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Fifth Issue ................................................................................................................................................................... "MUSIC" - 2026/2027 Item Title Read More Item Title Read More Item Title Read More Item Title Read More Item Title Read More Item Title Read More BACK TO TOP

Fourth Issue ................................................................................................................................................................... "BREAKTHROUGHS" - 2025/2026 AT THE END OF OCTOBER Dennise Gackstetter Read RECONSIDERING GOD Dennise Gackstetter Read A HIGH SCHOOL MADRIGAL Naomi Ulsted Read GLAMOUR SHOTS Naomi Ulsted Read THE CITY HAS CHANGED Mona Mehas Read THE CURSE OF SEVENTY EIGHT Mona Mehas Read FRANK'S BUICK David G. Pace Read THE LITTLE HOUSE WE DANCE IN David G. Pace Read HAIRBRUSH David Romanda Read AWKWARD David Romanda Read REV. T. SCOTT KINCANNON KEEPS SOME SECRETS FROM HER FLOCK Michael Shay Read GEORGE RUNNING POLES Michael Shay Read THIS HORSE IS THE BOSS OF ME Mike Wilson Read FIRST RESPONDER Mike Wilson Read RIVER DOG AND SHADOW MAN, a story Michael Henson Read DEAD MAN'S MONEY Michael Henson Read STREET IMAGINATION Stephen Ruffus Read ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY Stephen Ruffus Read ISINGLASS Austin Holmes Read WATCHING FOG Austin Holmes Read SUMMONING Shari Zollinger Read FOUND Shari Zollinger Read REACHING Terry Jude Miller Read SPRING CLEANING Terry Jude Miller Read STILL LIFE WITH FLY Shawn Dallas Stradley Read PAINTING THE CAVE Shawn Dallas Stradley Read EXHALING CAREFULLY Christina Robertson Read THE AWFUL THING Christina Robertson Read JUST SO YOU KNOW Carol Coven Grannick Read WHEN HE HAD TO TRAVEL Carol Coven Grannick Read REAL ESTATE Marjorie Maddox Read TIP Marjorie Maddox Read THE DYING ROOM Paula Harrington Read NEVAH BETTAH Paula Harrington Read PURSED LIPS Robert Cooperman Read LETTERS FROM HOME: Surprise Lake Camp, Cold Spring, New York, 1957 Robert Cooperman Read THE GARDEN YOU MADE Maureen Clark Read LET'S SAY Maureen Clark Read GOING SOUTH George Amabile Read COMING OF AGE ON MY 84th BIRTHDAY George Amabile Read TO MAKE IT NOW David Romtvedt Read NO MORE BLOWS David Romtvedt Read POURQUOI MOI E. D. Lloyd-Kimbrel Read RUTHLESS E. D. Lloyd-Kimbrel Read FROM COTTON TO WOOL ... and Beyond Alex Barr Read THE OLD MAN AND THE FENCES Alex Barr Read BECAUSE WE CAN Brock Dethier Read TIGHTENING SKATES Brock Dethier Read FIVE DAYS INTO THIS NEW ADMINISTRATION Alexandra van de Kamp Read SAFE GRAVY Alexandra van de Kamp Read EXTRAS AT THE GATES OF EDEN Alison Moore Read AT ABU ALI Alison Moore Read CHARYBDIS Mike Alexander Read LAST DRIVE Mike Alexander Read BACK TO TOP

