucero

Feature

Shadow and Shine: Ohio in the Literary Imagination by Jana Tigchelaar

“On the Lip of Lake Erie”: Toni Morrision’s Ohio Aesthetic by Dustin Faulstick

The Importance and Depth of “Ohio” in Two Poems by Rita Dove and Ai by Marcus Jackson

Buckeye Sci-Fi: “Does Anything Exciting ever Happen Around Here” by Christopher A. Sims

Sometimes a Vague Notion by David Armstrong

NOR 24

2018 Contest Winners

IN FICTION:

Return by Analía Villagra

IN NONFICTION:

Who’s Loving You by Kelsey Ronan

IN POETRY:

My Babysitter Karen B Who Was Sent to Willard Asylum by Jessica Cuello

Fiction

The Deluge by Alan Sincic

Real Things by Nicole Hebdon

Weanie Tender, PO by Jennifer Christman

Coach O by Robert Hinderliter

Here Comes Happy by Shauna Mackay

Nonfiction

The Uber Diaries by Kyle Minor

Poetry

My Hometown, the Hypothetical Guided Tour by Dan Wiencek

Trouble by Danusha Laméris

Bird by Danusha Laméris

Stopover on a Road Trip to L.A., 1981 by C.W. Emerson

We Have Got to Get Out of L.A. by Suzanne Lummis

To Inscribe by Anne Starling

Asking for a Friend by Emily Sernaker

Thing-Poem After the Social Event by Karen Benning

Talking by Christopher Brean Murray

Merriweather by Christopher Brean Murray

Happy Lamp by Catherine Carter

Soulmates by Peter Krumbach

Box in a Closet by Faith Shearin

On the Ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles by Kirsten Abel

Calling Annie Oakley by Kirsten Abel

Calchas Reading the Signs by George Kalogeris

Europeans Wrapping Knickknacks by David Kirby

My Father Visits Not Long After My Mother (His Wife Twenty Years Ago) Dies by Brock Guthrie

Leaf Blower by Alan Shapiro

Hole in One by Alan Shapiro

Closer by Alan Shapiro

Bay Sunday by W.J. Herbert

Stateline Lake by Arlyce Menzies

The Petrified Man by Pamela Davis

Ode on a Midlife VW by Craig van Rooyen

Interstate 5 Ode by Craig van Rooyen

Ode to My Backyard Gopher by Craig van Rooyen

Costco Ode by Craig van Rooyen

Naked, Fierce, Yelling Stone Age Grannies by Lisa Bellamy

Our Fathers by Lisa Bellamy

Moo by Chrys Tobey

Cockadoodledoo by Chrys Tobey

Women in Treatment by Theresa Burns

Calculations by Linda Hillringhouse

An Education by Molly Minturn

Wex in Totus Taggle by Owen Doyle

At the Wives’ Coffee by Abby E. Murray

Language Immersion by Jeff Walker

The Missing Friendship Network by Tony Hoagland

The Blackbird Whistling by Linda Bamber

Trees in March by Linda Bamber

Mango Languages by Linda Bamber

Near the Campo Aponal, on My Father’s Birthday by David Brendan Hopes

Feature

The Pursuit of Ignorance: The Challenging Figuration of Not Knowing by Tony Hoagland

The Power of Coldness by Tony Hoagland

The Wild Life of Metaphor: Prehensile, Triangulating, Insubordinate by Tony Hoagland

NOR 23

Fiction

Roland Raccoon by Karin Lin-Greenburg

Wings of the Wind by Eliot Fintushel

No Moon Night by Marti Boone Mattia

The Blue Goodness by Maureen McGranaghan

Guardian by Rebecca Haas

No One Dies in Fiction Anymore by Kaj Tanaka

Swimmers by Bryan Fulton

Nonfiction

Of a Burrito de Buche by Patrick Mainelli

Haunting Houses by Jacqueline Doyle

This Is How It Will Feel by Jennifer Watkins

Poetry

Midnight at the Anaconda Wire and Cable Company by Sandy Gingras

Los Angeles, 1990 by Jerry Williams

May My Enemy Be Overcome By His Own Glitter by Laura Paul Watson

Google Map by Connie Zumpf

Strangers I Think I Know by Connie Zumpf

Dancing Horses are Becoming More Beautiful and More Useful Every Day by Mari Casey

Not the Wolf but the Dog by Jacqueline Berger

Another Version of My Confession by Lara Egger

Day Residue in Winter by Wes Civilz

Dragonflies by Danusha Laméris

The Problem by Grant Clauser

Here’s the Plan by Patrick Meeds

My Younger Self Attempts Breakdancing at the Sadie Hawkins Dance by Kerry James Evans

Creed for Atheists by Matthew Buckley Smith

The Spiritual Exercises by Lisa Ampleman

The Jesus Bus by Melissa Studdard

Fez Postcard / Call to Prayer by Jacqueline Osherow

Blessed is He by Jeff Tigchelaar

This Is a .50-Caliber Wound by Jeff Tigchelaar

Reverse Sculpture by Richard Dey

Free Will by Daniel Eduardo Ruiz

Arrangement in Gray and Black by Laurie Rosenblatt

Ye Are of More Value than Many Sparrows by Elton Glaser

April 21st by Billy Collins

The Card Players by Billy Collins

Made-up Saints by Claire Scott

Aubade with Looney Tunes by Matthew Luzitano

Tightrope by William Fargason

Loose Ends by Gregory Djanikian

Judgment Call by James Lineberger

In the Gas Station Bathroom with My New Son by Amy O’Reilly

At the Outpatient Clinic by Andrea Hollander

And Later I Will Forget About the Bread by Andrea Hollander

Confusion of Privilege by Tony Hoagland

Local News by Christopher Kempf

These People by Anele Rubin

Timeless Beauty by Brian Hall

Black Sesame by Adrienne Su

The News of Touch by Craig van Rooyen

A Small Prayer by Craig van Rooyen

Feature

Art is Long, Planets Short: The Lasting Power of Carol Ann Duffy’s “The Woman in the Moon” by Adrienne Su

“Gender’s Tidy Little Story”: On Stacey Waite’s “The Kind of Man I Am at the DMV” by Emily Mohn-Slate

What Essy Stone Done to Us by Anders Carlson-Wee

Speculative Solutions to the Political Poem: Ann Killough’s “Statue of Liberty” by Tony Hoagland

“Your Body Everywhere”: Time and Forgiveness in Carl Phillips’s “Since You Ask” by Chiyuma Elliott

“Arch-Talk” and the Postmodern Gall of Josh Bell and Mark Bibbins by Keith Kopka

Stumbling Into the Sublime: Claire Bateman’s “Another Poem on Blue” by Veronica Schuder

The Present Deeply: The 21st-Century Love Poem by Mario Chard

NOR 22

Poetry

The Burden of Humans by Michael Lavers

I’m Trying to Write a Joyful Poem by Emily Mohn-Slate

First Train Ride Together: Northeast Corridor by Linda Bamber

Zenyatta by Grady Chambers

Ending the Poem by Theresa Burns

Gentleman Caller by Elton Glaser

Waitress in an All-Night Diner, West Virginia by Rebecca Baggett

Bag Lady Muse by Rebecca Baggett

Laundromat by Ted Kooser

The Clipper Ship by Ted Kooser

Hilltop Cemetery by Brendan Cooney

Experiment. Kathryn Cowles. Metal, treadmill, button, psychiatrists, the artist. 2014 by Kathryn Cowles

Heart 2. Kathryn Cowles. Mixed media (tuning forks, megaphones, windmill, catapult, volcano, bathtub, confettied heat, tissue-paper flowers, flamethrowers, pianos, etc.) 2014 by Kathryn Cowles

Topology by Christine Gosnay

Cedar Waxwing, Late November by John Hazard

Yesterday, Northern Michigan, Interstate 75 by John Hazard

My Lifelong Relationship with God by Julie Hanson

The Thing About Dumb Jokes Is You Have to Be There by Emily Blair

Nest by Suzanne Cleary

Laundry by Robert Cording

At Milward Funeral Home, Lexington, KY by Jeff Worley

The Last Father Poem by William Varner

Meditation on My 44th Birthday by Jason Irwin

46 Years Old by Karen Skolfield

Walking the Dogs by Veronica Schuder

Lunatic, Time by Rachel Rinehart

There Was a Young Woman with Cancer by Susan Blackwell Ramsey

Ode to Texting by Susan Blackwell Ramsey

And Another Thing by Gregory Djanikian

You Are My Sunshine Alpay Ulku

On Rereading Madame Bovary at Forty by Erin Redfern

A Brief History of Hunger by Mary Jo Firth Gillett

Happiness by Daniel Arias-Gomez

It’s a Sad Day That’s Full of Sadness by Peter Leight

Evening with Little Comfort by Caitlin Vance

James Bond by Eleanor Wright

My Mother’s Neck by Sarah Jones

Maintenance by David Gullette

Borges’s Farewell to Meadville, Pennsylvania by Stephen Myers

It Depends by Lisa Rhoades

Florida Man Throws Alligator into Wendy’s Drive-Thru Window by Mitchell Jacobs

The Reflex by Mitchell Jacobs

Villa Jovis by Aaron Baker

Seafaring by Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I Never Met a Flower That Yelled At Me by Julie L. Moore

Here Below by Sarah Carleton

Giverny by Emily Sernaker

Fiction

Delectable Hazards at the Animal Drive by Michael Chaney

Chosen by Hanna Halperin-Goldstein

Love’s Been Good to Me by Andrew Robinson

Nonfiction

The Getaway by Rebecca McClanahan

The Oregon Trail by Corey Van Landingham

2017 Contest Winners

IN FICTION:

Clean for Him the Ashes by David E. Yee

IN NONFICTION:

Sometimes the Mother Eats Her Young by Rachel Cochran

IN POETRY:

Where the Stars Are Hived by James Lineberger

Convocation by James Lineberger

Feature

Writing What You Know and Whom You’ve Known by Joey Franklin

What Binds Them Together by Rachel Peckham

More than a Vanished Husband: Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter” by Holly Baker

Breakup, Break Down, Break Open: Intimate Partner Violence and Life Inside a Daily Ending by Sonya Huber

On Breaking Up with the Dream of Your Former Self: Megan Daum’s “My Misspent Youth” by Kelly Kathleen Ferguson

