A chronicle of a crocus, a lesson in squid anatomy, an embarrassing reminiscence, some esoteric Virginia history, an anecdote about an eccentric history teacher, a pinch of existential despair, and a fact about walking from Florida to Newfoundland: if I told you that Virginia Bell could fit all of this into a single poem, would you believe me? Enter Crocus Vernus, a poem that cannot, for the life of it, focus on one subject but which enslaves the reader’s attentions. How creative, how inventive, how judicious of a poet Bell must be to pull this off! Such precision, such imagination, such poise! Crocus Vernus is a triumph, a triumph only a poet as experienced and skilled as Bell could accomplish. Dare I compare her to Ashberry? I do. Dare I call this poem genius? I do.

Beltway Poetry Quarterly | Virginia Bell

David Earl Williams picks up where Cummings left off and continues on from there, soliloquizing like an enlightened maniac as he goes. He can be absurd and whimsical, serious and surreal, and even somber and reflective in his syntax-twisted musings, a hard skill to master, one which even the method’s pioneers seemed to struggle with. Yet Williams pulls it off with ease. Walking the streets of his contorted fantasies, he wallows in the mud and mire, fornicates with the women, and as Lowell with his callous proclamations at the end of The Dolphin, is aware of and yet unmoved by the blood on his hands. And so Williams joins the ranks of this publication’s favorite contemporary poets, not just with this example of his poetic prowess, but with an overwhelming majority of his work.

WSIMG | David Earl Williams

Jeneva Stone’s Old Couple is an expertly executed, existentially explorative, and exhilaratingly extramundane example of what a prose poem can and should be. Stone’s imagination is exhibited masterfully in her explosive metaphors, and her imagery imbues this noctilucent scene with a supernatural flair that dazzles the reader with its immediate visibility. Her sly mythological allusions are the maraschino cherry on top of this magnificent poetic masterpiece. Frankly, one should read all of the poet’s work in the latest issue of Ginosko, as Stone’s talents should not be tasted piecemeal, but subsumed in their entirety.

Ginosko Literary Journal | Jeneva Stone

Bathing in the miasma of urban decay, Theophilus Kwek transmogrifies ingeniously the disillusion of Zhou Hongxing. As time’s corrosion taints the trajectory of a tedious existence, sedative vices stand tall against the city’s towering wastes, attempting to lead man astray, and yet still, through all the refuse and decadence, the sublimity of the earth worms through. Hongxing and Kwek come together to form a poem that is thematically ubiquitous. As man struggles to make sense of a world so inexorably flawed, some way, somehow, one still finds himself flabbergasted by its overwhelming beauty.

Cordite Poetry Review | Zhou Hongxing Translated by Theophilus Kwek

RJ Lambert sings the brawls of the bucolic scene, where cocks fight with men and time is measured by the lifespan of meat. This poem is memorable all the way through, strutting down the page with the swagger of a rooster and roosting in one’s mind like a catchy tune. Lambert’s herky-jerky rhythm is a knock-out punch, accentuating the weight of the verse’s many quotable lines while still floating effortlessly off the tongue. The poet has gained himself a new reader, and the English language a new puissant power ballad from the American pastoral.

Black Fork Review | RJ Lambert

Cat Woodward is playing cat and mouse with the reader, though whatever the poet is hiding, the music makes it worth the chase. Her voice is strange, a wary whisper, unwilling to let the reader put the puzzle together, to gather anything beyond the immaculate and cryptic symphony, but therein lies the poem’s magic. It’s a cacophony of images and sensations united in a swift movement, though something almost sinister seems to be diffused throughout the stanzas, something animal and alert; Joyce in a slasher film, monologuing. This is just to say, Woodward has composed a poem of extraordinary depth, one that I will be rereading for years to come.

Amberflora | Cat Woodward

Gabriel Antonio Reed’s fanatical love resembles one of Caddy Compson’s soliloquies disassembled into stanzas. I am by no means saying that the poem is derivative, in fact, Reed composes with such a tactful distinction that the poem seems to teeter perfectly on a tightrope between chaos and order. It takes a rare talent to form a coda from platitudes, but Reed manages it with a poetic savoir faire I’ve only seen in Faulkner. The poet knows when to slip and when to punch, and when to flurry like a drunken lunatic. Such a poem is truly a radical burst of emotion rendered immaculately on the page.