Third Issue ................................................................................................................................................................... "BREAKTHROUGHS" - 2025/2026 POEM APPROACHING FOUR PAST TENSES Lauren Camp Read SIGHT Lauren Camp Read HYMN FOR LORCA klipschutz Read BALLAD OF U AND ME klipschutz Read STONES Mike White Read DOUBLE LIFE Mike White Read BOY Jamison Conforto Read ANTELOPE BOY Jamison Conforto Read CHALK-WHITE, CANYON-DEEP Nano Taggart Read ON SELECTING THE CONTENTS OF CARE PACKAGE NUMBER THREE Nano Taggart Read TRIGGER ALERT Robert Okaji Read RELENTLESS Robert Okaji Read OUR BIG TOES Barbara Huntington Read SHIFT Barbara Huntington Read A WHISPERING BEETLE Nancy Takacs Read SWEET PEAS Nancy Takacs Read AEROBICS BY GOD Star Coulbrooke Read RED CAMARO Star Coulbrooke Read LAST MEAL Stacy Julin Read ALMOST Stacy Julin Read IT'S OKAY Andrea Hollander Read LIVING ROOM Andrea Hollander Read BLOOD DRAW Karin Anderson Read YES, EMILY, HOPE Jan Mordenski Read INCUNABULA, MOTHER TONGUE Max McDonough Read ONE SMALL CHANGE Max McDonough Read HARD TIMES Lev Raphael Read COLD MARBLE, HOT MEMORIES Lev Raphael Read IMAGINED SCENES Mary Behan Read STARGAZING Mary Behan Read I SAW HER STANDING THERE Scott Abbott Read AN AMICABLE CORRESPONDENCE Scott Abbott Read HOW TO TURN A HATE MARCH INTO A JUBILEE PROCESSION Dana Henry Martin Read FIVE COWS, TWO CALVES FOUND SHOT DEAD IN PINE VALLEY Dana Henry Martin Read ANGEL'S DINER Stephen Wunderli Read THE BIRDWATCHER Stephen Wunderli Read FACING IT Shanan Ballam Read THE LONG HAUL Shanan Ballam Read BIRD NEWS Cynthia Hardy Read RUDE WEATHER Cynthia Hardy Read GHAZAL WITH COYOTES, GAZA AND HEALING HERBS Pamela Uschuk Read BLUEBIRD ABECEDARIAN Pamela Uschuk Read Review of EL REY OF GOLD TEETH by Reyes Ramirez Willy Palomo Read MAMA'S HANDS Willy Palomo Read VOCABULARY Robbie Gamble Read GAMBLE PATRILINEAGE Robbie Gamble Read DEAR CARLEY Beth Colburn Orozco Read THE WHIZ KID Beth Colburn Orozco Read HUNTINGTON BEACH, MARCH 2 Shauri Cherie Read WEST ON PICCADILLY Shauri Cherie Read CRASH RUMINATIONS (excerpt) Karin Anderson Read HOW TO MAKE A BASKET Jan Mordenski Read BACK TO TOP

First Issue .............................................................................................................................................................. "FAVORITES"- 2024/2025 SIREN by Amy Gerstler Read THE LURE OF THE UNFINISHED by Amy Gerstler Read READING by Natasha Sajé Read ALIEN EXCHANGE PROGRAM - HOST APPLICATION by Naomi Ulsted Read A TWIST OF THE VINE by Naomi Ulsted Read SOMETHING TO SURRENDER TO by Austin Holmes Read BONE SUITE by AUSTIN HOLMES Read FOLEY CATHETER by Kimberly Johnson Read INSOMNIA by Cynthia Hardy Read I'D RATHER BE INFLUENCED by Patrick Ramsay Read BEFORE THIRTY by Patrick Ramsay Read THE WORRIER by Nancy Takacs Read YOU OUGHTA KNOW by Brock Dethier Read THE BLACK FLIES OF HOME by Brock Dethier Read PISSING TOWARD THE SKY by Jerry VanIeperen Read TUESDAY NIGHT BIEBER by Joe Sacksteder Read HIROSHI TANAHASHI by Jerry VanIeperen Read 11/8/16 by by Joe Sacksteder Read FIREFLIES by Kevin Prufer Read AUTOMOTIVE by Kevin Prufer Read GRADUAL by Natashe Sajé Read VILLAGE FIDDLE by Ken Waldman Read NEW ORLEANS VILLANELLE by Ken Waldman Read STILL LIFE WITH MORMONS IN MY LIVING ROOM by Paul Fericano Read SINATRA, SINATRA by Paul Fericano Read SACRAMENT MEETING STARTED THE THREE HOURS OF CHURCH ON SUNDAY by Natalie Padilla Young Read TEDDY THOMPSON CROONS LEONARD COHEN by Natalie Padilla Young Read JUNK EMAIL by Nancy Takacs Read BELIEF by Mike White Read WITHOUT QUESTION I AM by Mike White Read THE FIRST TIME I SAW SNOW by Jeff Talmadge Read THE LITTLE HOUSE, CRYSTAL CITY, TEXAS by Jeff Talmadge Read THE DREAM by Shanan Ballam Read JULY by Shanan Ballam Read MISSA BREVIS by Kimberly Johnson Read AMONG by Cynthia Hardy Read ON THE DISEMBARKATION OF SERGEANT NATHAN E. COOK IN AUCKLAND, 13 JUNE 1942 by Michael McLane Read MAKARA BEACH by Michael McLane Read BACK TO TOP