In Search of the First Person Singular by Ned Stuckey-French

On Natalia’s Ginzburg’s “Human Relations” Dinah Lenney

NOR 21

Fiction

Your Mother Wouldn’t Approve by Krystal Sanders

Some Things Rosa Can’t Tell Little Esmerelda by Barbara de la Cuesta

Year of the Rat by Lucas Church

Dune Cat by Winnie Anderson

Bodies that Drift in the River Flow by Scott Gould

At the Edge of Everything by Traci Skuce

Nonfiction

Princess Party by G.C. Esselstyn

Parents and Guardians by G.C. Esselstyn

Loving by Numbers by Frances Orrok

Sneakers by Patrick Crerand

Poetry

Push by George Bilgere

Void Unfilled by George Bilgere

Horseplay by George Bilgere

I Tie My Shoes by George Bilgere

Stuff by Claudia Monpere

Facebook Sonnet by Tanya Grae

The Worn-Out West by Pamela Davis

And God Created Woman by Connie Voisine

What Kind of Man by Tony Gloeggler

What My Massage Therapist Girlfriend Discovers When I’m On Her Table For the First Time by Robert Wilder

A Race Car Made of Sand by Margot Wizansky

Miles by Craig van Rooyen

Mitigation by Craig van Rooyen

Parrots Over Suburbia by Craig van Rooyen

Steno by Mark Kraushaar

Fable by Sally Bliumis-Dunn

Other People’s Ranch Dressing by Kate MacLam

Nightmare on Elm Street by T.J. Sandella

Facebook Stalking My Ex-Boyfriends by Emily Sernaker

Advice by Emily Sernaker

Mawwage by Catherine Stearns

Marriage at 17 Years by Gary Dop

The Double by Gary Dop

Red Beans and Rice by J Spru

Safehouse by Sandy Gingras

My Mother’s Dogs by Sandy Gingras

Serenity Room by Linda Hillringhouse

Catpants by Richard Allen

The Meat of It by Michael Bazzett

Now the Truth Can Be Told by David Guttette

Nobody Can Pronounce the Name of This Volcano by Mike Wright

A Friend Encourages Me to Travel to South America by Mike Wright

Nomenomancy by Mark Wagenaar

Men’s League as January by Michael Pontacoloni

Midnight Snack with Leon by Darren Morris

Just Say No by Kelly Michels

Coronation with Plastic Flowers by Kelly Michels

Cousin Josh Goes Off on Food Stamps by Anders Carlson-Wee

Last Seen on a Milk Carton by Reese Conner

The Resort by Preston Martin

Detective Story by James Lineberger

Sunny Day by Joyce Schmid

Of Course Death by Roy Mash

Feature

On Being Asked to Contribute to the Villains Feature by Richard Cecil

Villainous Villanelle by Denise Duhamel

Milton’s Satan and the Grammar of Evil by Kimberly Johnson

The Pleasures of Browning’s Villains by Robert Cording

The Villain Who Shut Down an Epic by Jeanne Murray Walker

“Guilt as Magical”: Adultery as Poetic Villainy by Catherine Pierce

Maker and Prophet: Frank Bidart and the Mask of “Herbert White” by Mario Chard

The Unredeemed Villain?: Ai’s “Child Beater” by Denise Duhamel

Villains of Confessionalism by Kathryn Nuernberger

NOR 20

Fiction

How to Survive on Land by Joy Baglio

Moksha by Alexander Weinstein

The Killing Square by Michael Credico

Black Telephone by Robert Long Foreman

We Handle It by Gwen E. Kirby

Cooking with Fire by Cady Vishniac

The Genesee Towers by Kelsey Ronan

Nonfiction

At the Threshold by Marilyn Abildskov

Our Family Walks by N.R. Robinson

Poetry

Bobcat by Andrew Cox

Reno Redux by Ansie Baird

Chino, California by Darla Himeles

Certain Things by David Brendan Hopes

She-Monster Gets Fired by Kim Farrar

Why It’s Hard To Write About My Brother by Kim Farrar

My Good Brother by Young Smith

Here There Was a Stool with a Crippled Leg by Young Smith

Gorilla by Young Smith

Bluebirds Are Cavity Nesters by W.J. Herbert

Anniversary Gift by Robert Cording

The Cave by David Gullette

Still by Alison Jarvis

Morning by James Tolan

November 1st by Chanel Brenner

January 12th by Heather Bowlan

Facebook Friends by Lisa Badner

Parent/Teacher Conference by Lisa Badner

This Is Not an Obituary by Lisa Badner

Response to Medical Questionnaire by Graham Coppin

Furnished by Mount Sinai by Graham Coppin

Horse on a Plane by Joyce Peseroff

Ammo by Marc Tretin

Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring by Charles Hopper Webb

Watching Nature on PBS by Angela Voras-Hill

Full Disclosure by Emily Sernaker

History Will Remember by David O’Connell

The Potter’s Field by Amit Majmudar

The Skeleton in My Grandfather’s Closet by Peter Schmitt

Checkup by Daryl Jones

Bag It, Box It, Haul It Away by Jay Leeming

Black-Eyed Susan by Lisa Bellamy

Grounded by Claire Bateman

Ancient Stone Coin, Diameter Six Feet by Claire Bateman

The New Loneliness by Claire Bateman

Cake-o-Rama by Claire Bateman

Night Dodge by Jill Leininger

Abandoned Settlement by Christopher Brean Murray

2016 Contest Winners

WINNER IN FICTION

Audition by Leslie Rodd

WINNER IN NONFICTION

A Creature, Stirring by Gail Griffin

WINNER IN POETRY

Henry’s Horses by Michael Pearce

The Pale Man by Michael Pearce

The Boy on the Ridge by Michael Pearce

Feature

Buzz Can Happen Here: Sinclair Lewis and the New American Fascism by Michael Mark Cohen

“This Time I’m Going to Fool Somebody”: Willie Stark and the Politics of Humiliation by Dustin Faulstick

Take Me to Your Lady Leader by Kristen Lillvis

Of the People, for the People, by the Robots by Christopher A. Sims

NOR 19

Fiction

The Stability of Floating Bodies by Craig Bernardini

A Meadow by Lee Upton

Necessaries by Tina Tocco

That Boy’s a Catch by Tina Tocco

Safety by Catherin Carberry

Chemistry by Michael George

Old Married Couple by Robin Messing

A Million Tigers Who Aren’t Mad at You by Sandy Nietling

Siccita` by Stephen Jarrett

Poetry

The Most American Thing I’ve Ever Seen by Rich Smith

Letter to the Gone Lover, Late May by Laura Maher

Revery by Elisabeth Murawski

Prayer While Driving Home After My Yearly Physical by Robert Cording

Little Red Book by Jeffrey Harrison

Sky by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

Black Ants by Fay Dillof

The First Time We Went Camping by Fay Dillof

What I Remember Most by Robert Nazarene

Lieu d’hiver me`moire by Angie Estes

Stick Season by Sydney Lea

Good for What Ails You by Elton Glaser

Phone Call by Stephanie Rogers

We Remember You for Now by Stephanie Rogers

Timestamps by Katie Condon

The Present by Billy Collins

A Box of Records by James Haug

My This, My That by Sarah Brown Weitzman

Pie by Michael Chitwood

Flipping Through King Leopold’s Ghost by Paul Carroll

Depleted Uranium and Other Facebook Posts by Okla Elliot

Night Blind by David Yezzi

Aubade by David Yezzi

Face to Face by James Lineberger

Here’s My Love Poem by James Lineberger

They Used To Be So Valuable They Were Free by Susan Blackwell Ramsey

Query by Sandy Gringas

When We Were Neanderthals by Chrys Tobey

Like A Fish Needs a Bicycle by Jessica Plante

Ibis by Meg Kearney

Bank Shot by Greg McBride

Cousin Josh on His Lizard by Anders Carslon-Wee

Cousin Josh on Doomsday by Anders Carslon-Wee

White Earth, Minnesota by Anders Carslon-Wee

Jenny Perowski Is Ahead of Me in the Grocery Store Line by Julie Danho

Grammar School by Mark Belair

When Mr. Bridges Died by Mark Kraushaar

If I Could Have Your Attention by Jonathan Louis Duckworth

Directions by Matthew J. Spireng

The Rubaiyat of Omar Aqta by David Barber

Fantaisie by Donald Platt

Nonfiction

Etymologies by Krista Christensen

Critical Learning Period by Chelsea Biondolillo

Feature

I Second That Emotion by Rebecca McClanahan

Tell It Cool: On Writing with Restraint by Debra Marquart

Staying with Argos: Odysseus and His Dog by A-J Aronstein

Yeats and Heaney: The Poetry Without the Pity by C.L. Dallat

Designs Less Palpable: Emotional Manipulation and Even-Handedness in Keats by Matthew VanWinkle

