One of our two poetry winners is Lo Naylor, for their poem “at the baggage claim in JFK.” This year’s poetry judge was Joshua Bennett. Of Naylor’s poem, he writes: “at the baggage claim in JFK” is a poem that transported me back to a city I’ve loved for as long as I’ve been alive, and…
We pretended not to see him weeping, the fogclotted in his throat. His filthy coat. Someunforeseen disaster always coming for him.He often went missing, fell asleep in the snow.How could we know? We triednot to see him, flinching at the sun, at whateverloomed above him. The fist of the fathercoming down hard on the head…
One of our two poetry winners is Jonathan Wolf, for his poem “The Hog Farm.” This year’s poetry judge was Joshua Bennett. Of Wolf’s poem, he writes: “The Hog Farm” is memorable for many reasons. But it’s primarily the poet’s careful attention to the bond between silence and song that caught my attention. The soundscape here…
At this time of day, goldish-gray rains down and our garden plot turns to mud.I forgot to plant anything this year, but it’s totally fine because I saw a headline, Honey Bees Are Not At Risk of Extinction. For this, I praise last year’s plumeof borage, chamomile, salvia. So this is how things will be…
Whose rooftops droop like power lines and tiltingstovepipes cough fibrils of smoke from failing firesthat haven’t given heat since Mondale lost. I knowthe faded NASCAR signs, the velvet robes of carcasses on deer hoists in bow season, and window shades handmade from sheets.This place of Cheez Whiz and knockoff pop.This place where cars on blocksarchitect strange piles in…
The first time the girls ask what the word means, colonized, a lark falls dead at our feet, undoubtedly, on a small lawn of white petals from the climbing rose. Platitudes, I mean plenitudes, the greenery’s plenitude. I will wait until tonight and when the bristling blossoms close, I will tell the girls something or everything. I…
A polite town. The mountainswearing purple for our pleasure, clouds holding their snowy breathso everyone’s clueless parentscould get home safe from work.“I’m gonna die here,” Shauna says, her head up against the chain-linksuch that when she angles to catch mein her periphery there’s a red X indented in her brow like a responseon a test,…
Clouds race each other across the heavens, as dazzlingas they are ephemeral. Frayed ravens inquire,Why can’t you accept his death or anyone else’s? Botanists sayplants register memories of winter, which they useto decide if it’s safe, meaning warm enough, to bloom.Scores of sexually deceptive orchids were discoveredon two new islands this June. Snakes make friends.Mice reflect…
“Why is my mama sleeping?” he asksstruggling to unbuckle, hardlyhearing the noiseof the machine gun bursts His childish torso slidesunder her breasts and belly—it hurts them both, yetlax as seaweed they lie for ages under the watersmoving along with the tideuntil a man’s voiceshouts: “Come out! Out!” “Seriously?” is allshe can manage, as if lodged…
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