Barnstorm Journal | Gabriel Antonio Reed

A toe seems like an odd subject for an elegy, but then again, Arielle Kaplan is writing abecedarians about amputated digits, so she must be fairly confident in her skills. Her confidence is not misplaced. Kaplan has given herself a handicap, though one might easily have mistaken it for pair of wings. “Abecedarian” flows so effortlessly, the absurdity of mourning a toe made natural by Kaplan’s exquisite use of alliteration to drive the poem’s rhythm, giving it a feeling of bounciness rather than a dole that would clash with the poem’s more playful aspects. Such tact deserves recognition, and I’ve yet to even mention the magnificent imagery. A toe “quivering quiet as a maggot,” what grace! Kaplan checks all the boxes, and I could ramble on about it for days.

Rust and Moth | Arielle Kaplan

Jessica Purdy’s breathtaking ekphrasis of Rippl-Rónai’s “Woman with Birdcage” sets a new standard for the medium. The poet’s manner encapsulates perfectly the mood of the painting, adding new life to the art with stanzas that create motion, lore, and unity. Usually an ekphrasis plays second fiddle to the subject itself, but Purdy composes so succinctly, so imaginatively, so elegantly, it’s as if they were created by the same synthesis of mind. Thus, a lover of verse cannot help but ask the question; which came first, the painting or the poem?

Imposter | Jessica Purdy

María Leticia del Toro García brings Zheng Xiaoqiong to English speaking audiences with a masterful flourish that brings, yet again, another amazing poet to my attention. Writing from the merciless assembly lines of China’s industrial sectors, Xiaoqiong gives us a glimpse into the laborious life of a teenage girl attempting to make a living in the horrendous conditions. The verses are almost Apolliniarian, with their broken rhythms and seemingly imprecise composition, stoic (though somehow surreal) critiques of modern life, but all this forms so perfectly an image of defiant persistence. It’s Ann Hyde Greet translating Apollinaire, and it is truly astounding how both translator and poet pull it off. Xiaoqiong and del Toro are two of the rare and gifted few, and they form quite a magnificent duo.

AzonaL Translations | María Leticia de Toro García Translating Zheng Xiaoqiong

With a name that needs no introduction, Natalie Shapero continues to impress with this poetic synthesis of Plath and Faulkner. Flippant at the gate of the unrepentant world, Shapero falls first upon a fellow flawed member of humankind before commiserating in her own remembrances of a bright-eyed youth turned cold. Full of comically callous observations on the daily rat race and the monotonous plight of modern man, Shapero demonstrates courage in her survival, creating a reverse coming of age poem that is as innovative as it is flawless.

bath magg | Natalie Shapero

Bernardo Villela masterfully translates Maria da Cunha in this fervid ode to the kingdom of dreams. In a voice that invokes the exultant vehemence of Jules Laforgue, Villela renders a wholly unique and timeless piece of music that recalls the Symbolist age with a beautifully modern flair. Though previously unaware of Maria da Cunha’s poetry, Villela’s impeccable diligence in translation will have me scrambling to find more of her work, all the while awaiting anxiously the translator’s next endeavor.

Azonal Translation | Bernardo Villela Translating Maria da Cunha

Shari Lawrence Pfleeger escapes into nature, away from the perfidy of man and into the temples of rock, the etchings of water, shielded by shadows. Balance is the focal point of this poem, breathtakingly illustrated in the dichotomy of light and dark, the idea that one cannot exist without the other, both being defined by the existence of their opposite. This is a poem of disillusion eclipsed by universal wisdom, the serenity of virgin earth and the continual upheaval of man, and amounts, of course, to an absolute masterwork of art.

Blue House Journal | Shari Lawrence Pfleeger

Shannan Mann’s Versions of the Undefinable Other interpolates internal examination through elements of the Bhagavad-gita. This poem offers boundless deconstruction, itself inside the dharma yuddha, a beautifully complex and masterfully constructed theological, erotic scrutiny that goes through Shiva and ends with Rilke. Truly well done.