NOR 18

Fiction

Hardly a Word About the Vegetarian Lasagna by Thad Kenner

This Bed You’ve Made by Samuel Ligon

The Devil’s Best Friend by Vincent Poturica

Change in Hat or Glove Size by Darrell Spencer

The Villanos by Z.Z. Boone

Sometimes It Snows In Florida by Michael Cooper

A Whole Lot of Men with Guns by Jonathan Muzzall

Laura’s Brother by Ryan Ruff Smith

Poetry

Travel Plans by David Wagoner

Believe that Even in my Deliberateness I was Not Deliberate by Gail Mazur

Sintra by Gail Mazur

The Anatomy Lesson Bruce Bond

Girl with the Red Stockings by Julie Hassett

Drizzle Living by Michelle Boisseau

With the Roots of an Alp by Michelle Boisseau

Talking to My Dead Mother About Dogs by Stephanie Gangi

At the Columbarium by Jackie Craven

After the Funeral by Holly Day

An Evolution of Prayer by Stephen Dunn

Lately I’ve Been Writing a Lot of Poems About Your Husband by Sarah Carson

Gray Whale by Sally Bliumis-Dunn

Aesthetics to Change the Way You Live by Sally Bliumis-Dunn

Plato and You by Christopher Flannery

This Contract is Complete by Kyle Norwood

Dear Reader by Dean Young

Get Out of Jail Free by John Gallaher

We Don’t Always Want What We Say We Want by John Gallaher

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:PINK by Bryan Owens

Open Mic by Jesse Wallis

Accelerated Learning by Laura Read

Mute Swan by Fleda Brown

Leather Coat by Maxine Scates

New Regs by James Lineberger

Tag Sale by Scott Brennan

Against Silence by Andrea Hollander

My Mother Who Told Me by Martha Silano

The First Straw by Billy Collins

Sixteen by Mary Angelino

Blood Buzz, AZ by Shane Lake

My Mouth Versus Your Mouth by Devon J. Moore

Grace by Craig van Rooyen

Lost by Craig van Rooyen

Nonfiction

Sisters Peeling by Julie Henson

Manhandled by Tamie Parker Song

Feature

Conversation with Amy Bloom with James Miranda

Conversation with Marie Howe with Brad Modlin

NOR 17

Fiction

Bonita Springs by Sam Duncan

The Abandoned by Chaitali Sen

The House That Griffey Built by Ian Denning

Smoke by Tom Cantwell

May B by Lois Taylor

We Are All Beyond Disgusting by Jill Kato

The Know-It-All by Jeff Spitzer

Poetry

Chandler Brossard by Kevin Prufer

Big Media by Kevin Prufer

Love You Excavation Work by Donald Platt

In Flight by Lloyd Schwartz

Tuesday Night by Corrie Lynn White

There’ll Be an Enormous Party by Patrick Ryan Frank

Hooked by David Yezzi

Let by David Yezzi

By a Car Door by Mark Belair

Brendan Lexicon by Brian Komei Dempster

Three Sacraments by Brooke Champagne

At the Narrows by Meredith Davies Hadaway

We Buy, Sell, Trade by Betsy Sholl

Summer Night by Suzanne Carey

One Solid Chassis Among Us by Susan Blackwell Ramsey

Looney Tunes by Nathan Anderson

The Day They Let You Go by Jocko Benoit

Inspiration by Mark Kraushaar

Rescue by Peter Leight

In the American Landscape by Peter Leight

The Lives of Puppets by Peter Leight

That’s Me Smiling in the Back Row by Elton Glaser

Venus Out on the Town by Shakira Croce

The Tenants of Feminism by Denise Duhamel

The Lake by Billy Collins

Alive by Lauren Hilger

On His Way in Finding the World by Dennis Sampson

Rumors About Dread Mills by Rodney Jones

The Ends of Stories by Karen Loeb

BBC by Mike Wright

My Mother Comes to Dinner by Sally Bliumis-Dunn

To Think of How Cold by Eleanor Wilner

Underworld by Eleanor Wilner

Jester’s Cap by Brandon Amico

Hum by Albert Goldbarth

Banality by Gregory Djanikian

Nowadays by Judy Rowe Michaels

Harping by Judy Rowe Michaels

Frog-Song by Tony Hoagland

Protection by Tony Hoagland

Fetch by Tony Hoagland

Nonfiction

Three Sacraments by Brooke Champagne

Regarding Isabelle Huppert by Tom Whalen

Where My Father Went by Sandy Gringas

Someone Else by Sandy Gringas

Feature: Uses & Abuses of Dialogue

A Trompe L’Oeil for the Mind’s Ear by J. Robert Lennon

Staying on the Elevator by Peter Mountford

Inside the Cave-Speak of Saunders by Leslie Daniels

I Deserve Two Firing Squads: Dialogue and Conflict in Fiction by Robert Anthony Siegel

A Brief Personal History of Dialogue by Kelly Luce

The Dialogue of Gesture and Silence by Alyce Miller

Dialogue: The Footfall of Its Wandering by Darrell Spencer

That Dialogue Assignment by Rebecca Makkai

NOR 16

Fiction

Innocent by Michael Caleb Tasker

Last Call by Penny Zang

The Hag’s Journey by Kim Addonizio

Coins for the Ferryman by David Denny

Tutti Frutti for Me by Andrea Simon

Poetry

The Light Factory by Sandy Gingras

POOF by Sandy Gingras

Tenderness by Dorothy Barresi

What Those Who Qualify Receive by Dorothy Barresi

The Egg by Eric Nelson

Gun on the Table by Eric Nelson

My Life with Pines by Tom Wayman

Activity Room by John Bargowski

When Luck Turns on You by Mark Smith

When Time Slows Down by Lawrence Raab

The Road by Lee Ann Dalton

Intercession by Jennifer Luebbers

Union Camp Music by Daneen Wardrop

Late December by Jacqueline Osherow

Pavlov’s Dog by Derek JG Williams

Nationally Competitive Cheerleader by Lauren Higler

Mexico by Dana Goetsch

Mrs. Morgenstern’s Cocktail Party Fast-Paced World by Dana Goetsch

Photograph Albums by George Kalogeris

For My 1st Ex-Lover to Die by Francesca Bell

Dialing the Dead by Mark Kraushaar

The Game by Steven Cramer

Sitting in a Simulated Living Space at the Seattle Ikea by Abby E. Murray

Seafood by Amanda Williamsen

Quality Control by David Clewell

Crisis on Infinite Earths, Issues 1-12 by Bethany Schultz Hurst

The Soul All Morning by A.V. Christie

The Pain Suit by Claire Bateman

Tropospheric by Claire Bateman

Purchase by Claire Bateman

Nonfiction

What You Said; What I Meant by Susan Morehouse

Envy by Patricia Horvath

Whatever I Might Say by Sydney Lea

2014 Contest Winners (Selected by Aimee Bender and Alan Shapiro)

WINNERS IN FICTION

The Undersized Negative by Robert Glick

Second Prize in Fiction

Small Boy by Joseph Scapellato

WINNERS IN POETRY

So That is What I Am by Stephanie Horvath

Cades Cove Water Wheel by Stephanie Horvath

Medicine by Stephanie Horvath

SECOND PRIZE IN POETRY

A Theory of Violence by Jennifer Perrine

Embarrassment: from baraco (halter) by Jennifer Perrine

Feature: Poems and Literal Truth

Should Poems Tell the Truth? By Lawrence Raab

Truthiness Demands by Daisy Fried

Where Are You Really Writing From? Reading and Writing Place and Experience by Adrienne Su

A Brief Response by Louise Glück

Telling the Truth in Poetry by Carl Dennis

Pants on Fire by Kim Addonizio

“Father” by Michael Ryan

NOR 15

Fiction

The Darkest Part of the Cloud by Jessica Langan-Peck

A Toast in Cancun by Charles Haverty

Connect by Glen Pourciau

All Ages by Conor Broughan

Unemployable by Dustin Nightingale

Everything is Flammable by Ashley Wurzbacher

Happy Endings by Kevin Canty

Poetry

Fear of the Bird Migration by Darren Morris

My Keats Year by James Davis May

Mystery Object by Sarah Galvin

The Professional by Michael Bazzett

Fastball Shy by Mike Schneider

Sunrise with Hydra by Michelle Boisseau

Still Listening by Robert Cording

My Dead Father Remembers My Birthday by Lesley Wheeler

Patina by Mark Cox

Finality by Mark Cox

Expecting by Audrey Naffziger

Sex and Death by Judith Pulman

Holy Sonnets with the Father by Judith Pulman

A Distant Relative by Ryan Meany

Hook and Eye by Sarah Barber

Rome in Us by Thomas Grout

A Poet in Rome by Franco Pagnucci

Pythagoras by Bruce Bond

Bobcat by Mikko Harvey

At the Metropolitan by Ellen Devlin

The Museum of Might-Have-Been by Anne-Marie Fyfe

A Gift From Wales by Carl Dennis

Three Houses and a Wish by Linda Bamber

My Grandmother the Mohel by Barbara Hamby

If You See Something by Billy Collins

Kickboxing with God by Jeffrey H. MacLachlan

The Ideal Budweiser Customer Watches a Budweiser Commercial by Danny Caine

At the Precise Moment of Your Awakening by Matt Morton

Telling the Truth by J. Anna Luz

Á la Carte by Denise Duhamel

Aftermath in Brine by Elton Glaser

Point of View by Jonathan Johnson

Nonfiction

Cups by Cecilia Pinto

At the Grave of Sadie Thorpe by Miles Harvey

Feature: Beguilling Beginning In Fiction

On Lauren Groff’s “L. DeBard and Aliette” by Caitlin Horrocks

On Edward P. Jones’s “The First Day” by Marjorie Celona

On William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow by Maura Stanton

On Graham Greene’s “Under the Garden” by David Lehman

On Barbara Comyns’s The Vet’s Daughter by Maud Casey

On Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” by Alyson Hagy

On Stanley Elkin’s “A Poetics for Bullies” by Tom Noyes

On Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha by Julia Glass

NOR 14

Fiction

Irgendwo, Nirgendwo by Dave Madden

The Tattoo Artist and the Barefoot Bandit by Pamela DiFrancesco

My Lovers #1-5, or Why I Hate Kenny Rogers by Donna Baier Stein

The Party by Ihab Hassan

Close Call by Tamara Dean

No Try, Only Do by Alan Rossi

Crimes of the Video Age by Bradley Bazzle

Poetry

Joe’s Tax by Dana Goetsch

Looking on the Bright Side Back Then by John Brehm

Late January Protest Against The Betrayers of The Dream by David Rivard

Scooter by David Rivard

The Song of the Lark by Albert Goldbarth

At a Pet Shop by Tom Whalen

probity by Michael Casey

this is it by Michael Casey

For Claude Monet by Michael Casey

My Phoenix Period by Ellen Wright

Rats by Rosanna Warren

The Rescuer by Mary Di Luca

The End of Parallel Play by Mary Di Luca

Attachment by Mary Di Luca

Delivering Christmas Dinner to My Daughter, Second Shift Charge Nurse on the Alzheimer Floor by John Bargowski

Up on Blocks by Jim Daniels

Revision by Catherine Freeling

The House by Brian Swann

The Novel by Brian Swann

All Eyes by Billy Collins

Divinity by Billy Collins

What Forever Means by Maria Nazos

My Father Works on Dying by Mary Parham

Memo by Todd Hearon

Reciprocal by James Davis May

The Star of “Interstate” by Chard deNiord

Kodachrome by Mark Cox

Alcohol by Mark Cox

No Picnic in the Afterlife by Mark Cox

Doing Demolition Work Again by Jamie Thomas

Sappho as Sibyl by Lynn Hoggard

Ichor by David Wojahn

Nonfiction

The Skirts and Blouses are Hatched by Tam Lin Neville

Seven to One by Eleanor Stanford

Feature: Translation Cruxes II

Like a Struck Tuning Fork: On Translating Sound in Tranströmer’s “The Station” by Patty Crane

On Translating Choctaw Poems by Marcia Haag

Sense and Serendipity: The Masochistic Art of Translating Surrealism by Mark Polizzotti

