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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Bluestem Magazine | Kevin McIlvoy

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

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

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

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

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

Ayaskala Magazine | Michael Brookbank