Palette Poetry | Shannan Mann

T. Clear has shown that not all “COVID poems” have to be self indulgent slogfests of victim-in-verse and vexing political gobbledygook. The concept of “Autobiography” is simple enough, but it’s the execution that sets this poem apart from its peers. Instead of a tottering mess of adolescent melodrama that bumbles on about anxieties and bellyaches, “Autobiography” is vibrant, jouncy, whimsical and alliterative. The evocative and absurd images swerve around seriousness and cruise on in sharp turns of phrase and light self deprecation. It’s a lot less exhausting to go out when one doesn’t have to worry about their appearance: it’s as simple as that. This poem is a perfect example of a straightforward idea elevated to art through flawless composition.

Meniscus Literary Journal | T. Clear

Matthew Thorburn’s At Eighty is a harrowing portrait of an artist with dementia, managing to exhibit both the horrific effects of the illness and the hard-nosed defiance of human dignity. The end is bitter-sweet, succinct, a balance of sorrow and acceptance: this is a poem of life, not death. Timeless in theme and flawless in composition, it is ready to be read for ages to come.

Anacapa Review | Matthew Thorburn

In this flashback from 2007, Adelle Stripe writes pure punk rock and levity. With a voice that makes one want to throw on a Libertines record and go prowl some piss-smelling alleyway, Stripe recounts the day to day of her own Chelsea Dagger, and really, this poem reeks of the garage rock revival of the early 2000’s, but it pulls it off with the ease of a needle piercing skin. This is an aesthetic time capsule from the last true bloom of rock and roll, sin and heroin in old London.

3:AM Magazine | Adelle Stripe

Sylvia Chan, though I pray her poem is not confessional, takes after the more acclaimed confessionalist Mrs. Plath in her incredible ability to express horrific events and traumatic emotions. The latter labels may conjure in one’s head one of the many melodramatic ink slicks currently clogging old father poesy’s gills, but seeing how rare it is for me to be actually disturbed by anything I read (Homes’ Alice or Nabakov’s Ada), I am extremely impressed by not only this poem’s construction, but its ability to hold and horrify in such a sparse and purposely elusive manner.

Annulet | Sylvia Chan

Naieka Raj does darkness well, which is a rare compliment in an art currently stuffed plug-ugly with melodrama and half-baked lyrical self harm. Succeeding in its experiments and floating along effortlessly on its foreboding tone, surreal images and stark body horror elevate this poem to the apex of contemporary fear. Not to mention Raj’s use of repetition makes edentata almost hypnotizing.

Apogee Journal | Naieka Raj

Kristen Garth seemingly has an unhealthy fear of swans, and so naturally, she constructed this slasher film en vers, with swans filling the role of the main antagonist. Despite what some may tell you, a poem needn’t be composed of ecclesiastical revelations and meditations on mortality. In fact, sometimes the best poems are just plain old fun. Garth has proven this by weaving together a magnificent display of her poetic talents by way of the most unlikely subjects… a pair of bloodthirsty swans. It’s absurd, tongue-twisting, brooding in the most humorous of manners, and yes, absolutely enthralling to read.

The Cabinet of Heed | Kristen Garth

Steve Sibra has crafted quite a compelling tale from the blood stained barstools of the heartland. Born from a dying breed of classic Americana, this is small town skulduggery in terrific verse, western mythos and piss drunk cowboys with a pinch of paternal angst. Whether manufactured or based in fact, Sibra has constructed a mini-tragedy, almost absurd in nature, but utterly captivating nonetheless.

The Cabinet of Heed | Steve Sibra

What if Cinderella smoked methamphetamine from her glass slipper? If by some extremely strange coincidence you’ve ever asked yourself that question, then you’re in luck. Enter the world of Georgina Titmus’s step-sisters, a tongue-twisting tidbit that turns this classic fairytale into a fragment of dark foreboding and uncanny (possibly suggestive?) horror. If Finnegans Wake and The Autobiography of Red got blasted together at the ball, then eight months later this Cronenbergian masterpiece of a poem would be born.