Finding the Just Name: On Translating Ismailov by Robert Chandler

Translating Thai Artist Wisut Ponnimit from Japanese to English by Matthew Chozik

The Stones and the Earth: On Translating Wieslaw Myśliwski’s Stone Upon Stone by Bill Johnston

On Translating Cavafy’s “Come, O King of the Lacedaimonians” by George Economou

The Homophonic Imagination: On Translating Modern Greek Poetry by Karen Van Dyck

NOR 13

Fiction

The Thing in the Trees by Anna Shearer

The Rules of the Game by Simon Barker

Fault Line by Margot Singer

The Tunnel by Kate McIntyre

The Lady from TV is Coming by Sabrina Jaszi

But it Moves by D.J. Thielke

Poetry

Not Ready for Our Close-Up by Elton Glaser

Ode to the Republic by Tony Hoagland

Namaste by George Bilgere

Snorkeling by Allison Funk

June by Michael Bazzett

Nothing by Lawrence Raab

A Beverage and the Weather by Isabel Brome Gaddis

The Nod by Kenneth Hart

Couples by Kenneth Hart

Never Better by Mark Kraushaar

Song for the Returning of the Year by Marcia Karp

Earning a Title by Jaclyn Dwyer

Sweet Spot by Ange Mlinko

How I Save My Husband’s Life by Patricia McMillen

Dannon by Anya Silver

Deep Ink by Albert Goldbarth

Short Lists on a Diagnosis by Aran Donovan

A Simple Request by Patricia Corbus

Announcement: The Theme of Tonight’s Party Has Been Changed by Dana Roeser

Night Party by Fay Dillof

The Difference Between Us by Jill Osier

My Chance by Marcia Karp

I Take the Bullet for Him He Knows by Mary Di Lucia

Keyring by Maura Stanton

Jonah by Maura Stanton

Two Fuzzy Bees by Maura Stanton

First Place by Suzanne Cleary

1974: The Raspberries by Campbell McGrath

Recitations by Estanislao Lopez

The Call by Michael Chitwood

Title Search for the Italian Ashbery Book by Damiano Abeni

Nonfiction

Here in Marquette by Richard Hackler

Wheels by Ann Harleman

Whose Story is This? By Barbara Hurd

Feature: Translation Cruxes

On Translating Virgil by David Ferry

from an alphabet of Proust Translation Problems: Z by Lydia Davis

On Translating Strand and Ashbery by Damiano Abeni and Moira Egan

On Translating Tolstoy by Rosamund Bartlett

On Translating Cavafy by George Kalogeris

On Translating Szymborska by Joanna Trzeciak

On Translating Eco by Geoffrey Brock

NOR 12

Fiction

Fidelity by William Lychack

Mr. Linsey’s Angels by Erika Seay

Play it by Ear by Claudia Peirce

The Hittite by Alex Myers

The Down by Mollie Ficek

Animal Science by Michael Davis

From The Secret Correspondence: A Novel of Novels by Tom Whalen

2012 Winner in Fiction: A Man’s Game by Elizabeth Buchanan

2012 Second Prize in Fiction: Return of the Media Five by Maya Sonenburg

Poetry

Rituals by Suzanne Carey

My Father’s New Woman by Fleda Brown

The Lawyer Formerly Known As Me by Craig van Rooyen

If Only I’d Met You Earlier by Adrienne Su

The Circus Lion’s Lament by Michael Derrick Hudson

Animals by Brock Guthrie

Appropriate Interjection by Brock Guthrie

Might by Nate Pillman

Dialysis by Emily Schulten

Circe and the Baby by Janet McNally

Chimera by Janet McNally

Dispensation by Johnathan Johnson

Timeline by Amy Pickworth

250 Rebel by Leslie Anne Mcilroy

Clods of Snow by Eric Higgins

Let Me Bore You With My Powerpoint by Lee Upton

I Came Back From the East by Mark Neely

The Sinking of the Library by Claire Bateman

Aunt Lydia Tries to Explain the Many Worlds Theory by Sarah Lindsay

Carnivorous Sponges of the Antarctic Ocean by Sarah Lindsay

Radium by Sarah Lindsay

The Banks of the Seine, Before the Divorce by Catherine Freeling

Making the Bed by Sarah Wells

Haiku For a Divorce by Emily Leithauser

Baltimore on Fire by Emily Leithauser

Last Night Ferguson’s Caught Fire by Laura Read

2012 Winner in Poetry: Craigslist by Maya Jewell Zeller

2012 Second Prize in Poetry: Whisper to the Coast by Christina Hutchins

Nonfiction

In the Second Month of Parched Land by Daiva Markelis

En (E)spiral by Michelle Richards

Feature

On a passage from Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women by Ann Harleman

On a passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby by Ralph Lombreglia

On a passage from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway by Elizabeth Searle

On two passages by Lewis Nordan by John Dufresne

On a passage from Pam Houston’s “Dall” by Melinda Moustakis

On a passage from Raymond Carver’s “Chef’s House” by Bret Lott

NOR 11

Drama

Unicom by Tony Hoagland

Poetry

Old Love Poems by Denise Duhamel

Clear and Cold by Lisa Ampleman

The Muse of Work by Ellen Bass

Dispatches From the Interior by Geoffrey Brock

The Dark by Maggie Smith

Lanterns by Maggie Smith

Dhaka Nocturne by Tarfia Faizullah

Cold Front Approaching by Jene Erick Beardsley

Overflow by David Gullette

Birds in Cemeteries by George Kalogeris

Pelicans by Robert Cording

Yet by Eric Torgersen

Awake by Richard Schiffman

Unfinished by Richard Schiffman

Beach Towel by Alan Shapiro

The Open Door by Alan Shapiro

Tauromaquia by Deborah Casillas

Standing on the Desk by Donna L. Emerson

Back Flip by Dana Goetsch

Trust by Liz Kingsley

Clarence, Sunday Meditation Meeting at the Surf Club by Dana Roeser

When People Watch You by Nathan Anderson

Stupid Sandwich by Nathan Anderson

Opening the Cottage by Christina Cook

Funeral Service by Albert Goldbarth

Away by Albert Goldbarth

Child With Flower, 2011 by Albert Goldbarth

Remembered Grace by Jim Daniels

Speed of Light by Mark Irwin

Should I Take it As A Sign by Sue D. Burton

The Suggestion Box by Billy Collins

Collaboration by Billy Collins

Fiction

What you Find, When you Find It by Jeff P. Jones

Strapless by Z.Z. Boone

Zig Zag. Yeah. by Scott Kreeger

Crow by William Kelley Woolfitt

Wax Museumby William Kelley Woolfitt

The Swans by Anamyn Turrowski

The Jagua rs of Southtown by Amos Jasper Wright

The Farm by Spencer Wise

Everything Equal by Joseph Holt

Nonfiction

Throw it Up by Suzanne Richardson

Take Your Trash and Let It Fly by Devin Murphy

Intervention by Shannon Robinson

Feature

Preface to “Making It Up” by Ron Padgett

Woody Woodpecker Goes To Paris by Allen Ginsberg and Kenneth Koch

Some Remarks on Collaboration by Tom Whalen

Love as Rehearsal for Writing by Lee Carroll

Collaboration Queens (Or How The Chapbook, ABBA: The Poems, Came to Be) by Denise Duhamel and Amy Lemmon

Changing the Record: A Poetry Collaboration in the ‘70s and ‘80s by Ron Horning and David Lehman

