You, a Figment
“Desert camels and ice cream sundaes flash oblique shapes / across the ceiling — / Yes, you say, I see it all in color.”
Cherry-Tipped Triptych
“stay beautiful, skin rabbits, / luster in the hollowness. look / how the wolves circle, wanting, sifting what’s left / by the wound-winds / whispering”
Wave
“From above, everything looks delicate. / From above, / it looks like love: the light, / the peach cheek of the flower,”
2025-26 Rejected Poetry Prize: Winners & Finalists
Please join us in congratulating these remarkable poets. Winners were selected by Mai Der Vang.
Featured Poetry
We are so grateful to every poet who shares their work with us—please enjoy perusing the stunning work in our poetry archive.
Bellbird vernacular
By Alisha Brown
“I tell it to the ducks, who have / no dialect beyond the lightness // of their bodies.”
singing → nobody supposed to be here up (↑↑) & down (↓↓) the elevator in my building
By Trace DePass
“born decrepit in my subject position quest / (←)ion, marked, punctuated. i swing from it. i wrote it / backwards, start penultimate, i’m par [← achuting,”
Cain’s Wife On The Fifth Day Of Rain
“In the morning worms rise / slick from the earth. / They haven’t seen the sun / since you drove your brother’s name / into dirt.”