Briefly Write | Georgina Titmus

Every now and again there is a poem that sticks in one’s head, a catchy tune, an ear worm, a poem that will undoubtedly outlast the others. dg nanouk okpik’s Warm Water Fish Moving In is one of those poems. It taunts and terrorizes the reviewer with its sheer magnanimity. It is beyond summary, and to put it candidly, is simply a fantastic work of art.

Annulet | dg nanouk okpik

Penelope Pelizzon sails the sea of self-loathing and picks up some friends along the way, mainly various sea related detritus that accompany her on this dystopian beach stroll. Nevertheless, her imagery and rhythm are exquisite, horrific, surreal, and the tactful use of her sprawling vocabulary builds marvelously on the absurd setting.

32 Poems | Penelope Pelizzon

Tori McCandless proves yet again that the sonnet is immortal. A clever lesson in virtue is combined with surreal imagery and stunningly absurd turns of phrase to composite a fresh take on a classical form with more than its fair share of glitz to close the show. McCandless is a striking talent, one worth watching.

Lavender Review | Tori McCandless

Adam Houle has produced a scathing, cunning, hysterical rebuke of modern language, and how accurate his depiction is! Published alongside this critical masterpiece are two other impeccable poems both worthy of mention in their own right. All of that to say, Adam Houle a garnered a new reader, and this reviewer will be studying his work from hereon out.

Thrush Poetry Journal | Adam Houle

Robert L. Dean Jr. has crafted a flawless meditation on mortality and aging. Rife with allusions to film and classical literature, death is not denied its twisted horrors but made beautiful in its reality. Dean weaves the threads of a life before severing them for all to see, to read, and to mourn.

October Hill Magazine Volume 6 Issue 1 | Robert L. Dean Jr.

Superlatives to the editors Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Bryan Dickey, Daniel Driscoll, Miriam R. Haier, Andrew Keller, Samantha Neugebauer, Rachel Wenrick, and all plaudits to the poets James Harms for Make Muffins, Pier Wright for Driveway Poem and The Hibiscus, Key West, Sarah A. Chavez for Dear Carol, I look out the window, William Palmer for He Pours a Small Glass of Milk, and to all other poets for their contributions. It is a fantastic issue from back to front, and was both a pleasure and a breeze to read.

Painted Bride Quarterly Issue 102: Touch | Editors and Contributors Respectively

John Repp recounts a family chronicle with a high-octane oomph, and grovels at the gate of the past with the poise of a spittoon. This is homegrown American verse at its finest, bursting with the spirit of the heartland.

Poetrybay | John Repp

Mara Adamitz Scrupe has crafted two exemplary passages of gritty, reflexive, dynamic music. Scrupe means business, and her verse, though clad in iron, hovers so effortlessly across the page, and flits through the mind with a guttural magniloquence. These twin poems are triumphs, and should be subsumed with all warranted relish.

Parish Line Press | Mara Adamitz Scrupe

Eileen P. Kennedy’s monastic verse meanders through the wisps and phantoms of her memory with a music so tranquil, so gentle, so pastoral, that one can’t help but reminisce on their own life after reading it.

Poetry Super Highway | Eileen P. Kennedy

Michael J Seidlinger teaches us “how to conceptualize a voice” in this hilariously absurd instructional-in-verse. A paragon of prose-poetry and a lecture in slacker philosophy, Pornography is a must read for any lover of lyrical discourse.

Tagvverk | Michael J Seidlinger

Laura Mullen’s fraught, fevered, and frenetic epic jaws into the jazz of perspective with a consummate arrangement of syntax and onomatopoeia. Her pace is radical, inventive, zealous, and her use of footnotes as both a stanzaic insertion and extension amounts to an expert synthesis of transitive verse.

Tagvverk Issue 2 | Laura Mullen

The conjectures of history on Aspasia’s character are beautifully argued by Sanjana Ramanathan; Aspasia, defamed and mocked, and ironically politically persecuted for Asebeia, has her dignity restored.

Provenance Journal | Sanjana Ramanathan

Kevin McIlvoy teaches drunken wedding etiquette in this striking ode to self-loathing, senescence, and cynicism.

