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.”
Poetry
We are so grateful to all of our partner-poets for sharing their work with us—please enjoy their beautiful words in our Featured Poetry catalogue.
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.”
“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.”
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”
world history
“in your amniotic chamber, you wrestle / with visions of formation. does time / pass if nobody is around to take note?”
There’s a tenderness at the end of this poem
“an uncle said the best thing to do to your loved / dead ones is to find them under the rubble. / plant them lillies.”
Twilight Exequy
“one day i’ll trade god for his crimson-lipstick cadillac the permanent moon / and the sublime insignia his tires make kicking gravel down my drive.”
Highway Mothercode
“You tied a red string around my ankle, / saying this is how we will remember, // The faux-umbilical noose criminal”