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Illuminating poetry since 1959

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Lines / from the current issue

We kick the dog out and lock the door / and make love quietly.

CARRIE FOUNTAIN | Lullaby After Bedtime

Recent Features

May 7, 2021

Life List

A series of poems by BIPOC poets that engage with birds, curated by Sean Hill.

by Staff
May 5, 2021

Interview // A Fractured Catalog of Different Possible Endings: A Conversation with...

conducted by Alex Gallo-Brown

by Staff
April 27, 2021

A Book in a Tree Is a Love Poem and Also Not a Love Poem

"A watershed of shared thinking."—Youth Responses to Natalie Diaz curated by Laura Da'

by Staff
April 23, 2021

Interview // Circling the Distance: A Conversation wtih Hoa Nguyen

"There’s a certain way that the poems seek a new narration, I think, one that hadn’t been there. And...

by Staff

poem of the week

MICHAEL KLEBER-DIGGS
Postcard to Sean

Published by Staff

what creature calls with notes
above the rattle?

May 7, 2021
Poems

MARILYN HACKER
[A line of salt like a linen thread is wound to the rocks.]

Published by Staff

If God blessed vegetation, fish, birds and beasts, / then humans, did s/he get around to the rocks?

April 28, 2021
Poems

TROY OSAKI
Another Poem in Which My Grandpa is Gone

Published by Staff

Ka Fidel’s kids ask for his ashes to be sent to the Philippines

April 20, 2021
Poems

TIANA NOBILE
Harlow’s Monkey

Published by Staff

The cage exists only in our mind.
Kick down the door. Matchstick.

April 18, 2021
Poems

REBECCA MORTON
Kith Nor Kin / Foster Care Preparedness Assessment

Published by Staff

And saying it brought me
to the ground.

April 12, 2021
Poems

JACK JUNG
Lazarus

Published by Staff

I died in my room and they turned it
Into a tomb

April 7, 2021
Poems

Cinema Poetry NW

Features

Features, Recent

Life List

A series of poems by BIPOC poets that engage with birds, curated by Sean Hill.

May 7, 2021
Features

One More Thing

Conversations with contributors and other writers curated by Helene Achanzar

April 18, 2021
Features

On Failure

In which writers investigate the practice of failure.

April 8, 2021
Features, Recent

Wago Ryoichi’s Poetics of Catastrophe

translated and introduced by Ayako Takahashi and Judy Halebsky

March 10, 2021
Features

Native Poets Torchlight Series

In which Guest Editor Jennifer Elise Foerster celebrates contemporary Native American poets.

February 15, 2021
blue blur color dark
Features

The Subvocal Zoo

A podcast featuring readings by and conversations with writers & poets.

November 15, 2020
Features, Recent

DAO STROM
an excerpt from Instrument

[Wading into a new decade (ten miles of jungle, twenty+ river crossings, one night in a cave, chimes at the altar of the Highway of Horror, then lunch by...

October 26, 2020
Features

Visual Poetry

Poets explore the intersection of word and image.

September 13, 2020
Features

Line Cook

In which Editor Keetje Kuipers pairs an episode of a literary podcast with a delicious recipe.

September 10, 2020

book reviews

April 28, 2021

The Crux of Its Divining

A Review of Regan Good

by Staff
April 21, 2021

Work to Be Done

A Review of Susan Briante

by Gabi Graceffo
March 24, 2021

While We Can Sing

A Review of Jean Vengua’s Marcelina

by Gabi Graceffo
March 10, 2021

Certain Uncertainty

A review of Catwalk by Meryl Natchez

by Gabi Graceffo

Essays

A Book in a Tree Is a Love Poem and Also Not a Love Poem

Published by Staff

"A watershed of shared thinking."—Youth Responses to Natalie Diaz curated by Laura Da'

April 27, 2021
Essays, Recent

The Music of the Zone

Published by Staff

"The Zone of Stalker becomes shorthand for us to talk about the forbidden spots of a poem." -John Wall Barger

April 12, 2021
Essays, Recent

commentary

Interview // A Fractured Catalog of Different Possible Endings: A Conversation with Patrick Blagrave

Published by Staff

conducted by Alex Gallo-Brown

May 5, 2021
Events, Interviews, Recent

Interview // Circling the Distance: A Conversation wtih Hoa Nguyen

Published by Staff

"There’s a certain way that the poems seek a new narration, I think, one that hadn’t been there. And yet, maybe still isn’t there, but it is its own...

April 23, 2021
Interviews, Recent

Current Issue

Current Issue

Winter & Spring 2021

Alfredo Aguilar, Carrie Fountain, Luther Hughes, W. Todd Kaneko, Ada Limón, Nathan McClain, Kamilah Aisha Moon, Tiana Nobile, Shara Lessley, Robin Meyers, & more

December 15, 2020

New from Poetry NW Editions

THEOREM <br>Elizabeth Bradfield & Antonia Contro
THEOREM
Elizabeth Bradfield & Antonia Contro
THE LACHRYMOSE REPORT <BR>Sierra Nelson
THE LACHRYMOSE REPORT
Sierra Nelson
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF A THOUSAND GRIEFS <BR>Wei-Wei Lee
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF A THOUSAND GRIEFS
Wei-Wei Lee

News

April 15, 2021

Possession Sound Reading Series: Open for Submissions

Poetry NW Editions is accepting submissions to their Possession Sound Reading Series through May 31.

by Staff

Twitter

Alex Gallo-Brown
Poetry Northwest Retweeted · Alex Gallo-Brown @AlextheGB
3 days ago
I enjoyed interviewing @prosepoems for @poetrynw. Read the book! https://t.co/VqW5IN8Kj5
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Wave Books
Poetry Northwest Retweeted · Wave Books @WavePoetry
5 days ago
Lovely conversation with @peacehearty in @poetrynw with Andrea Blancas Beltran "Writing A Thousand Times Your Lose Your Treasure was kind of like being in a dialogue with difficulty…" https://t.co/3vqRLQTJMG
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Chestnut Review
Poetry Northwest Retweeted · Chestnut Review @ChestnutReview
1 week ago
Congrats to our poetry reader @lindsaymaeve for her publication in @poetrynw!