The Story Behind Penguins by Patty Mitchell

Where the Path Leads: Collaboration, Revision, and Friendship by Lawerence Raab

NOR 10

Poetry

Layover by Erica Dawson

Entropy by Tracey Knapp

Women’s College by Kenneth Hart

When It’s That Time for Piranhas by Michael Derrick Hudson

Writing Memoir by Melanie McCabe

After Rosenkavalier by Natalia Rosenfeld

I Am an Emerging Poet by Ellen Wright

The Ante by Rodney Jones

The Morning Table by Albert Abonado

Awareness by Daniel Hoffman

Night Journey by Daniel Hoffman

A Night’s Work by Marcia Menter

Satori by Marcia Menter

At the Family Graveyard by Catherine Freeling

Collision by Catherine Freeling

Ridge, Wedge, Ring by Catherine Freeling

Saying Goodbye to Dad by Kate Fetherston

Snow by Kate Fetherston

Home Movie by Mark Kraushaar

Maritime by Mark Kraushaar

Downloading the Meltdown by Elton Glaser

In the Season of Early Dark by Elton Glaser

Solo in the Skeleton Key by Elton Glaser

One Day Your Parents Confess You Have a Twin by Todd Boss

Elegance by Fleda Brown

Spring Cleaning by Laura McCullough

The Marathon by Richard Cecil

Traverse City by George Bilgere

Journal by George Bilgere

Royalty by George Bilgere

The Usual Way by Sydney Lea

Gaia’s Inn by Greg Delanty

Slip by Jeffery Harrison

Commuter Buddhist by Jeffery Harrison

2011 Poetry Prize Winner: A Mile In by Julie Hanson

2011 Poetry Second Place Prize Winner: Pretending to be Asleep & Owen and Paul by Angie Mazakis

Fiction

The Last Speaker of the Language by Carol Anshaw

Sixteen in Vegas by Anastasia Selby

Massage Parlor by Patricia McMillen

On the Strand by Dave Kim

Hurricane Season by Julia Jackson

A Gift by Patricia Ann Sanders

Fuchsprellen by Rob McClure Smith

Queenie by Jeff W. Bens

2011 Fiction Prize Winner: The Rush of Losing by Daniel Larkins

2011 Second Place Prize Winner: The Truest Thing by Emily Nagin

Nonfiction

Times Pieces by Susan Morehouse

I Love Your Sunhat by Patricia Foster

Feature

On 35 Shots of Rum by Claudia Rankine

Antonioni at Nineteen by Jeffery Harrison

Death, Cashews, and No Country for Old Men by George Bilgere

On Lubitsch’s Angel by Lloyd Schwartz

On Tomorrow is Forever by Laurence Goldstein

Acting the Truth by Linda Bamber

NOR 9

Poetry

Where Do We Go After We Die by Steve Orlen

Fly by Joyce Peseroff

Stage IV by Anya Silver

Leaving the Hospital by Anya Silver

Happiness by Ellen Bass

What Comes Next by Maxine Scates

Shadow Crossing by Barbara Siegel Carlson

The Prize by George Eukland

Match.com by Elizabeth Powell

Chemistry.com by Elizabeth Powell

Aubade with Mascara by Chelsea Henderson

Dear Doris Day by Pamela Davis

The Lecture by Billy Collins

At the Mall by Carl Dennis

Forever by Carl Dennis

Engagement by Adam Sol

The Ugly Law by Jillian Weise

Abundance by Chelsea Rathburn

How it Happened by Chelsea Rathburn

Wet Carpet Awakening by Kevin Stein

In the Family by Catherine Freeling

Playing my Part by Sharon Dolin

Palimpsest by Todd Hearon

Hominid Up by Neil Shepard

Any Time Soon by Joshua McKinney

Mrs. Buddha Calls on Mrs. God by Patricia McMillen

The Age of Iron by Tony Hoagland

The Messenger by Tony Hoagland

Fiction

Elevator Roulette by Dan Moreau

Luna de Miel by Melanie Unruh

July 4th, 1984 by Maggie Mitchell

Survey of my Exes by Joseph Bates

Amerikanka by Maria Kuznetsova

Soul patch by Tom Noyes

Nonfiction

Solstice by Maya Sonenburg

Ancient History by Adam Gilbreath

The Two Lances by Scott Nadelson

Feature

On Susan Wood’s “In America” and Dana Levin’s “The Nurse,” by Wayne Miller

On Carol Ann Duffy’s “Rapture” and Michael Laskey’s “Offering,” by Helena Nelson

On Mark Strand’s “The Idea” and Dennis Schmitz’s “Kindergarten,” by David Rivard

NOR 8

Poetry

Bell Tower by Dean Young

Pear by Emily Wheeler

Honeycomb, Calling by Albert Goldbarth

Smallish by Albert Goldbarth

End Times by Albert Goldbarth

Minding Rites by David Yezzi

How to be Sad by Laura Read

Extracts from the Consoler’s Handbook by Amy Gerstler

Misterioso by Sydney Lea

Heroic by Lawrence Raub

A Giant Bird by Kevin Prufer

The Ruins by Knute Skinner

Her Sister by Knute Skinner

Ocean State Job Lot by Stephanie Burt

Here, Pulling by Daneen Wardrop

More Lies by Karin Gottshall

Minneapolis by Campbell McGrath

Geography Lesson by Christopher Howell

All About Skin by Leslie Adrienne Miller

Carnival Nocturne by Mark Wagenaar

I’ll Meet You in the Isenheim Altarpiece by Terry Witek

Midnight Train by Karina Borowicz

On a Thursday Afternoon of His Life by Michael Chitwood

The Elements Will Have Their Way by Michael Chitwood

Introduction to my Latest Effort by Robin Hemley

Qu’est-ce qu’il y a? By Julie Hanson

Always a Little Something Somewhere in the Purse by Julie Hanson

Ankle Deep by Mary Christine Delea

Old Snapshot by Jay Rogoff

Illustration from an Early Reader by Nick Norwood

At Sea by Nick Norwood

Last Days of Antarctica Women’s Prison by Mary Di Lucia

Love by Stephen Dunn

Love Songs by Dana Goetsch

The Crypt on the Rock by James May

One Pearl by James May

Feeling Sorry for Myself While Standing Before the Stegosaurus at the Natural History Museum in London by Michael Derrick Hudson

Disintegration of Purpose at Cocoa Beach, Florida (Part 1) by Michael Derrick Hudson

The Businessman Cleans a Mermaid for His Supper by Michael Derrick Hudson

Valuable Lessons Learned on Delaware Bay After the Horseshoe Crabs Came Ashore to Spawn by Michael Derrick Hudson

Fiction

Critical Insect Studies by Tom Whalen

Pages from the Textbook of Alternate History: The Great Pyre of Egypt by Phong Nguyen

Too Much by Natania Rosenfeld

The Fake I.D. by Scott Garson

Is That You, John Wayne? By Scott Garson

Living with the Dead by Patrick Hicks

An Heiress Walks Into a Bar by Karen Brown

Communication with Distant Life Forms by Josh Peterson

The Red Bird by Joanne Fisher

Nonfiction

Putting Girls on the Map by Irene Keliher

Opera, or: Longing by Natania Rosenfeld

Feature

On Grace Paley’s “In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All” by Michael Griffith

On Jean Rhys’ “I Used to Live Here Once” by Sylvia Watanabe

On Rereading Gabriel García Máquez by Juliana Baggot

On Rereading Donald Barthelme by Peter Ho Davies

On Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Peter Turchi

On Virginia Woolf’s Orlando by Karen Brennan

On Paula Fox’s The Widow’s Children by Charles Baxter

NOR 7

Poetry

My Sky Diary by Claire Bateman

Tree Talk by Claire Bateman

A Pocket Introduction to Our Universe by Claire Bateman

What Bliss, When Exuberance Overruns Its Banks by Lance Larsen

Between the Heaves of Storm by Lance Larsen

Brushes with #3 by Emily Toder

Jenne’s Rose by Jacqueline Osherow

Given a God More Playful by Christian Wiman

Hermitage by Christian Wiman

Mysterious Neighbors by Connie Wanek

Possum by David Wagoner

Listen by Eric Schwerer

California Father by Colette Inez

The Woman Who Didn’t Know How by Maya Jewell Zeller

Help is On the Way by John Brehm

An Iris Murdoch Reader by John Drexel

Compline by Cynthia Huntington

Love Song (Lame) by Courtney Queeney

Knuckling Down by Dennis O’Driscoll

What I’ll Settle for by Sarah Grieve

Lonesome While Kissing by Jim Daniels

Two Satellites by Laurence Goldstein

La Vie Ordinaire by Mark Kraushaar

Cake by Mark Kraushaar

Bridal Shower by George Bilgere

Kalypso by Ernest Hilbert

Having intended to merely pick on an oil company, the poem goes awry by Bob Hicok

Even So by Richard Jackson

The Day After My Death by Jeff Worley

Another Poem After César Vallejo by Suzanne Lummis

House on the Lake by Liz Robbins

At the River View Café by Chard deNiord

Half-Acre by Kristen Staby Rembold

Horn by Robert Pinsky

Piano Lesson by Gregory Djanikian

I Want to Talk About You by Angie Estes

In my Dream, Coleman Hawkins by David Clewell

Grunge by Yusef Komunyakaa

A Poem Written Inside a Big Round Machine by Yusef Komunyakaa

Fiction

Ballade Pour Jardine by Nicole Lee

Her New Plan by Kevin Casey

Prostate Frank Finds True Love by Ron MacLean

Murray’s by Richard Dokey

Five Rooms by Christine Sneed

Nonfiction

The Last Litter by Melissa Cistaro

Men and Refrigeration by Heather Sellers

Waterfront Property by Barrie Jean Borich

Influence by Sydney Lea

Homer and Jazz by Ralph M. Rosen

Feature

ALTERED VIEWS

From a Broken Ant-hill by Peter Campion

On James Merrill by Rachel Hadas

Resisting The Rape of the Lock by Laurence Goldstein

Cellular Change by Marianne Boruch

Tight Spots by Brad Leithauser

A Fish and a Pity by Steven Kramer

Self Beyond Recall by Eleanor Wilner

Just a Goll-durn Minute… by Stephen Corey

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers by Nancy Eimers

Disinhibited by Stephen Burt

On the Author of “The Paddiad” by Christopher Ricks

NOR 6

Poetry

Fame by David Gullette

Letter to Myself, in Remission, from Myself, Terminal by Anya Silver

The Stairwell by Knute Skinner

The Hot Dog by Knute Skinner

Objective Correlative by Ann Keniston

Takeout, 2008 by Denise Duhamel

Grimace by Heather June Gibbons

The Briefcase by Mark Cox

All that Shimmers and Settles Along the Roads of our Passage by Mark Cox

A Discreet Charm by Stephen Dunn

Superman at 95 by Gregory Djanikian

Life as Lucy by Lisa Bellamy

1959 by James Harn

Don’ Like by Charles Harper Webb

Dismantled for Goodwill, Our Son’s Crib Leans by Charles Harper Webb

Here by C. Wade Bentley

In the Light of Day by Tadeusz Różewicz

My Lips by Tadeusz Różewicz

High Noon by Eleanor Wilner

Good God by Mark Jarman

Anathema by Natasha Sajé

Aphorism Aporia by A.E. Stallings

Summer at Pitch 77 by Alex Green

They’ll Know When You’re Gone by Alex Green

Blue Door Option by Alex Green

Cherry Pop-TartsⓇ by Heather McNaugher

Only Hat by Julie Hanson

The Vacuum by Julie Hanson

The Whole of the Law of Our Human Vision by Albert Goldbarth

A Weather by Albert Goldbarth

“He held out his hand…” by Albert Goldbarth

Bad by Stephen Cramer

November by Richard Cecil

Climber by Richard Cecil

Yet by Eric Torgersen

Scenario by Eric Torgersen

Sex by Michael Madonick

Screensaver: Pharaoh by David Wojahn

Why Men Don’t Write About Their Wives by Dennis Sampson

The Gray Museum by Sydney Lea

My Daughter’s Narcolepsy by Keith Taylor

Anthropomorphic Duck by Robert Wrigley

Horse, Alone, November by Joyce Peseroff

Fiction

Reverend Tyree (excerpted from the novel Haints) by Clint McCown

How Someone Can Not Recognize You by Aja Gabel

Nonfiction

Quite a Storm by Brenda Miller

A Permanent Home by Nicole Walker

The Mixer by Leslie Daniels

Foreign Excellent by Michelle Herman

Features

FICTION

The Animal Trade by Christine Nicolai

POETRY

Fireflies by Cecilia Woloch

Carpathia by Cecilia Woloch

STORIES THAT HAVEN’T GOTTEN THE ATTENTION THEY DESERVE

On Lucia Berlin’s “Maggie May” by Lydia Davis

On Gerald Shapiro’s “Bad Jews” by Stuart Dybek

On Stephanie Vaughn’s “Dog Heaven” by Carol Anshaw

On Donald Barthelme’s “The School” by Max Apple

On Bernard Malamud’s “In Kew Gardens” by Alan Cheuse

On John L’Heureux’s “The Comedian” by Erin McGraw

On Gilbert Sorrentino’s “The Moon In Its Flight” by Robert Cohen

On John Fowles’ “The Ebony Tower” by Nicholas Delbanco

On Anita Desai’s “The Accompanist” by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

