Poem for the God of Small Mercies
“Now, as usual, it is 3 a.m, and I am making / chokeberry jam. The ingredients: chokeberries, / pectin, sugar. The approximation of a prayer: any / violence made sweet.”
“Now, as usual, it is 3 a.m, and I am making / chokeberry jam. The ingredients: chokeberries, / pectin, sugar. The approximation of a prayer: any / violence made sweet.”
By Kim Harvey
For April’s Poetry We Admire, we’ve picked some beauties that honor the art of poetry and what it may offer us in these uncertain times. Enjoy some incredible (mostly) new Ars Poetica from around the net.
I thought there were things we created to survive us, and somewhere else the things we created to survive. Poetic inquiry has shown me the two are indistinct.
“That is what poems do they call everything by a name and suddenly little pieces of metal scraping / against metal. Gutshot. Name it.”
We are honored to share with everyone the winners and finalists of the 2020 Spotlight Award!
By Mary Foulk
“my squinting eyes search / any compass point / to return to / after your death—my own body / crawling towards that blue black”
These past few weeks, with their own wild and discordant sense of time, have felt like an invitation to reflect, to look back and find the good. We asked our readers to identify some of their favorites from the Featured Poetry we published in 2019.
By Alan Chazaro
“Pocho Boy Meets World” is a Latinx poetry column written by California poet, Alan Chazaro. Join him as he eats his share of quesadillas and uses broken Spanish in hopes of connecting more deeply with what it means to be a U.S. Latinx writer in Latin America. This month, he’s exploring Brazil.
By W.M. Lobko
“Happy Birthday. A nebula based on your eye // exploding explodes far above on the surface. / It doesn’t bother the sea life.”