< Back I'D RATHER BE INFLUENCED Patrick Ramsay to send more postcards. To kiss with more tongue and let cantaloupe juice run all the way down to my elbows. I’d rather be influenced to cook more quiche and make cold brew at home. To wake up early and stay in bed. To be better at remembering my friends’ birthdays. To vote early. I want an algorithm that worships heirloom tomatoes. The sound of that one summer cricket outside my window. Peach sorbet with tiny spoons. The way the mountains go copper at dusk. The chatter of your dog laughing in a dream across the room. First published in Gwarlingo , "The Sunday Poem." This poem marked the beginning of a new season in my writing. It emerged when I felt like I was finally settling into my life in Utah after years away. More importantly, I was settling into my own voice as a poet. I was slowing down. Whispering instead of yawping. I was making the case for a slower life, one where influencers focus their attention on unsellable glimmers of life beyond the algorithm. James Crews featured it as The Sunday Poem on Gwarlingo and it went viral. Funny enough: many folks sharing it online were the influencer-type who inspired it. Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PATRICK RAMSAY is a queer poet & owner of the indie shop Happy Magpie Book & Quill. He explores land, community & heart in Ogden, Utah. patrickramsaypoet.com

< Back THE BLACK FLIES OF HOME Brock Dethier Black flies dance in the air between my head and my brother’s, distorting the view. We sit on pinkish granite smoothed and sloped by retreating glaciers ten millennia ago. Below us, the Rocky Branch of the Saco River, then the ridge that leads from Stanton and Pickering all the way up to Davis, Isolation, and Washington itself. Farther west, the ski trail scars of Mt. Attitash, still the new ski area, though it opened in 1965. Black flies are small, hard to see, quiet. They like warm sheltered places— behind your ear or knee. They follow the blood others have left. And bite. I react with large hard itchy welts that I scratch bloody in my sleep. Mosquitoes are everywhere but I’ve never seen black flies outside New England, so their presence is a special “welcome home!” to the region. Around us, blueberry bushes with subtle flowers— little cream bells that will become the fruit of the New Hampshire gods-- rhodora about to brighten the ledges with cerise blossoms, grus eroded from the ledges filling the cracks between them, sweet fern. I wasn’t aware of being bitten but I find blood behind my ear. Within our view, we’ve skied both downhill and cross country, canoed, floated, kayaked, swam, hiked of course. We were born just out of sight to the left. We’ve come in search of iron mines and leave with sparkly ore, black fly bumps starting to itch, and a few crystals to take back west to what still seems after 26 years a temporary home. Few who have experienced New England’s black flies would argue that they make the world a better place, yet for people who have grown up with them, the flies mean home. Having spent half my life in New England and half in Utah, I’m interested in how we think about “home,” and this unpublished, personal poem tries to illuminate the complexities of the concept and to highlight the irony that sometimes what bugs you may come to signify home for you. Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BROCK DETHIER retired from Utah State University after directing the writing composition program for 11 years. His publications include From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music (Heinemann, 2003), First Time Up: An Insider’s Guide for New Composition Teachers (Utah State University Press, 2005), Twenty-One Genres and How to Write Them (Utah State University Press, 2013), and two books of poetry, Ancestor Worship (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and Reclamation (Popcorn Press, 2015).

