2016 Features

2016

2015

2014

2013

this was not the time to start / that argument, what with the sucking / chest wound

Jan 13

Shenandoah Sowash,

Sea Locks

Here the keys fit no locks / Not that I have keys

Jan 20

Mathias Svalina,

My Older Sister & My Younger Sister

My older sister ate all of herself in tiny bites, / until only a mouth & teeth remained

Jan 27

Noah Siela,

Cross-Country Skiers

Gravy flinger, / would your god get my god?

Feb 03

Shannon Barber,

Myth Queens

We fat ass nymphs twerk / in frenetic acts of reclamation.

Feb 17

Dena Rash Guzman,

how about a little spooning honey

We’ll have no money soon & honey / I lost the old version of what was, the not his

Feb 24

Lea Marshall,

Invocation of the Wisdom of Objects

O spoon! / Sing in me the whorled air / of your thumbprint bow

Mar 02

Shanna Compton,

The Deeps

She and the house rattle plenty.

Mar 09

Sean Bishop,

Thirteen Forty-Seven

We squirm loose gap-toothed / with a neck mole tossing its locks / in the wind

Mar 16

Hannah Gamble,

I Explore to Write Home About It

Many light-voids make me blind at night— / I hope I will be without many snakes’ teeth.

Mar 23

Seth Abramson,

100 Questions for the Presidential Debates

58. What existed before time? / 59. What are wasps for?

Mar 30

Jenny Drai,

POTTY BRIGADE

How to love one’s neighbor in this bullhorn rain / Because the innocent children because innocence

Apr 06

Steve Caratzas,

THE FATHER HAD HIS OWN IDEAS REGARDING GOD

Laughter upon hearing the insolent words / The moon being timid and poorly timed

Apr 13

robert andrew perez,

hallowe’en

it read more as an orgiastic cuddle-fest, really / than it did an orgy.

Apr 20

ryan scariano,

Black Friday Night

My jade plant start loves the logic / of streetlamps.

Apr 27

Jenessa VanZutphen,

An introduction

On the hottest days I saw love this way, like the crunch and pull, the thirst.

May 04

Alex Phillips,

Get Insomnia, Wave Me Away: A Binary Confessional at the Chew and…

Froth on Yojimbo’s desk. / A decaf set out, let loose.

May 18

Kevin Sampsell,

In Utero

My earliest memory / is stepping out of a / long white Cadillac / and landing in your mouth

May 25

joan naviyuk kane,

The Mother of All

You dreamt I walked once, / across the ice, to find you.

Jun 01

Becca Yenser,

Habitat and Diet

Home is too far away; I could never find it now. / California wiped my nose clean.

Jun 08

LM Rivera,

NO, GOOD

my confessions will begin / in the book of deserts

Jun 15

Janelle DolRayne,

Poem for Orlando

I want to imagine / the way they were / dancing.

Jun 22

Travis Cebula,

Sky Burial #46

the solution to loneliness swallowed— / to save the city burn the city down

Jun 29

Kyle John Crawford,

Greener

Sound was summered and snowed. / Ankle-deeped rill stood for standing / still

Jul 06

Jonas Kyle-Sidell,

What We Were Talking About

Because the body / of time and love / is not just a carcass; / it lives –

Jul 13

Shannon Barber,

Almost 40 Weaponized and Unstoppable.

At almost 40 I will never be their darling. / I am the loud mouthed destroyer.

Jul 20

Amy Souza,

A Tsunami Can Happen At Any Time

Here the sand is black and the shoreline / covered with bright blue jellyfish

Jul 27

Dena Rash Guzman,

rougher than you can know

I’m quiet in the kisses I stop / only a truckload of flowers / will rouse me

Aug 03

Steve Caratzas,

ALL THE FUZZ BOXES IN THE WORLD COULD NOT SAVE ME

A life in boxes / Shut, sealed

Aug 17

W.M. Butler,

we are better

words come with shaking knees swarms of bees / in fair weather our hands tethered together

Aug 24

Meg Hurtado,

BLOWING SMOKE AT THE MOON IN PORTLAND, OREGON

That long-form vim by whose / blood & glow the galaxies once got lit – / we can’t do that anymore.

Sep 07

Mallory Bass,

Humans at Blackwater River

we are contained in the light we need / nature grows indifferent in the dark

Sep 14

Shadab Z. Hashmi,

Ghalib lists thirty-eight varieties of mangoes in his letters

The poet finds names of mangoes / in the folds between empires

Sep 21

William Stobb,

A Message from your Mode

Please smoke only if part of you / burns uncontrollably.

Sep 28

Ryan Walsh,

In Gardens

what we lift / from the vine and take inside us / is not only sweet firmness / but back ache and blemish

Oct 05

Kate Jayroe,

Screen Door

tonight, there’s an egg on the counter, just one, sitting perfectly still

Oct 12

Sara Renee Marshall,

Letters for Others: JAC

It’s not clear how we walk: what into, what from. You, stranded from a mother, mothering.

Oct 19

Ross Robbins,

Apple Worm

After all the ways I have pictured sickness / how can I help but empty out?

Nov 02

Adam Cornford,

You and I: Mask and Mask

You are the God-made image of God / I am a flat-faced ape with an overgrown brain

Nov 16

Jaimie Gusman,

Out There

In a moment the world will release / the wreckage of one rose

Nov 30

Adam Fell,

I HAD GIVEN UP HOPE OF FINDING SOMEONE WHO LOVED THE WORLD AND…

To put it more delicately: I want you to fuck / the fiscal responsibility out of me.

Dec 07

Joseph Massey,

Early Dark

A vein along the road poised to spill.

Dec 14

Jess Burnquist,

Empty Plate with Sword

Fueled first by love, then anger. / Grief collects like dreamed-about coals.

Dec 28

Noah Siela,

A Good Catholic Confession

We glow with American sin / and we’ve led thoughtful lives.