Bluestem Magazine | Kevin McIlvoy

John Lotta’s Wont and Innuendo and Registry and Leg are both extraordinary examples of prose poetry done right. Whether he’s dubbing Eliot a “royal ass” or prattling on about a dentist’s drill, Latta is superseding language.

Tears in the Fence | John Latta

For those who are fans of Burroughs’ word jumbled and bizarre philosophies, Ken Edwards’ A River on the Table will be quite the exceptional find. Excerpted from his book Wild Metrics, this is a must read for any connoisseurs of experimental prose poetry.

Tears in the Fence | Ken Edwards

Natalie Diaz’s enchanting and mystical verse shows that the real cure for melancholy is a good poem, never mind the horn.

The Paris American | Natalie Diaz

Maryann Corbett brings new life to this old wen, masterfully rendered in a new playful and pliable tone. One almost wants to welcome a wen into their armpit, if only to hear this rapturous movement repeated once again.

Ars Medica Vol. 16 Pg. 21 | Anonymous Author Translated by Maryann Corbett

Kerri Konopka’s Phoenix Redux is a lyrical renaissance painting. Put on your grave clothes and grab your spade. Descend into this spiritual ascension.

Crow & Cross Keys | Kerri Konopka

Joseph Harms is a poet of astronomical significance, and Ichor is no different. Harms is a master of syntax-jumbled, thesaurus-thumped, sublime absurdities, and yet it comes off so naturally… it’s as though Harms has learned to write in tongues.

Midway Journal | Joseph Harms

Jay Deshpande recalls a youth of unity, loneliness, and the rasp of oceans in this tranquil and cordial meditation.

Iterant | Jay Deshpande

Rebekah Devine embarks on a divine metamorphosis mirroring that of the maddened Nebuchadnezzar. With a frightful rigor she narrates her transformation, one placated by aquiline cud and plagued by a fear of God.

Foothill Poetry Journal | Rebekah Devine

Sergei Linkov’s graphic verse gives dissection an erotic spin. A troubling (but nevertheless enthralling) poem composed of classical allusions and necrophilic illusions.

Endogamy | Sergei Linkov

Michael Brookbank probes the abyss for peace in this exemplary work of psychological space travel.

Ayaskala Magazine | Michael Brookbank

Nicole Lachat memorializes the labors of her mother in this moving glimpse into the personal struggles of the working class.

Birdfeast Magazine | Nicole Lachat

Jayne Marek makes the reviewer pity a ferret, but is the ferret the true protagonist? And what is the poet hiding? Whatever the case may be, though the weasel may be artificial, the verse is filled with life.

Quartet Journal | Jayne Marek

Malo Gledhill has the “how in God’s name is this working?” charm of Robert Hass, and with an exorbitant amount of tact, composes this surreal magnum opus of nonsense, physics, dry hilarity and self-loathing.

The Madrigal | Malo Gledhill

In the spirit of a metafictional Borges novel within novel within prose poem, Bryan Price’s fiery Novel Against Realism inquires literature, mythology, theology, and morality through serious verse.

Hinchas De Poesia | Bryan Price

Tara Campbell’s verse turns every reader into her vessel, and instantly glues the reviewer to the page.

HAD | Tara Campbell

Maia Zelkha wants more Dilaudid, and I concur that she should be given more Dilauded, if only to write another poem about needing more Dilaudid, because I want more poems about wanting more Dilauded, because Zelkha’s poem about Dilauded deserves to be lauded, and reading it is becoming an addiction.

Furrow | Maia Zelkha

Diane Seuss opens this poem with a yearning for better ideas, but I must say, I don’t know how her poetry could get any better. Seuss is a gargantuan talent, and this poem is yet another testament to that fact.

Couplet Poetry | Diane Seuss

This is a revelatory meditation, and is far better read than summarized, but let it be known that the road to Montana is paved with crosses, and Ian Powell-Palm has written this tremendous elegy for a mass grave.

Coffin Bell | Ian Powell-Palm

Helena Mesa has turned the critic into a tourist, dumbfoundedly genuflecting at the foot of her verse. This poem is a holy place, let no one enter without first paying their respects.

