Flaming June
“combing a canyon meadow for wildflowers, letting pale tendrils trail / over my limbs. It’s all I’m good for, existence in the cadmium red stillness of summer.”
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Sixth Mass Extinction
“Name this revenge. Name it absence. Name / the embers numberless as stars as / our daughter walks alone”
The Season of Smoke
By Nwodo Divine
“At the mouth of the village, children gather snail shells. / They press them to their ears to listen to the death of rain.”
Sonnet Overheard at Phone Booth
By Elane Kim
“I am leaving a message at the tone and a song / that will loop and a bird or two to peck at all the crumbs / I have left behind.”
Deadlines: October & November 2025
Every middle of the month: new deadlines, new contests, and new opportunities for your work to find its audience. Here is a roundup of ten submission opportunities with deadlines in the next two months.
“Self-Portrait as Adam’s Rib” and “Eschatology”
By Salma Amrou
“peeling the skin of the same fruits until we peeled / back our own, to read our palms better, only // to find a line drawn straight down the middle, / one our mapless fingers could not cross.”
PLEASE WRITE ME A POEM PLEASE MAKE IT BEAUTIFUL
By Amelia
“There is a lamp in a motel room. / This lamp is important because it is what you will remember. / Focus on the lamp in great detail, leave out why you are there.”
Passing Notes: Four Collaborative Writing Exercises for Pen Pals
By Sara Dudo
In preparation for Palette’s Pen Pal Poetry Challenge, opening on September 25, 2025, editor-in-chief Elyssia Nguyen and associate editor Sara Dudo compiled four writing activities to kickstart your writing, and additionally, collaborated in writing four poems for each activity as an example and guide!
Touch my face in the Vietnamese restaurant
By Troy Wong
“As for me I promise I will never ask you to do a dramatic reading // of any of my old Facebook posts, only that you / touch my face in the Vietnamese restaurant”