< Back THE WORRIER Nancy Takacs Now that you are her, what will you do? I’ll walk across the swinging bridge and light a clove cigarette. How will you roam? I’ll drive a Packard convertible, my man in a long dark coat beside me. In the countryside, where will you land, and what will you eat? We’ll find a bar in northern Wisconsin. We won’t eat. What are you wearing, and what do you look like? An indigo dress, a little black cloche. I’ve outlined my lips to look like a sweet maroon bow. What songs will you sing? “Heart of My Heart” And “I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard.” Who will know you better than anyone? My silk chemise. What undergarments do you wear? None. What tree do you wear instead? The plum. Why? Because it’s a palm full of dusk. What word will you use? Flagrant. It’s time for this. Where does the word go? It rises from under my bare feet when I leave the beach. What is strange about you now? There is nothing strange. What is common? I have loved the first light. Where does the light go? It goes under the letters in captions of what I say. Where does the scent go? It goes into my eyes, my mouth, the way I turn my head so that you will imagine lilacs. Initially printed in The Tampa Review and The Worrier: Poems (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017). I guess this poem is a favorite of mine, as it’s the first Worrier poem I wrote, and it called me back to write more Worriers, that became a book. I like the film star because she is strong, even though she is, in a sense, voiceless. However, in the poem, she has a voice. She takes charge of where she is going, is confident about her choices, and plays with the reader a bit. Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NANCY TAKACS is an avid boater, hiker, and mushroom forager. She lives near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin, and in the high-desert town of Wellington, Utah. Her latest book of poems is Dearest Water. nancytakacs.org

< Back BEFORE THIRTY Patrick Ramsay I streak through a golf course in nectarine light and self-destruct a little bit. Not in a Salamander Letter type of way, but like an old truck whose engine blows right after the warranty is up. I cancel the party. Detonate my relationship. Call in sick. Call my old therapist with the tattoos. Ask him if he’s still engaged. Send up a flare. Can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realize the word hello and help are one autocorrect away from twinhood. I kiss everyone. Kiss goodbye to my savings account. Greet one thousand new hobbies with the fervor of a young dog. Tongue out. I only have so much time left to be reckless in my twenties. I was twenty-eight the first time a twink told me he loves older guys. This. This is why all the queens call thirty gay death. I feel too young, too childless, too cut loose to be someone’s daddy. But maybe he was right. My mortgage, the chicken coop, the poodle-mutt rescue dog. I used to be stupid. Gloriously, aimlessly stupid. But at some point along the way: A bungalow, a career, a real live-with-me, go-to-weddings-and-farmers-markets-together partner. Someone must have tricked me. Tricked me into learning what a 401k is. What a deductible is. How to become interested in interest rates. I’m going to be sick. Sick and grown up forever. And thirty is a perfectly fine age. It’s the death of the I did this in my twenties thing that I’m mourning. Who damned me to grow up this fast? To man before I really was done boying. This is the part where I’m supposed to assure you that a job can be a dream, and mowing your own lawn, also a dream. But gut laughs, mushroom trips, occasional sex with strangers—also, also a dream. I know I know, that growing older grows on you, but youth is a temporary meadow with soft scruff, and I guess this is the long way of saying I’m afraid of losing something I didn’t know was worth anything. Anyway, call me when you get this. Need to borrow your drill again. This unpublished poem came out fully formed, like a platypus frog or a nervous confession. I was one week from turning thirty and wrestling with what that meant. As a gay man, aging is such a prickly arena, and many men treat thirty like a sunset of their dewy youth. This poem reflects on all the glorious stupidities of my twenties and what it means to realize (maybe a little too late) that you might just have become a man before you were really done boying. And I still don’t own a drill. Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PATRICK RAMSAY is a queer poet & owner of the indie shop Happy Magpie Book & Quill. He explores land, community & heart in Ogden, Utah. patrickramsaypoet.com

