By Judith H. Montgomery / Poetry /       Today, hunched under bomb burst in Rafah, three men—  bloodied, powdered by dust—scramble from their cracked  shelter to the new crater, its fatal blaze, its blasted concrete  walls. Despite danger. Their bare hands tear at the debris,  red wrack-line of war: to dig out someone, anyone,  who might survive. Today it is a family half-buried  beneath broken slabs. Ignoring mortar flare, they lever out the father, his trapped chest, ravage

By Brian Alarcon / Poetry /       I am sorry for showing up just now  like that  with you, all there right there I was crazy, singing something I didn’t know yet. I have a gash from my elbow to my wrist that sliced in half my Breton tattoo. I was climbing a rock. I never know what to do when I am not loved. I put some sap on it. I am here now for a bandage or a cast or maybe you know better what this needs. I am not medicinally inclined. I hate the sound of touching leaves du

By CD Steele / Poetry /       There are fish that protect their young  by holding them      in their mouths You are bones   pinched between two fingers I want to keep you    in my cheek In life  you would have tasted like gin  and smoke There are cultures in South America that ritually eat their dead During Spanish colonization Queen Isabella commanded none to be   enslaved but those that ate  human flesh There were more cannibals after that. The Amahuaca people of what is no

By Andrew Garvin / Poetry /       I teeter along life’s cantilever for the hundredth time over, and today, cancer. Same as my dad’s. I’m ripped open, long after his death, for the hundredth time over, thinking of his singular love of cycling. I’m ripped open, long after his death, wondering if he knew of my utter disdain for cycling? That he would die by it, not cancer? I wonder if he could know how quickly my grief spins the longer I survive my cancer. I look up a definition

By Armon Eugene Newsom / Poetry /       Never fuck someone you wouldn't wanna be Because you really do become them. Just ask me As I hang here still  Stuck between the teeth Of the last man who bit into me. I know why they call it consummation. The want that I placed in him Metabolized into a hymn And coughed up as blood Staining crisp white ties and handkerchiefs. I think I can always tell  Which Frank Ocean song is about a man By how somber it tastes. Someday I hope I'm as

By Oleg Olizev / Poetry /       Do not ask me why the whole world is trying to crawl into your bellybutton.  I have a huge number of operators digging for my bottle-hole.  Let’s agree on one thing: everybody for himself. That’s fair.  And keep in mind—explosives are still an essential part of human life.  It takes passion and willpower to accept this truth: there will be no better life  unless you put your faith in fairy tales, in something soft and glowing—  an illusion alre

By Weiji Wang 王唯冀 / Poetry /         Sophie had a daughter, who died an infant. She lived—how could she not—and gave another birth. A son. The son grew out of infancy. He lived. Sophia thought her daughter should live: how could she not / think how could she not / live how could the son / go on to live and live / the way men would live how could he not / live the way she / herself lived / the way her daughter / was supposed to live if he was going to She put him in a dress an

at the Nursing Home, Lock Ward By Eric Machan Howd / Poetry /         she begged me not to leave her moments after we first met as if I’d abandon her like all the others still in her life that won’t do  she cried though I told her my backyard is full of wild forget-me-nots and I’ve never had the heart to mow them over for sod their small blue stars hold every story I tell them

By Carole Greenfield / Poetry /         You're right , you said.  We ought to milk it for all it's worth. There are so many things about me you have yet to unearth but you are in that place where you aver nothing I can do  or say will put you off, so I'll take you at your word,  take you as you are, make a wish on every evening star,  try not worry about how long it will last, when the milk  will expire, when the glow will pass as I watch the winter moon  beyond my study glas

By Tan Jia Yan / Poetry /         Last Friday I found maggots in my dinner. Slimy, dense things reminding me of my own mortality. The cashier at the grocer was an old man with the kind of almond eyes that make you feel translucent. Brainless too. Like a maggot. Stupid, isn't it, to think $3 would always get you something good. To think myself infallible. I thought about vomit. Sweaty strands of hair pulled back. Cold air hitting my neck like a warning. The maggots were everyw

By Wally Swist / Poetry /         I enter the ward and see you at the end of the long hallway sitting among others in their wheelchairs. When I reach you, I place my forehead against yours, and hear you whisper, “There are reflections everywhere.” After I move you to a quieter corner, I read Rilke to you and you respond to the poem about stars. I comb your long hair back so I can put on one of the colored headbands I brought. Today is dark grey, to harmonize with your blue pl

By Mary Hawley / Poetry /         This is how we begin: highway signs  in two languages, our bags thrown  into the back seat. Miles of...

By Kathy Jiang / Poetry /         光輝歲月 after Beyond The morning Wong Kai Kui died,  my father read the newspaper, phoned my mother from...

By Mark Wyatt / Poetry /         --

By Heather Gluck / Second Place, 2025 Plentitudes Prize in Poetry /

By Em Palughi / First Place, 2025 Plentitudes Prize in Poetry /

By Stevie Chedid / Third Place, 2025 Plentitudes Prize in Poetry /

By Patricia Gray / Poetry /   In Ethiopia we have seen many eclipses.  We just heat glass until it is smoked and look through it at...

By Crystal Rivera / Poetry /   What bloomed from grief             came instinct,                                     came wrath. The...

By Xi Chen / Poetry /   There is nothing about John Ashbery’s racist poem sadder than the poem trying to cancel it by the student who...

By Robin Greene / Poetry /   Driving our ‘55 Chevy, my mom sings Sinatra while I sit beside to her, peering at Cunningham Park   as...