On Alice McDermott’s “Enough” by Tracy Daugherty

On James Kaplan’s “In Miami, Last Winter” by Steven Schwartz

On Mavis Gallant’s “The Remission” by Andrea Barrett

On Mavis Gallant’s “Mlle. Dias de Corta” by Francine Pose

On Robert Stone’s “Helping” by Jim Shepard

On Charles Baxter’s “Fenstad’s Mother” by Rosellen Brown

NOR 5

Poetry

Tool Box by Maura Stanton

Fortune Cookie by Maura Stanton

Penny Red by Maura Stanton

On the Beach (1959) by Maggie Smith

The Mood by Carl Dennis

Recall Notice by Carl Dennis

Things we Demand to Know by Glenn Shaheen

Variation on a Letter from Schoenberg to Mahler by Nina Corwin

On Velvet Turf by Mary Ruefle

Helium by Mary Ruefle

Dylan’s Lips by Michelle Boisseau

It’s Fun to Feel Superior by Michelle Boisseau

Feel Better by Mary Ann Samyn

Give Me a Moment by William Olsen

Cabbages Across the Manitou Island by William Olsen

Indoor Municipal Pool by Alan Shapiro

Downtown Strip Club by Alan Shapiro

Wet Jade Someone by George David Clark

To a Rose by Kim Addonizio

Yes by Kim Addonizio

Cocaine Saturday Nights by Stephanie Pine

Pediment by David Gewanter

Teddy Agonistes by Teddy Macker

My Father Tells Me a Story by Tony Hoagland

Migrants by Barbara Siegel Carlson

Outbound Fall River 1967 by David Rivard

Wordsworthian by David Rivard

Free Period by David Yezzi

I’m sorry it has nothing by Sydney Lea

Early Life by Sydney Lea

The Exegete by Terri Witek

New World by David Baker

Saint Monica and the Devil’s Place by Mary Biddinger

Chrystal and Shane by Bridget Bell

Sparrow by George Bilgere

Whirlpool by George Bilgere

Faculty Lounge by George Bilgere

Breakfast with Salesmen Before the Poetry Reading by David Wagoner

The Meeting by Catie Rosemurgy

Omens by Kathleen McGookey

The Ache by Kathleen McGookey

After by Kathleen McGookey

How She Lost Her Mind by April Linder

Y at the End of It by Nancy Eimers

Glacier by Nancy Eimers

A Moment by Wislawa Syzmborska

The Three Strangest Words by Wislawa Syzmborska

Little Girl Pulling Off the Tablecloth by Wislawa Syzmborska

The Puddle by Wislawa Syzmborska

A Note by Wislawa Syzmborska

ABC by Wislawa Syzmborska

Fiction

Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry by Christine Sneed

A Lost Ashtray by Edward Mullany

The Number One by Ashley Cowger

The Beard by Phil Edwards

Barbeque by Roberta Allen

From the Life of a Project Manager by Tom Whalen

Nonfiction
Inheritance by Harrison Candelaria Fletcher

Truck by Jerry Williams

The God-Blurred World by Joe Bonomo

Camouflage by Richard Robbins

Feature

Considering Wislawa Syzmborska

Thinking Out Loud by Lawerence Raab

On Szymborska by Carl Dennis

That Threshold (If It Is a Threshold) by Sally Ball

Vaster: Wislawa Syzmborska and Elizabeth Bishop by Kathy Fagan

“Non Omis Moriar”: Reading Szymborska in Translation by Jennifer Clarvoe

On Szymborska’s “Travel Elergy” by William Olsen

To Keep On Not Knowing by Michelle Boisseau

All the World’s a Stage: Some Thoughts on Szymborska by Rachel Wetzsteon

Everything, All At Once by Marianne Boruch

Heaven by Subtraction – Szymborska’s Skeptical Wonder by Tony Hoagland

Influence by Sydney Lea

Homer and Jazz by Ralph M. Rosen

Pantoum With Lines From Lucille Clifton’s Memoir by Angela Narciso Torres

From the Archive: “Audition” by Leslie Rodd

NOR 4

Poetry

Chefs by Claire Bateman

At the Dinner Party by Stephen Dunn

Mercy by Stephen Dunn

‘69 by Kathy Fagan

Constant Craving by Kathy Fagan

Birthday Party by Jack Myers

My Life by Jack Myers

Plans by Jack Myers

The History of Forgetting by Lawrence Raab

The Weed Wacker Makes Me Yearn for the Scythe by Lawrence Raab

Little Bird by Lawrence Raab

So Near Yet So Farby Angie Estes

Here Lightning Has Been by Angie Estes

Anderson Inside the Hurricane by Stefi Weisburd

Degeneration by Stefi Weisburd

Reunion by Bruce Weigl

The Last One by Bruce Weigl

Travel: Choler by Neil Shepard

Charlie Chaplin by Ryan Fox

Fantaisie Basque by Mary Di Lucia

Beauty Russe by Mary Di Lucia

Watchman, Tell Us by Michael Chitwood

Letter to a Feverish Child by Peter Mishler

Facing by Maya Jewell Zeller

I Enter an Ancient City in a Dream by Steve Orlen

The Purple Cloak by Steve Orlen

Damn the Manacle by Anne Shaw

Heroine in Repose by Rick Bursky

I Want Kalypso by Mitchell Metz

The Reversal by Billy Collins

Bathtub Families by Billy Collins

Chicken by Stephen Cramer

The Night I Proposed by Peter Stokes

Haircut Talk by Peter Stokes by Mark Kraushaar

Third Street Muscles and Fitness by Mark Kraushaar

Fiction

Failight by René Houtrides

Tableaux Vivants by Katherine Lien Chariot

Freesoil by Aaron Hellem

The Effects of Laudanum by William Todd Seabrook

Nonfiction

Loneliness: Fourteen Variations by Barbara Hurd

Bullies by Emily Douglas

Features

Contest Winner’s

IN NONFICTION

Eight Photographs by Kim Adrian

IN FICTION

The Way Lighthouses Work by Andrew Brininstool

IN POETRY

Uh-Oh Time by Kenneth Hart

Having Not Heard Back from You by Kenneth Hart

The Way Things Look by Kenneth Hart

Frederick Barthelme Feature:

Sun Deluxe by Frederick Barthelme

Interview with Frederick Barthelme by Gary Percesepe

Rereading Frederick Barthelme’s “Shopgirls” (Minimalism and Prosaics) by B.W. Jorgensen

Feature: Poets on Novels

On Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee by David Gewanter

On American Genius: A Comedy by Lynne Tillman by Robert Polito

On Mr. Mani by A.B. Yehoshua by Natasha Sajé

On Waiting by Ha Jin by Adrienne Su

On The Death of the Detective by Mark Smith by Mark CoxOn The Road by Cormac McCarthy by Rodney Jones

NOR 3

Unearthing the Sky by Claire Bateman

Intellectual Property by Claire Bateman

April 1: Dropping & Carrying by Claire Bateman

The Disappeared by Blake Butler

The History of Longing by Steven Coughlin

Dunes by Mark Cox

Wrong Time for Caution by Eric Freeze

What it Feels Like to Be This Tall by Dobby Gibson

Why I’m Afraid of Heaven by Dobby Gibson

Manifesto of the Disabled Text by Johannes Göransson & Joyelle McSweeney

From Home/Birth a lyric essay by Arielle Greenberg & Rachel Zucker

Election Day by David Gullette

Blonde by Tony Hoagland

Playboy by Tony Hoagland

Growth by Marc Elihu Hofstadter

104 by Rodney Jones

Feelings, by Ashley Higgins by Rodney Jones

From Nearest Istanbul by Phillip Kobylarz

Postcards by Kelly Luce

Incinerated with a Rose by Carole Maso

From Sonnagrams by K. Silem Mohammad

From Demosthenes’s Legacy (II) by Jonathan Monroe

From Coal Mountain Elementary by Mark Nowak & Ian Teh

In which I first discovered by Emily Pérez

The Bad Wife by Elizabeth Powell

The Ear of the Behearer: A Conversation in Jazz by Jed Rasula & Brent Hayes Edwards

Elegy by Bill Rector

From A Hundred Preambles by Ariana Reines

Nothing Stays Buried, Hector Flores by Andrew Michael Roberts

There Was a War by Andrew Michael Roberts

Miss Peach Considers #8: Reproduce by Catie Rosemurgy

Miss Peach Considers the Human Condition by Catie Rosemurgy

He and I by Natania Rosenfeld

Hampstead Heath: A Sketch by Natania Rosenfeld

From The Autochronotistics Epicycle by Paul Stephens & Robert Weston

It Was When by Cole Swensen

In Waves by Cole Swensen

Susurrus Stanzas (Sutro Baths) by Brian Teare

Truce by Jerry Williams

NOR 2

Neg by David Abel

Spirit Photograph by Dorothy Barresi

My Father’s Photograph by Jenny Boully

From Snow Sensitive Skin by Taylor Brady and Rob Halpern

Sock Monkey by Jennifer Bryan

The Sworn Unknown by Leslie Bumstead

Still: Dollar by Matthew Cooperman

Still: Winter by Matthew Cooperman

Still: Life by Matthew Cooperman

Wind by Michael Czyzniejewski

A text made of by Jill Darling

From Talking out of School: Memoir of an Educated Woman by Kass Fleisher

Psalms by Sandy Florian

To the Writer by Graham Foust

Resuscitation by Cal Freeman

Home Video of the Tiger Swallowing by Erin Gay

I Will Carve Like You’re on Fire by Johannes Göransson

A New Quarantine Will Take My Place by Johannes Göransson

Spiriting, Our Hive by Rob Halperm

A Conversation on the Objective Reading of Poems by Barbara Hamby, Kevin Prufer and Michael Theune

Notre histoire sinister by Michael Joyce

Une danse des rêves by Michael Joyce

From Scrambler: The (Un)Sheeted Mirror by Kenneth King

My Dark Places by Laura Larson

Girls̩ by Brian Lennon

Placebo and the Minutiae of Tiny Instruments by Clay Matthews

Water We Made Ourselves by Sara McKinnon

Decussation: Notes on the Quincunx; or, Autobiography; or, Another Place to Begin by Laura Moriarty & Brent Cunningham