< Back THE LURE OF THE UNFINISHED Amy Gerstler for Elise Cowen intercepted mid brush stroke those who die young or trun- cated loom still wet with potential those who elude us who fled into death their echoes gnaw at our future and we the abandoned remain unfinished too friends/lovers/ interrupted mid gesture or caress given the slip by loves gone to fossil or scholars' fodder or life-size paper dolls we chase through dreams we cast them in roles they never auditioned for blurred wrecks at rest on the sea floor fish flit through their dissipating hulls sentiment clouds the water their incompleteness = infinite possibility how ravenously I wish her back during nights spent struggling (without success) to decipher her handwriting— This poem was sparked by reading the work of Elise Cowen, a female Beat poet whose small but intriguing body of work was a revelation. She died at 28, so I was left wanting more, troubled by regret about those who die young, wishing it could have been different. My excitement about her work was inextricable from an elegiac feeling. I'm fond of the poem because it's a document in which I try to contemplate and honor the effect her work had on me, and my sadness re: lives cut short. Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AMY GERSTLER has published ten books of poetry and received a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Los Angeles. poetryfoundation.org/poets/amy-gerstler

< Back BONE SUITE AUSTIN HOLMES Staring at these bones in the utter rhythm of sun they seem inevitable, but only might have been. In the Montana mountains scanning a meadow for barbed wire I stumble upon a half-devoured carcass a meal not yet completed. I suddenly feel not so alone in that vastness. I look to the spaces between the trees for eyes in the dark night, there is rain and mud, obscure shapes of their parietal art hovering in scorched shadows, jackrabbit jawbones not quite half-moons. The underside of pelvis bones shaped like owls, these bones and bones and bones, bleached fragments on the edge, stiller than the breath of stone. First published in Columbia Journal . I’ve always had a fascination with bones and wrote this after some time spent in Centennial Valley. There were many moments of vulnerability in that land, both physical and emotional. Sometimes it takes feeling small in vast spaces to understand that, as Jim Harrison said, “To have reverence for life, you must have reverence for death.” Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AUSTIN HOLMES lives in southern Utah, where he spends life with his beloved partner and their dog. He contemplates what he can and falls in love with the sky daily anew.

< Back INSOMNIA Cynthia Hardy The pillow has heard it all: the litany of undone things. The horses stamp the barn at night; each thump of hoof against board accuses. Not nearly enough hay, they tell me, and where’s all the green stuff? Snow fills their paddock to their knees. And what about my words to you? Should I have said íf instead of when; what then? The darkness spreads full and warm. Blankets tangle. The cat pats my cheek with her untrimmed paw. Should I change the litter box now? Call a long-lost friend? The horses set out across the land, looking for the barn they deserve, red paint and all. A stream flows year round, its banks curve, green plush, to the clear water. There are other horses, none with shaggy coats or dirt-packed hooves. The cat wants to be in the dream. She perches her wiry self on the black mare’s back and weaves, tail spiraling for balance as they gallop off. You rise, say, I’m going with them. Fine, I say. My eyes blink; blink propagates blink. I sweep the blankets across my shoulders like some Versace robe, a gown of sleep. From We Tempt Our Luck , finalist in the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Chapbook Contest, 2009. This poem reflects some themes I often go back to—the horses, a cat or a dog, the impact of winter on the psyche, insomnia, and dreams. It was also a response to a set of prompts I set myself from bits of found language—in this case, the word “Versace.” The “you” in these two poems may or may not be a real person. Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CINDY HARDY writes from Chena Ridge, Fairbanks, Alaska. She has published poetry and fiction, with a new poetry collection, Rude Weather forthcoming from Salmon Poetry.

< Back SIREN Amy Gerstler I have a fish’s tail, so I’m not qualified to love you. But I do. Pale as an August sky, pale as flour milled a thousand times, pale as the icebergs I have never seen, and twice as numb—my skin is such a contrast to the rough rocks I lie on, that from far away it looks like I’m a baby riding a dinosaur. The turn of centuries or the turn of a page means the same to me, little or nothing. I have teeth in places you’d never suspect. Come. Kiss me and die soon. I slap my tail in the shallows—which is to say I appreciate nature. You see my sisters and me perched on rocks and tiny islands here and there for miles: untangling our hair with our fingers, eating seaweed. From Bitter Angel, (North Point Press, 1990). "Siren" is an older poem that still has a place in my heart because it dates from a time in my life when I was first realizing I wanted to write about women's lives: even mythical women, my obsession with the archetype of mermaids, etc. and I was trying to work out ways to do that in poems. Previous Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AMY GERSTLER has published ten books of poetry and received a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Los Angeles. poetryfoundation.org/poets/amy-gerstler