Check it out here: https://t.co/jQ9c9rRrpn
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Poetry Northwest
In reply toJulie Marie Wade
1 week ago
The ineffable maybe, but that’s also a word, and like all words, it falls short. Poems extend. They leap over high, linguistic hurdles. My poems have become more Gumby-like as I have become more confused. 3/3

— @JulieMarieWade

https://t.co/taNC8xASj5
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We have three new staff members to announce: Alexa We have three new staff members to announce: Alexa Luborsky (top left), Abby Doss (top right), and Constance Hansen @elven_fingers (lower left) are joining Poetry Northwest as editorial assistants. Welcome aboard, ladies!
The poems in this selection are all drawn from Nel The poems in this selection are all drawn from Nelly Sachs’ 1959 volume, Flucht und Verwandlung / Flight and Metamorphosis, which marks the culmination in a period of her development as a poet. (The original order of the poems is maintained here). In this book-length sequence of poems, Sachs turns from speaking through the murdered of the Shoah to speaking more for herself, her own condition of being a refugee from Nazi Germany—her loneliness living in a small Stockholm flat with her elderly mother, her exile, her alienation, her feelings of romantic bereavement, her search for the divine, even as she sees with visionary power the state of continual flight and asylum-seeking as a historical, political, spiritual, and legendary experience that shapes the lives of Jews through time—although in the period before and immediately after World War II, it was no more an exclusive condition than it is now. In these poems, we hear a Nelly Sachs who is closer to us today than she was twenty or even forty years ago.⁠ ⁠ —Joshua Weiner @dactyldog⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ Click the link in bio to read the work's translator Joshua Weiner's full introduction followed by a selection of Nelly Sachs' poems presented both in German and English.
Maybe a poem is the worm inside the apple of thoug Maybe a poem is the worm inside the apple of thought, struggling to get out and say something new and impressive, or old and impressive, since we’re always talking essentially about the same things. And we could put the same worm on a fish hook and go fishing for new ideas, but I’m not sure we’d find any. ⁠ ⁠ —Julie Marie Wade, "Through Armantrout’s Looking Glass: The Poem as Wonderland"⁠ ⁠ Click the link in our bio to read this craft essay!
@seattleartsandlectures presents Natalie Diaz @ndi @seattleartsandlectures presents Natalie Diaz @ndinn this Friday, April 30, 2021 7:30 pm PST. The Q&A will be moderated by Laura Da’ @lauralouiseda. This event is online only and will be pre-recorded. Get tickets on the SAL website!⁠ ⁠ Click the link in our bio to read Christos Kalli's review of POSTCOLONIAL LOVE POEM, "Against Invisibility and Erasure: Light, Love, and Touch" published on our website.
Jean Vengua's MARCELINA (@paloma_press, 2020) is r Jean Vengua's MARCELINA (@paloma_press, 2020) is reviewed by Elsa Valmidiano. Valmidiano writes:⁠ ⁠ "In 1932, Filipinos in Northern California lived on the margins; whites terrorized Filipinos with blatant discrimination, mob violence, and the torching of entire Filipino towns. This is the setting of Marcelina. To fully appreciate Vengua’s book, one must understand the societal and historical circumstances leading up to Navarro’s murder—what led to the insular conditions of a Filipino community in the first place, and the psychology behind why the community that Navarro belonged to felt compelled to kill her. Considering the Filipino community’s own marginalization, one would surmise that the Filipino community in Northern California existed back then under the protection and laws of their own micro-government—their own island, as Bulosan called it—and in order to exist as law-abiding citizens under that micro-government, you had to obey their laws, whatever those laws might be, because where else were you supposed to belong when you are rejected outright everywhere else?⁠ ⁠ The different fonts Vengua uses throughout the book indicate actual newspaper text juxtaposed with poetic imagery that vividly illustrates the conditions Navarro lived and died in—the timeless rural landscape in which she was literally buried alive, alongside the ongoing, over-arching racism that plagued the Filipino community at large. As the fonts weave between Times New Roman (for the newspaper text) and Arial (for Vengua’s own poetry), there arises a natural comparison between the terrorism inflicted by white society on the Filipino community and the terrorism that a patriarchal Filipino community inflicted on their own, a practice in which even other women would punish a woman in the interest of upholding that patriarchy. Vengua’s work pushes a psychological narrative, not just of Celine Navarro, but of an entire community—after it’s suffered so long that its actions become self-destructive, turning violently on itself."⁠ ⁠ Read the full review using the link in our bio!
CLMP

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Poetry Northwest would like to acknowledge that our publications are made on the traditional homelands of the Coast Salish Peoples—including the Tullalip, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, and Sauk-Suiattle Tribes—whom we wish to honor, past and present, with the deepest respect and gratitude.

Illuminating poetry since 1959

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