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how often will the same poets write about the leaves change? how many times will we turn on the news to hear of a groundhogs head turning in february?it is groundhog day after allhow often will we hear of cherry blossoms birthing in spring? how many times will we hear of the first snowfall in …

We Contain Landscapes by Patrycja Humienik (Tin House, 2025) To ask questions not to receive answers, but simply for the pleasure and perversity of asking them—this is the endearing stubbornness of We Contain Landscapes, Patrycja Humienik’s debut collection of poems. This book is propelled by an endless curiosity, shimmering throughout its pages like clear springwater …

Marginal Verse by Jamie Silvonek (Game Over Books, 2025) Marginal Verse is Jamie Silvonek’s debut poetry collection, which I had the honor of reading as a galley. I was stunned by Silvonek’s poems — which are vulnerable, evocative, viscerally felt, and demanding. I could feel each image pulsate, each line break shatter. Marginal Verse is …

When Kyle turns off the vacuum cleaner, silence rushes down the second floor hallway of her home and closes around her like an angry mob. She stands there in a pair of Mom-cutoff denim shorts, loose blue tank-top, and crocs, with her black hair spilling free from the back and edges of a blue bandanna. …

The naked snow slouched serenely through the crystal-cold canvas of my well-weathered window. The Artist’s sky today was painted battleship gray though brightly lit without shadowing. Frozen in temperature. Frozen in time Frozen in place Handprints on the glass forensic evidence of years spent viewing the outside from within trying to revisit my old world …

The heart is the soul and power – Motivation each artery is connected to nouns – Life each vein is a goal or task – Purpose Every book read evolves new streaks – Darwin  every friend made strength is grown – Strife every love skips a beat – Diagnose Time stops for no one – …

The length of the sojourn is unknown  The link to the world is only a phone My eyes of the world are not my own They are brother, sister, mother I have grown in knowledge, others in earth tones Memories like webs hold like ketones Life is wasted away like a melting snow cone  sweet …

The shrink prescribed me three little blue tablets. Told me to take them every morning with water. Take them to fend off reality. The brute. Also, a little pink and gray capsule. God only knows what’s in that one. But it, too, must be taken, she said. Who am I to question her? She is …

Today, while I was on the gate, I watched Cheba’s dead body being carted past the cell I lock in.[i] He was distinguished only by a look on his face as if he were breaking the seal on a tough bowel movement. If it hadn’t been for the Sergeant yelling “what’s the time,” I wouldn’t …

A slamming steel door wakes me up at 2:30 AM. Pulled from another dream of another world of freedom. I lay there semi-conscious until 3:00 AM. I get dressed, pull my boots on, stand up and collect my I.D., scratch my head, then urinate. The day has begun. Overhead, at roughly 3:15, steel doors start …