From The Presence of Their Passing by Andrew Mossin

The Price of Silence by Jennifer Moxley

Day Poem by Mel Nichols

Charles Babbage’s Black Book Parsed via Brian Oliu by Brian Oliu

From The Powers of Sleep by Jacqueline Risset

Longing by Natania Rosenfeld (translated from the French by Jennifer Moxley)

Language by Tomaž Šalamun (translated from the Slovenian by Joshua Beckman and the author)

From Gozd in Kelihi (Woods and Chalices) by Porta di Leone (translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry and the author)

Vases From Gozd in Kelihi (Woods and Chalices) by Porta di Leone (translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry and the author)

The Five Enslaements: An Essay in Four Parts by Lisa Samuels

Something like a Buick by L. E. Smith

Jade Talks From The Spider Poems by Rod Smith

sprawl by Matthew Ira Swaye

V by Jon Thompson

XXIX by Jon Thompson

In the Yard with Clara by Nance Van Winckel

The Boy Who Ran Away from Me by David Wagoner

Walking along the Beach with a Five-Year-Old by David Wagoner

From One Way/No Exit by G. C. Waldrep

Berlin Wall / Buchenwald by Barrett Watten

The Doctor by Kara Westerman

At the Core by Corinne Wohlford Taff

NOR 1

Diary of a Journalist by Joshua Auerbach

Chaos Effect by Joshua Auerbach

Draft 68: Threshold by Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Draft 76: Work Table with Scale Models by Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Dinner Party by V.L. Bond

Tribute to Richard Pryor by V.L. Bond

Wiara / Faith by Andrzej Bursa (translated from Polish by Kevin Christianson and Halina Ablamowicz)

The Immortals by Rick Bursky

In Memory of the Rock Band Breaking Circus by Stephen Burt

Feathers of the Bird of Paradise by François Camoin

Prelude & Fugue by Tyler Carter

Sprocket vs. Cause by Tyler Carter

Blessing for Protest by Karla Clark

Psalm by Adam Clay

Sonnet (from “Stlyes of Love and Negation”) by Stephen Cope

Aboulia by Joshua Corey

Lithophobe by Joshua Corey

Public Poem by John Gallaher

The Disease of Clocks by John Gallaher

From Figures for a Darkroom Voice by Noah Eli Gordon and Joshua Marie Wilkinson

Treason by Allen Grossman

A Gust of Wind by Allen Grossman

A Kiss for You by Allen Grossman

From Adorno’s Noise by Carla Harryman

From Bicentury (New Rows and Locks) by Erika Howsare

Jewish Community Center of Houston by Lisa Jarnot

Alberta, Canada by Lisa Jarnot

From Bass Cathedral by Nathaniel Mackey

Tocqueville by Khaled Mattawa

From Nylund, the Sarcographer by Joyelle McSweeney

From Liner Notes by Andrew Mister

The Age of Dinosaurs by Rosalind Morris

The Pampering of Leora by Thylias Moss

World View by Thylias Moss

Affair-Proof Your Marriage: A Manual (Installment Seven) by Kirk Nesset

Dear Editor: 5 October 2005 by Amy Newman

Dear Editor: 30 October 2005 by Amy Newman

A Critical Exchange on Selected Poems Expanded Edition, Including Selections from Day by Day by Robert Lowell with a Foreword by Frank Bidart

Journal Excerpts by Tom Pickard

The Cigarette / La cigarette by Francis Ponge (Translated by Graham Foust)

The Candle / La bougie by Francis Ponge (Translated by Graham Foust)

Rain / Pluie by Francis Ponge (Translated by Graham Foust)

The Last Simplicity / La dernière Simplicité by Francis Ponge (Translated by Graham Foust)

From The Distance between Here&After by Kristin Prevallet

Snow White: Taxidermy by Donna Prinzmetal

Four Suggestions by Khadijah Queen

Excerpt from the Novel U.P. by Ron Riekki

Are We Alone? Is It Safe to Speak? By Mary Ruefle

Countryside by Zach Savich

From Conversations with My Father: A Meditation on Life and Death by David Shields

Hiding Places by Charles Simic

One Wing of the Museum by Charles Simic

You Are Only Half of You by Shannon Tharp

The Whole Scene Comes before Us by Shannon Tharp

From Truax Inimical by Rodrigo Toscano

Gnosis by Theodore Worozbyt

Beans by Theodore Worozbyt

Song by Dean Young

Rose Prick by Dean Young

Online Exclusives

June 2024

Arizona Snow Globe by Dan Wriggins

Transitioning Glasses by Lauren Camp

Things of the Earth by David B. Prather

We Grow Apples by Owen Thomas

Evie and Adam at the Farmer’s Market by Linda Ann Strang

How to Remove a Hot Sauce Stain by Dan Wriggins

Remedies by Mickie Kennedy

Jam Sandwich by Patrick Kindig

Steal a Grape by David B. Prather

In haraqa al-film by Jory Mickelson

Chapter IV. The Suffocation of the Mother by Savannah DiGregorio

Almost Heavenly Babies by Aimee Parkinson

A Small Room Off To The Side by Ockert Greeff

Coworker by Kate Hubbard

No One Wants To See Morning Doves Fucking by Patrick Kindig

Leave rocks here by Georgina McKay Lodge

A Peacock on Niner Hill by Jennifer Schomburg Kanke

Grimace by Mickie Kennedy

College Days by Rob Cording

In poetry school by Leigh K. Sugar

What It Looks Like by Emily Wheeler

The Man in the Mirror by Marissa Yuan

Impossible by Dion O’Reilly

The Lyric Moment Lasts by Dion O’Reilly

Love Poem in The Unfortunate by Danny Caine

Review: Sonnez Les Matines by Jane Clark Scharl by Betsy K. Brown

December 2023

Improvisation for Beginners by Joseph J. Capista

The Elko Butter Chase by J. Dominic Patacsil

Slow Fruit by Robert Long Foreman

Note on Human Who Has Been Insulted by Wes Civilz

Flying Objects by Daryl Ogden

Stick Season by Rosamund Healey

Should You Choose To Accept It by Emily Blair

Down in the Valley by Mary Birnbaum

Sweater Weather by Cara Lynn Albert

Masking by KT Ryan

Horses in a Field by Emily Blair

Acting Out by Caroline Koopford

Skin Check by Steph Del Rosso

The Strange Situation by Valli Jo Porter

The Nigels by Linda Bamber

Lone Star Jubilee by Cyn Nooney

Praying I Wouldn’t Be Last by Maya Afilalo

The lone wild goose sticks out his toungue at me by Joyce Shmid

“Let Our Bodies Change The Subject” Review by Pichchenda Bao

June 2023

Cheap Thrill by Mike Santora

Twenty-pound flower by Mike Santora

Garage sale bible opened to the Book of Genesis by Mike Santora

Air Guitar at Goblin Hills by T.S. McAdams

Bandits by Terry Dubow

Love is a Kingdom of Obsidian by Andrew Hemmert

Coins by Lorenza Starace

I Want to Explain by Justin Rigamonti

Keno King by by Dwight Livingstone Curtis

History of Desire by Lisa C. Krueger

The Country Husband by Jared Hanson

A Little Longer by Matthew Thorburn

Balloons by Catherine Uroff

Scavengers by Mark Neely

Empty Chamber by Mark Neely

Come as You Are by Ryan Shoemaker

Review: “What is our calling, after all, if not to be astonished?” Deni Naffziger’s Strange Bodies by Bonnie Proudfoot

Front Page by George Bilgere

December 2022

Lazarus by Arah Ko

Thank You For the Tulips by Lisa Bellamy

Speak Up by Jesse Lee Kercheval

Thanksgiving with Kerouac by Bonnie Proudfoot

Hot Enough by Bonnie Proudfoot

heaven whatever it may look like is filled with conversation so loud a person can barely hear themselves by Aidan Dolbashian

The Art of Attention by Erin Redfern

If You’re Single and Touch-Hungry and Hear a Knock at the Door by Erin Redfern

Tour by Jana-Lee Germaine

Crapshoot by Therese Gleason

The Man with the Yellow Hat by Dustin M. Hoffman

Ode to the Yellow Pages by Benjamin Voigt

The Tenure of Moorings by Eilín de Paor

Newspaper Clipping by Eilín de Paor

When They Say All is Lost by Abby E. Murray

When My Husband Asks What He Can Do To Convince Me He Loves Me, I Say by Abby E. Murray

The Silence of It All by Andrea Bianchi

A Walk by Nick Reading

Amerykański by Annabella Mayer

Cahokia by Kathy Nelson

Mr. Levine: On Lineage and Compassion by Kathy Fagan

June 2022

To Save a Life by Kari Gunter-Seymour

Home Fires by Anne Kenner

Triage by Lance Larsen

Pretends Everything Is Fine by Beth Andrix Monaghan

Anthropologist of the Apocalypse by Samantha Krause

The Natural World by Chris Crockett

Buried Fruit by Robert Stothart

Partition by Carolina Hotchandani

Culprit by Carolina Hotchandani

12th and McGraw by Hillary Behrman

Bumping Around by Eileen Pettycrew

The Year After Jeff by Andrew Polhamus

Dear Austin, by Brian Builta

If by Marie-Claire Bancquart

Evergreen Oak by Marie-Claire Bancquart

Margins by Marie-Claire Bancquart

Mass by Jeff Tigchelaar

When she calls me and confirms it it’s by Jeff Tigchelaar

To the Israeli Soldier- by Emily Franklin

Lonely, Lucky, Brave by Jillian Jackson

Ice Cream by Kandi Workman

What We Did at the End of the World by Sunni Brown Wilkinson

December 2021

homecoming by Caro Claire Burke

Pill by Louise Robertson

On the Inadvisability of Good Decisions by Louise Robertson

Jetson Whirr by Louise Robertson

Seven Ways to Get Blindsided in a Restaurant by Melissa Bowers

Ghosting by Emily Kingery

I Said Maybe by Allie Hoback

A Shark Story by Erika Warmbrunn

Reading the Ancients by Matthew Tuckner

Viriginity by Zuzanna Ginczanka

Zuzanna Ginczanka Biographical Note by Joanna Trzeciak Huss

Process by Zuzanna Ginczanka

Cocooned by Maud Welch

Prayer for Reconciliation by Kelly Rowe

What Will Kill Them by Christina Simon

The World by Hannah Marshall

Watching a House Renovation Show by Hannah Marshall

What is Mine by Claire Robbins

Nights of Noise by Rachel A. Hicks

Ms. Appalachia by Rachel A. Hicks

To Love Love the Beloved by Rachel A. Hicks

Stomach Pains by Danie Shokoohi

Compassion Fatigue by Mary Ardery

Crayola by James Lineberger

Kiddos by Leila Mohr

My Mother Meets the Cast of Hair by Adam Grabowski

If the manufacturer’s promise holds true, the new roof will outlast my father by Jessica Pierce