Four Way Review | Helena Mesa

Superlatives to Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Joseph F. Keppler, Jacqueline Winter Thomas, Coleman Stevenson and Andreea Iulia Scridon, and plaudits to the poets Mariam Shergelashvili (Digital Wind Mantra), Irene Koronas (NHC II, 5; XIII, 2; Brit. Lib. Or. 4926(1)) and Calvin Olsen (translating João Luís Barreto Guimarães’ “Petals Overhead”) just to name a few. A fantastic publication with no shortage of fantastic poets, eratio has earned two more dedicated readers.

eratio | Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Joseph F. Keppler, Jacqueline Winter Thomas, Coleman Stevenson and Andreea Iulia Scridon

Babo Kamel masterfully unites nature and personal strife, pitying the trees as she weaves these “provocative threads” into quite an exhilarating read.

FERAL | Babo Kamel

There will be only sighs of contentment after reading the brisk and buoyant verse of Chloe Martinez. This poem should not be left unlauded, but should be turned over for all the world to see.

Couplet Poetry | Chloe Martinez

Nothing is lost in translation in this medium bending masterwork of prose poetry. Chirico is done proud as John Bradley weaves from his painting a magnificent canvas of words.

DMQ Review | John Bradley

Liam McLean orchestrates chaos with unbelievable, intoxicating precision. Bertilax Trax must be read, absorbed, subsumed. Waste no more time. Go, embark on the journey.

The Gravity of the Thing | Liam McLean

The title is an accurate description of this poem’s effect. John Amen leaves the reader breathless with this immortal elegy.

Frigg Magazine | John Amen

Cleo Muller has written the youngest, blondest, and prettiest poem I’ve read all week. Come, step into the ring and ride the bull.

Hinchas De Poesia | Cleo Muller

Nicole Liu kisses her knuckles and punches straight through the page in this punk rock masterpiece.

Couplet Poetry | Nicole Liu

Jealousy leapt from my lips when I first read this poem. The rabid eroticism, suppurating love! Laura Post has taken a pile of dirt and constructed Sodom, a torrid city, intoxicating in all its decay.

Invisible City | Laura Post

Natalie Homer did not hold back when crafting this tour de force, and while she may skip ahead, the reader is left clinging to every word.

Josephine Quarterly | Natalie Homer

Janet Bowdan has surely dropped a gem into the world of internet e-mags, and her verse has not passed me by without leaving quite an unforgettable impression.

Clade Song | Janet Bowdan

Robert Fanning’s Unspeakable has left me utterly speechless. With the chaotic finesse of e.e. Cummings, the imagination of Breton, the imagery of a sprawling Dali, this poem indeed has it all.

Ciderpress Review | Robert Fanning

Berryman would not be ashamed of having his face on this project. Kelvin Corcoran’s impeccable orchestra of images is worthy of a legendary name to match, and one can’t help but feel they’re playing spoons beside Corcoran’s virtuosic banjo solo.

Blackbox Manifold | Kelvin Corcoran

Though David Atkinson writes of the language of fists, he does so with the elegance of Ali’s butterfly. And while I must refuse his offer to take up a glove, I tip my hat to the poet’s talents, which have left me punch drunk with praise and tipsy with hat-tipping.

Backstory Journal | David Atkinson

Mikhail Kalinin’s song of songs immerses the reader in a rustic Moscow autumn. Masterfully translated by Konstantin Kulakov and Anton Relin, one can almost bite the apples and taste the wines.

Pocket Samovar | Mikhail Kalinin translated by Konstantin Kulakov and Anton Relin

D. Parker (or by the end of her poem, perhaps merely Parker) has made exemplary music from this gruesome mutilation.

Zero Readers | D. Parker

Frederick Pollack brings an aging Cléo de Mérode to life in this masterful rending of the fallen belle. The death of a beautiful woman is perhaps literature’s most predictable platitude, but a renowned beauty reduced to an affluent, neurotic raisin? That is virgin soil, ladies and gentleman, and Pollack does not disappoint.

