Year: 2026

  • Poet Pick – Jonathan Yungkans

    Poet Pick – Jonathan Yungkans

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    by

    Constance Brewer
    in

    water —after “the way fingers know the keys starless night” by Michelle SchaeferUncle Tommy died and Dad told me seven years later / another door he kept locked / to a room dark as a starless night / as if Tommy were still camped on our living room couch after coming back from Vietnam /…

  • Poet Pick – Isabel Cristina Legarda

    Poet Pick – Isabel Cristina Legarda

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    by

    Constance Brewer
    in

    MythologyIn those days, the wooden drawers of card catalogs still led us to the books we thought we needed, and if we were lucky, to the miracle of cross-references.The rumor was that deep in the Widener Library stacks,in Scandinavian Literature, a blanket more epic than Freyr’s magic Skíðblaðnir guaranteed lovers who tussled under its fibersthe…

  • Poet Pick – Hallie Fogarty

    Poet Pick – Hallie Fogarty

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    by

    Constance Brewer
    in

    Those little clementine cuties might be my new favorite fruitbecause what other snack starts with using your nails to rip something open, tearing layers from skin, and the scent fill the whole room, leaves my fingertips stained orange and fragrant I like digging my nails into something in the process of desiring it, pith left…

  • Poet Pick – Grace Massey

    Poet Pick – Grace Massey

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    by

    Constance Brewer
    in

    Cleaning Out Mother’s HouseWe scrub the toilet first thing, swat at cobwebssweep away corpses of a thousand flies.Mice have made nests in the brittle lettersthat reveal our Pappy’s voluptuous affair(who the heck was Dolores?), his failed campaignto bring our father home from the Pacific.He well knew how the army poured whiskeydown the throats of boys…

  • Poet Pick – Felice Alexandra

    Poet Pick – Felice Alexandra

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    by

    Constance Brewer
    in

    My California—After Lee HerrickFor those studying fractions, it’s blue glory sky over diamond-littered ocean, which reduces evenly to Beauty, with no remainder. Every beach kidcan learn this math. Add rain and you get mustard flowers encouraged to wildproliferation. They yellow-tint foothills, color spilling toward the train tracks and Emma Wood beach. This is my California—a…

  • Poet Pick – Eileen Pettycrew

    Poet Pick – Eileen Pettycrew

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    by

    Constance Brewer
    in

    Business District circa 1982Praise the Cornet five-and-dime,Rodgers variety for ribbon by the foot.Praise the clerk with a ’50s bouffantand red-purple handslike my hands now.Praise the mortuary up the street,Direct Cremation $300—all the days I drove by that sign.Praise Inside Scoop, mocha fudgeice cream. Praise Rexall Drugs,sleepy Muzak, greeting cardsI spent too long picking out.Praise Bits…