How to Choose a Mattress by Leslie Morris

Love, Dungeons, Magic, Dragons or Some Combination Will Save This Marriage by Marvin Shackelford

Clue Junior by Luciana Arbus-Scandiffio

I Have Two Moms by Luciana arbus-Scandiffio

Mr. Cosmos by Jill Christman

Poem for Paul Who Never Forgets My Birthday Even Though I Never Remember His by Alyssandra Tobin

I Love You Too, Bro by Alex Howe

Turn To Kristen Bell by Alex Howe

Domestic Chess by Andrea Bianchi

My Daughters Sometimes Dress as Ladybugs by Brian Simoneau

June 2021

Essential Worker by J.C. Talamantez

On Our Way Back From the Protest by Shawn R. Jones

Some Kind of Palace by Chrys Tobey

I Had an Aunt by Joe Woodward

Sharp Shin by John Bargowski

Cursing Lessons by Jackie Craven

Carousel by Michael Henson

The Secret by Bridget O’Bernstein

The Last Vacation by Shannon C. Ward

La Malinche, La Llorona, and Cristine Ortiz by Micahel Leal García

Artist with Newborn by Riley Kross

Futility by Riley Kross

Superpowers by Bonnie Proudfoot

Reminiscences by Matthew Valades

On Seasons by Christopher Nelson

The Stick–Up by Dwight Livingstone Curtis

Gift by Matthew J. Spireng

Why You’re Going to Eat That Pelican by Jon Fischer

December 2020

In the Morning I Wake Up Feeling Unmoved by Emily Lee Luan

The Mooneyeds by Sarah Minor

Rhizomes by Tamara Matthews

Sevens by Deborah Thompson

No Most of the Time by Nick Reading

To Do by James Lough

Güerita by Julian Robles

Love and Homeostasis by Jessica Fiorillo

First Night at Super Paradise by Laura Linart

The Last Innocent Moment by Janine Kovac

The Terms of Agreement by Patrick J. Murphy

Rotten by Hannah Hoover

Beef Jerky That Makes People Sad by Mari Casey

suggestion box feedback from lovers/boyfriends/partners on how to improve myself, that I never asked for, and I know who you are because I recognise your handwriting by Paula Harris

In the Winter of my Sixty–Seventh Year by Susan Browne

June 2020

One Night by Jeff Knorr

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations: Dial 2 for Inmate Information by Jeff Knorr

We Can Fry Anything by Abby E. Murray

As Always by Robert Lynn

Fourteen Meals by Stephanie Early Green

I Should Know a Millionaire by Erik Wilbur

Preparations by Madeleine Cravens

The World We Wanted Shone So Briefly by Gail Martin

The Helms Man by Kathryn Jordan

The Pathologist’s Wife (or, When My Daughter Leaves the House I Will Go Watch Baby Sea Turtles Being Born in Savannah) by Jeff Tigchelaar

Laywoman by Jeff Tigchelaar

He’s Fine with a Little College (or, All Those Pups) by Jeff Tigchelaar

Smart Girl by Sydney Rende

Donna Was Not a Cat Person by Halle Ruth

You Start To Grow Old By Haolun Xu

Sacred by Shelagh Connor Shapiro

Second–Hand Tongue by Tamara Miller

Difference by Sara Moore Wagner

Iguana by Jim Cole

I Went, Running by Caroline Manring

Radiology by Kim Garcia

Olympia Traveller de Luxe by Robert Long Foreman

Sonnet with Hound and Sequins by Robert Thomas

Walker County Rites by Cheyenne Taylor

Self–Portrait as Minor Prophet by Craig Van Rooyen

The Universe is Just One of Those Things That Happens from time to Time by Jacob Griffin Hall

A Pocket Introduction to Our Universe by Claire Bateman

December 2019

Coyotes by Terri Leker

Revising Bosch’s Hell Panel for the 21st Century by Kelly Michels

American Bachelor Party by Conor Bracken

Red Flags by Whitney Collins

The Dock Hand by Kathryn Merwin

A Cure for Grief by Emily Franklin

Thresher Derby by Patrick Bernhard

Lunch Duty by Barry Peters

Lucy’s by T.J. Sandella

Deluge by Rachel Eve Moulton

Heartbeat Hypothesis by Robert Wood Lynn

Somewhere Outside of Loveland by Amy Bee

June 2019

Flight Lessons by Barbara Ganley

Just Like All the Girls by Francesca Bell

Elegy with Two Portraits by Dan Clark

SKIN by Janice N. Harrington

Wind & Sand & Stars by Matt Prater

Stage Four by Kate Wisel

Morning Commute with Revenant by James McKee

Holding On is [ ] by Kay Gram

Northern Flicker by Kathryn Jordan

Subject Matter Experts by Laura Jok

Bacon by Alan Sincic

Construction Paper Flags Tacked to a Primary School Bulletin Board by Adam Tavel

Now in Color by Jacqueline Balderrama

An Unordered List of the Not–Beautiful by Katie Pyontek

After Hours by Maria Nazos

Heat Index by Kerry James Evans

December 2018

Dark Matter by Caro Claire Burke

Hurricane, 3rd Day by Melissa Studdard

Love Story in an Alternate Universe in Which Small Talk Is Answered Honestly and in Detail by Daniel Paul

Surfacing by Kateri Kosek

Parliament Lights by Jonathan Durbin

Told You So by Craig Bernardini

In the Borderlands by Kateri Kosek

National Pastime by Daniel Paul

Europeans Wrapping Knickknacks by David Kirby

The Roots of Phobia Lie in History by David O’Connell

A History of Clouds by Christopher Brean Murray

A History of Clouds (Film) by Caitlin Morgan

Mexican Standoff by Dylan Loring

Aphorisms for a Lonely Planet by Lance Larsen

Box in a Closet by Faith Shearin

Slutty Rush by Frankie Barnet

ASL on Memory by Cody Wilson

from Real Things by Nicole Hebdon

Fugitive by Susan Ramsey

Lower by Gunnar Jaeck

June 2018

A Non-Orientable Surface by Mari Christmas

Special Days by Scott Koenig

Bit by LaTanya McQueen

Roses and Begonias; Or, Things That Can Crush You by J. H. Bond

Sidekicks by JP Gritton

At Bay by Tamar Jacobs

マ I 克 (ma-i-ke) by Warren Decker

The Red Bird by Joanne Serling

First Date by James Lineberger

Hilltop Cemetery by Brendan Cooney

Wings of Wind by Eliot Fintushel

The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest by Mark Williams

At the Edge of Everything by Traci Skuce

Mini-Issues

The Poetics of Blues (2019)

Perpetual Reckoning: An Interview With Kiese Laymon

Obsession, Desperation, and Curiosity: A Conversation on the Poetics of Blues with Tyehimba Jess and Derrick Harriell

From the Archive: Jazz and the Blues in Poetry

Horn by Robert Pinsky

I Want to Talk About You by Angie Estes

Misterioso by Sydney Lea

Piano Lesson by Gregory Djanikian

Harmonica by Eleanor Kedney

From the Archive: “Influence” and “Homer and Jazz”

Influence by Sydney Lea

Homer and Jazz by Ralph M. Rosen

Pantoum With Lines From Lucille Clifton’s Memoir by Angela Narciso Torres

From the Archive: “Audition” by Leslie Rodd

Dispatches from the Future: Tech Lit (2019)

Juvenile Federation of Genetically Modified Youth by Joseph Rakowski

reCAPTCHA by Jiordan Castle

“Uber” and “Alexa” by Ruth Bardon

The Uber Diaries by Kyle Minor

Landscape with iPhone by Emily Mohn-Slate

Poems About Facebook

Facebook Sonnet by Tanya Grae

Depleted Uranium and Other Facebook Posts by Okla Elliot

Recovery by Max Bell

Love in the Time of Online Literary Exclusives (2020)

Late-Season Outdoor Wedding by Chelsea B. DesAutels

If French Kissing Was As Good As Promised Shouldn’t I Be Happy By Now? by Emmy Newman

The Art of Longing by Emily Sinclair

“Metaphor Offers the Promise to Move Us”: A Conversation with Nicole Walker, Author of Sustainability: A Love Story by Kay Keegan

Couples by Kenneth Hart

Love You Excavation Work by Donald Platt

When We Were Neanderthals by Chrys Tobey

All That Shimmers and Settles Along the Roads of Our Passage by Mark Cox

Entropy by Tracey Knapp

Look by James Lineberger

Why Men Don’t Write About Their Wives by Dennis Sampson

Solo in the Skeleton Key by Elton Glaser

“Endangered Hawaiian monk seals keep getting eels stuck up their noses and scientists want them to stop” by Emmy Newman

Marriage at 17 Years by Gary Dop

Animal Lit: A Shrewdness of Poems, a Parliament of Prose (2020)

I propose we worship the mud dauber by Jessica Pierce

Delectable Hazards at the Animal Dive by Michael Chaney

The Dog in the Library by Catherine Stearns

Ekstasis by Erika Brumett

The Problems of the Wild by Abby Horowitz

Y at the End of It by Nancy Eimers

Octopus on Ecstasy by Geneviève Paiement

Dune Cat by Winnie Anderson

Critical Insect Studies by Tom Whalen

Birds in Cemeteries by George Kalogeris

In the Second Month of Parched Land by Daiva Markelis

Monarch by Kathleen Radigan

The Last Litter by Melissa Cistaro

Roost by Janice N. Harrington

The Good Life by Susan Allison

The Personal Political (2020)

What Comes Next by Maxine Scates

Small Boy by Joseph Scapellato

Someone Threw Down a Wildflower Garden in and Empty Lot in Newark by Theresa Burns

Putting Girls on the Map by Irene Keliher

Mango Languages by Linda Bamber

Buzz Can Happen Here: Sinclair Lewis and the New American Fascism by Michael Mark Cohen

“This Time I’m Going to Fool Somebody”: Willie Stark and the Politics of Humiliation by Dustin Faulstick

Take Me to Your Lady Leader by Kristen Lillvis

Of the People, for the People, by the Robots by Christopher A. Sims