Herman Melville—mystic, orca oracle, and madness miner—left treasures of material for poets in Moby-Dick, and Steve Mentz found his muse in the idea of an Ahab-less Pequod—a multiracial, queer, and cruisier ship on a bountifully... Read More

Do perps read poetry? Is poetry’s perpose to take aim at the malevolence in all of us? Jordan Pérez would like a word with you. An expert in online safety and childhood sexual abuse prevention, she has been published in Poetry... Read More

“Reader, I married him”—–yes, Corey Van Landingham did. Jane Eyre acknowledgements aside, looks to the heavens to help comprehend just what that makes her. As her sidekick, we’re in for a dazzling ride of allusion, wit,... Read More

The pieces of what’s left of a people colonized need caretaking, lionizing, and encouragement to come out into the sun. The job is left to poets who are also warriors. Descending from Alaska’s Lingít, Haida, and Yup’ik Native... Read More

The poet shares his work in any number of ways once it’s conceived, primarily from page to reader. But Rolly Kent shows us that his poems have always existed in our hearts and minds and that it is only necessary to discover them,... Read More

Sometimes the muse makes a big ask. Revisit the death of a brother, for example, and explore how that painful memory gathers momentum as one’s own son comes of age. Muses, Erin Malone knows, are expert button pushers. A Coniston Prize... Read More

We can never be quite sure what powers a poet draws upon, where exactly she gets her mojo. Chelan Harkin discovered it the hard way: at the bottom-most point of mental and emotional suffering she was mystically blessed with creative... Read More

Between. Not here, not there. Not this, or that. Somewhere but not someplace. Not easy to put your, wrap your, place your—but confidence, and masterful touch with language, is what makes Esteban Rodríguez a credible, incredible even,... Read More