A Number Is a Place
By Norman Tran
“Every 4th of a / second, a new future is born. Every 17 seconds, a future leaves behind only a scent. I / wonder what an almost future smells like. The smell of rusted incense.”
Blog
2026 Rising Poet Prize: Winners & Finalists
Please join us in congratulating these incredible rising poets. Winners were selected by Xochitl-Julisa Bermjeo.
The Blue Hour
By Kuhu Joshi
“Unafraid of the street dogs’ / persistent sniffing, the wet Delhi wind, / she nuzzled their jaws in her lap and talked to them / like babies.”
梅雨季 / Plum Rain Season
By Yuhan Wu
“It is plum rain season and the air is full of things opening too quickly. / In this mumbling wetness something ripens.”
Deadlines: September & October 2026
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.
Produce, Bear, Surrender
“Keep your / lantern nearby, for when the lake goes dark / there will be no mercy”
“Ornament” and “A Century of Surnames for Witness”
“should you cast your eyes heavenward, / your body shrugs off the symmetry // of this shift in weather, and your name lifts to a hush / of mulberry trees;”
You, a Figment
“Desert camels and ice cream sundaes flash oblique shapes / across the ceiling — / Yes, you say, I see it all in color.”
Interview with Divya Victor, Judge of the 2026 Ekphrastic Poetry Prize
“Your style is how you negotiate becoming worthy of a reciprocal gaze. Your method is how you teach yourself to navigate that irreducible, illuminating distance between you and the object you write about.”