Poetry

Because of their format, several poems that appear in the current issue are included as pdfs. To read them, click on their titles below or on the right side of this page.

Finalists
Geoffrey Hill

1: after Paul Éluard, ‘Couvre-feu’, 1942

 

So what big deal forbidden doors

so who came forth if no escape

Four Days
Cornelius Eady

Since it didn’t happen the evening
Of whatever the hell Emmett Till did;

Deep Song
Cornelius Eady

These mother-fuckers,
These mother-fuckers
Won’t let me sing.

Sestina
William Virgil Davis

Tonight, there are no stars.
This huge hooded dark
is like a deep sleep

The Night’s Cascade
Garrett Hongo

Lunch breaks, summer I was 20 clerking for the City, I’d sit on marble benches
across from the glass palace of DWP, over at the Mark Taper,

Oracle
Warren Slesinger

The water worried me
when the gray face that floated over it
in lines and patches to the shore

Easier Done
Constantine Contogenis

I give her chances all the time — not to make
her the mom for me.  But I’m just passing through
her stop, on a middle track, seeing her go left
across my window while she stands on the platform,

Pax
Richard Kenney

So, Love, when that celebrated clarifier,
Chemotherapy, calls back—for us,

Afterlife
Richard Kenney

On time to the strike of a silent bell
inside the chapel of the cell

The Southwest Part of the Truth
Ioanna Carlsen

It’s true and it’s not true, it’s partly the light
that makes the bone-colored clouds
seem to web in shadows down the mountains,