Sundial Magazine | Frederick Pollack

Dave Richards’ Three Dreams is a spiritual awakening. Indeed like a dream, the reader traverses an eternity of images in what is less than a minutes read.

Ucity Review | Dave Richards

Anon Baisch’s Forgetting Sonnets invokes a spirit akin to the notes of Ernest Fenollosa; controlled chaos and abstractions rubbed raw. “Crippled white crippled forgetting.” : : “Raise cup quench sorrow sorrow again sorry.”

The Oxford Review | Anon Baisch

With his apologies making for such fantastic verse, I must forgive David Flynn his trespasses, and encourage any further threats of pedicide.

Black Coffee Review | David Flynn

Farley Egan Green has weaved a perfect prose poem from the skeins of loss, and his words are more than worthy of immortality.

Assisi | Farley Egan Green

Time’s Arrow is a Beautiful, learned, pedagogical resource at its finest, and using the best of printing press as available today to sift chronologically through centuries of verse. This should be a resource known everywhere.

Time’s Arrow

Ed Steck pursuance of the God Within in MycoMountaineer from At The Mountains of the Mycoverse is Entheogenic Heroic Poem traversing McKennaverse, “a moment in patterns” enfolding the molecule with the ethereal. Let new pathways unfold.

Asphalte Magazine | Ed Steck

Matthew Moore’s translation of the late Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun is a testament to the talents of both. Moore has brought an exceptional tact to his translation, and has demonstrated both himself and Šalamun as brilliant poets.

Asphalte Magazine | Tomaž Šalamun translated by Matthew Moore

Victoria Woolf Bailey’s Last Gasp is not your normal elegy, but instead illustrates perfectly the chasmic renewal of loss, and how life must resume in the wake of death, whether one is ready or not.

Alchemy Spoon Issue 5 (page 37) | Victoria Woolf Bailey

Christina Buckton’s syntax twisting folk tale is an addictive read, a horrifying act of hilarity with imagery to make her contemporaries blush. Buckton is in a league of her own, and poems like this one deserve to be exhumed from the unmarked graves of obscurity.

Alchemy Spoon Issue 5 (page 13) | Christina Buckton

Superlatives to Roger Bloor, Vanessa Lampert, and Mary Mullholland, editors of The Alchemy Spoon, Issue 5: Unthemed, with excellent contributions from Sarah E Mnatzgen (“Gaugin Girls”), Victoria Woolf Bailey (“Last Gasp”), and Christina Buckton (“Belinda”). And all around consensus favorite of Cruellest Month.

Roger Bloor, Vanessa Lampert, and Mary Mullholland | The Alchemy Spoon

Martha Webster’s Lemon Tree is a wonderful lesson in mixology. With an intoxicating rhythm, a fine pinch of grit, and a just a flicker of angst, the poet has created something truly masterful.

Martha Webster | Carousel Magazine

Natalie Wang recounts her childhood with a visceral uncanniness, and manages to be vulnerable while avoiding histrionics, navigating the confessional with a notable restraint. Her descriptions of insects leave the reviewer reaching for his can of Raid while simultaneously reveling in this poem’s merits.

Natalie Wang | Grim and Gilded

Julia Shipley is whimsical, puckish, hilarious, and bizarre. Whatever she’s trying to say, it keeps the reader reeling at every turn of phrase, unsure of whether to cackle or dial 911.

Julia Shipley | AGNI

Writing a villanelle is hard enough, but writing a good villanelle is a rare feat, especially when anything written in the scheme must stand alongside some of the most iconic poems in the English canon. Cheyenne Taylor’s The Importance of Small Suffering is a fresh and poignant take on the classic form, and her images conjure a horrid past, one glowing with wisdom and twisted at the whims of her eloquence.

Cheyenne Taylor | Cimarron Review

Ruth Towne’s Return to Sender is a harrowing portrait of unrequited love, or loneliness, or neglect, or death, or stamp prices. Whatever the theme may be, Towne has written one of my favorite poem’s of 2022, and should be on the radar of every serious reader.

Ruth Towne | The Decadent Review

Deborah Bogen is surreal, gruesome, and oozing with angst in this impeccable glimpse into personal struggle.

