By Anh Lee 2nd place winner of the Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize We last beyond a century we are forgotten smelling of indigo bodies and abandoned plains enshrouded in sand We feel our desires flicker and wriggle perimeters kissed by thunder, shaped by doves and caressed by lingering legs We…
Category: Poetry
Aromantic’s Apotropaic
By Charlie M. Case (with a borrowed line from Nicky Beer) Winner of The Edward R. and Frances Schreiber Collins Literary Awards (Poetry) This is not something anyone can eke out of me, so stop asking. Put your hands on me and don’t misinterpret—let me touch you only so we…
Displaced
By Zeynep Özer Winner of The Long River Review Graduate Writing Award Three Women That’s when they started talking. Not when the man with the gun walked into the puddle of blood. Puddle of his wife’s blood. Not when the puddle turned cold turned light painted sirens red and blue. But when…
“Fears After the Indonesian Forest Fires” By Anna Ziering (2017)
Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize, Winner (2017) Death, of course. Having no God. Sunday afternoons, New England falls. Sleet storms like the one that dented the new car and traumatized the dog, who never liked loud noise; who, like me when I was young, couldn’t stomach fireworks. They made us cry—that…
“New Year on Pleasure Island” By Brian Sneeden (2017)
Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize, Second Place (2017) What I did not know to make made itself in vestigial hours between two o’clock and dawn, when the shapes of birds stitch together in my mind, and a single cicada peels the air. Each letter I write returns to water. I start…
“La Fusión” By Gabriela García Sánchez (2017)
It was reverence I felt then, and I did not cower as it vibrated through me. El ritmo bonded us by our pies, our caderas, ventilating the air with scales speeding by. The beats amplified between our pechos, whistling for our cuerpos to collide. So I took a breath that…
Slam at the Benton: “Food Stamps” by Jacob Lowell (2017)
Food Stamps by Jacob Lowell When I was 5 years old I would sit with my mother and cut out the coupons in the newspaper, all spread out on the dining room table. They tell me I couldn’t remember being on food stamps; I was only a kid. But I…
Slam at the Benton: “Hardwood Laxatives” by Jacob Nelson (2017)
Hardwood Laxatives by Jacob Nelson I think HGTV is trying to redefine what a home is After realizing that at 3000 Sq ft two bedrooms And a home office No one under 35 has a home Open floorplans and hardwood are timeless So they switched greatrooms to microhomes and studios….
Slam at the Benton: “tops of trees” by Jillian Cundari (2017)
tops of trees by Jillian Cundari today for the first time in a long time I saw the tops of trees. I rolled to a near stop in drive at the top of the hill to see the trees and farms rising in heaps and the bubbling people, pushing through…
Slam at the Benton: “Splinter People” by Kelly Stoldt (2017)
Splinter People by Kelly Stoldt My mother has announced her worry That living in a single dorm room is bad for me. She asks if I’ve been socializing If I’ve made friends Leaves out “since the last time.” I tell her I’ve gotten really close with my mattress (It goes…