Deborah Bogen | I-70 Review

Patrick Deely’s meticulous description of Prague, the capital of Bohemia, as it casts its Babylonian—as he has it in Prague Baroque—“Gross statues of saints spear demons which look reptilian” with the grotesque and scenes of European decay seeking repentance.

Patrick Deeley | The Lake

Ann Power’s magical cascade into the psychology of desire is undoubtedly worth a read. This poem punches home with the razzle-dazzle, and keeps the reader guessing the whole way through. Power is Glück after a line of pixie dust, and that is a steep compliment, though one I administer whole heartedly.

Ann Power | The Dillydoun Review

Frederick Pollack’s subdued verse ambles through the corridors of his memory, questioning and recounting with a voice that stiffens against its cracks and confesses with a soldierly poise. His work rejects all melodrama, and is a fantastically refreshing read.

Frederick Pollack | The Courtship of Winds

Laura Paul Watson’s Six Weeks into Chemotherapy peers into the cruel reality the poet wishes to recover. Tired of the false pity, she laments the loss of her lesser human struggles, and the faux compassion so often paired with sickness. This poem subverts expectations, and speaks for itself far better than any praise.

Laura Paul Watson | Bellevue Literary Review

Murray Silverstein’s Ars Punctuationa offers far more than a grammar lesson. If syntax were a religion, this would be its gospel.

Murray Silverstein | The Courtship of Winds

Poets Against AI is a movement to abolish the use of AI in poetry, and for poets, editors, and publishers have transparency when AI is employed to create content. Pledge not to use AI in poetry by contacting Poets Against AI.

POETS AGAINST AI | ET AL.

Samantha Padgett’s portrait of paternal neglect is as heart-rending as it is inventive. The suburban pastoral contrasted with domestic distress has always made for great verse, but Padgett builds upon the tradition with her horrific eloquence. A poem’s greatest compliment shall always be another poet’s envy, and one cannot help coveting Padgett’s talents.

Samantha Padgett | Driftwood Press

Amy Beeder’s secret recipe makes for fantastic poetry. She manages to address a subject that has been so wrongly politicized, and does so in a manner that completely avoids politicization. Such tact is rare among modern poets, but as Beeder demonstrates, there is still hope.

Amy Beeder | AGNI

Frankie bb’s surrealist scene recalls the prose poetry of Charles Simic, except the former does not neglect the “poetry” in “prose poetry”. With his intoxicating rhythm, and his whimsical and sometimes frightening imagery, he is definitely a poet to keep your eye on.

frankie bb | Club Plum Literary Journal

Amanda Rachel Robins My Plenty Mouth leaves no reader going hungry. The poem sees her vast imagination captured in succinct verse, and in each of her candid confessions lurks an uneasy restraint.

Amanda Rachel Robins | Apple Valley Review

John Shneider’s fragile, ecclesiastical, reflective words in Thaw are a glimpse at his cavernous soul, one worth looking into.

John Shneider | Cleaver Magazine

Lana Hechtman Ayers writes with an edge that is as sharp as her imagery. Abyss After Tea contains what is perhaps my favorite metaphor of the year, though this poem is no one line wonder. It enthralls throughout its entirety, and leaves the reader reeling in the destructive wake of history.

Lana Hechtman Ayers | Sheila-Na-Gig online

Reflexive and raw, Natalie E. Illum tears out her throat and lets the wounds speak. Her verse smiles up from the depths and ambushes the reader from below, blurring the lines between poem and death threat with a voice that lusts for blood.

Natalie E. Illum | Passangers Journal

Ginny Lowe Conners captures pandemic era chaos in the most unusual of settings; the woods. Yet this tranquil place is perfect for displaying the personal struggles that plagued our nation in a year of plague, divisive politics, and civil unrest. No, this is not a “pandemic poem”, this is a whisper of the human experience, a heart grappling with a world of mayhem.

Ginny Lowe Connors | Heart (Nostalgia Press)

Larkin Warren peers into a life ripped from its foundations and forces the reader to take part in the exodus. This poem is a triumph, and well worth the read.

Larkin Warren | Hole in the Head Review