• About
  • Get Involved
  • Honor Roll
  • Bookshop
  • Subscribe
  • Donate

Illuminating poetry since 1959

Menu
Search
  • Explore
    • Masthead
    • Submit
    • James Welch Prize
    • Anti-Racism Annual Report
    • Contact
  • Poems
  • Commentary
    • Features
    • Essays
    • Book Reviews
    • Interviews
    • The Subvocal Zoo Podcast
    • Seconds Podcast
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • New Series Archive
    • First Series Archive
  • Editions
    • Catalog
    • Possession Sound
    • Seattle YPL
Close Menu

Lines / from the current issue

Trauma is handed down. And by “handed down,” I mean that it cuts off your hands.

RON RIEKKI | Five Myths About the Saami People

Recent Features

April 12, 2021

The Music of the Zone

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

by Staff
April 10, 2021

Dear Diary: My Struggle with the Personal

"I don’t want to write about me. I want to write about the underpinnings of me, which might also...

by Staff
April 5, 2021

Notes on Myanmar’s Poets

by Greg Bem

by Staff
March 26, 2021

Interview // Fruitful and Dangerous: A Conversation with Lawrence Lacambra Ypil

"What does it mean to let the eye linger? Where will it go? What will I see?"

by Staff

poem of the week

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

NELLY SACHS
from Flight and Metamorphosis
translated by Joshua Weiner with Linda B. Parshall

Published by Staff

In fear, a seed sprouts
quick on a human finger.

April 5, 2021
Poems

CALI KOPCZICK
They walked into the funeral home ready to beat a dead horse.

Published by Staff

It had run on, the river and the horse in it.

March 29, 2021
Poems

ANDY SIA
Rabbit God Unravels the Red Thread of Fate

Published by Staff

Fate? On my finger, a knotted string, still.

March 15, 2021
Poems

JANUARY GILL O’NEIL
Mississippi Season

Published by Staff

floating in my own still water,
waiting to be loved

March 14, 2021
Poems

Cinema Poetry NW

Features

Features

On Failure

In which writers investigate the practice of failure.

April 8, 2021
Features

One More Thing

Conversations with contributors and other writers curated by Helene Achanzar

March 15, 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
Features

Other Rooms

In which our writers examine noteworthy work being published in contemporary poetry journals.

June 29, 2020

book reviews

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
February 24, 2021

New Life Studies: Bennett, Morton, Paredez

A Review of Joshua Bennett, Matt Morton, and Deborah Paredez

by Gabi Graceffo
February 17, 2021

Town, Woman, Country, Violence: A Geologic History

A Review of Tess Taylor

by Gabi Graceffo

Essays

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

Through Armantrout’s Looking Glass: The Poem as Wonderland

Published by Gabi Graceffo

"I learned that poems may be deliberate and arbitrary at the same time."—an essay by Julie Marie Wade

March 31, 2021
Essays

commentary

Notes on Myanmar’s Poets

Published by Staff

by Greg Bem

April 5, 2021
Commentary, Recent

Interview // Fruitful and Dangerous: A Conversation with Lawrence Lacambra Ypil

Published by Staff

"What does it mean to let the eye linger? Where will it go? What will I see?"

March 26, 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

James Welch Prize: An award for indigenous poets
February 1, 2021

The James Welch Prize: Open for Submissions

We're pleased to announce that the first annual James Welch Prize for is open for submissions through March 15....

by Staff

Twitter

John Wall Barger
Poetry Northwest Retweeted · John Wall Barger @johnwallbarger
6 hours ago
I'm super excited to publish my second long poetics essay, called "The Music of the Zone," in Poetry Northwest @poetrynw !!

Thanks to the editors, especially @bill_carty

And viva Andrei Tarkovsky!

https://t.co/AV2eq1lFvF

❤ ❤
View on Twitter
2
0
Poetry Northwest
Poetry Northwest @poetrynw
1 day ago
They walked in, the woman and the man, through swinging doors
like ones on a saloon, carrying their icepicks and baseball bats.

Only they were defibrillator paddles.

—from Cali Kopczick's "They walked into the funeral home ready to beat a dead horse."

https://t.co/XsUlVUyUkl
View on Twitter
2
6
mark leidner
Poetry Northwest Retweeted · mark leidner @markleidner
1 day ago
i love when poets speak about poems they perceive as "failed" but publish anyway (surely bc i perceive all my own poems that way). anyway, a brief but insightful essay about the tension between "real life" and poetic process by @LaurenShapiro14
https://t.co/TArDbyYYTh
View on Twitter
3
0
MFA Greensboro
Poetry Northwest Retweeted · MFA Greensboro @mfagreensboro
1 day ago
"Ceremony" - #poetry by @UNCG MFA Writing Program alum Camille T. Dungy at @poetrynw | https://t.co/7sT2TRpVSM @UNCG_ENG @UNCG_CAS @UNCGAlumni #UNCGWay #FindYourWayHere
View on Twitter
2
0

Recommended Events

Loading...

Instagram

Catwalk (Longship Press, 2020) by Meryl Natchez @m Catwalk (Longship Press, 2020) by Meryl Natchez @merylpoet is reviewed by Maurya Simon in "Certain Uncertainty." ⁠ ⁠ Simon writes: "Natchez’s poems in Catwalk serve as stepping stones for our collective psyche, for although they record her intensely personal perceptions of the world, they also point us toward the universal. Here’s a poet capable of noticing how “racist rants…infuse a gritty particulate into the common air” (“Sleepwalking”), and how the moonlit ocean’s “glittering path…disappears as you / enter it” (“Haibun for Amanda”). Indeed, there’s often this kind of sultry movement in Natchez’s poems, from the mundane material world to what’s unexpected, otherworldly, transitory, evanescent, or ephemeral."⁠ ⁠ Read the full review using the link in our bio!⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠
Read Ruth Dickey @ruthdickey206 in conversation wi Read Ruth Dickey @ruthdickey206 in conversation with Gabriela Denise Frank i@civitaveritas in "Searching for Home, Connection, and Place." The two discuss her recent collection Mud Blooms (2019, Harbor Mountain Press), which "weaves together your experiences teaching poetry in a soup kitchen in Washington, DC; memories of North Carolina where [Ruth Dickey] grew up and where [her] mother passed away; and travels through Latin America where, as a young woman, [she] explored the boundaries of [herself]." The two also delve into Ruth Dickey's eight years leading Seattle Arts & Lectures @seattleartsandlectures, the pandemic, her current writing projects, and future role leading the National Book Foundation @nationalbookfoundation.⁠ ⁠ Read their conversation using the link in our bio!
One More Thing is a series featuring Poetry Northw One More Thing is a series featuring Poetry Northwest contributors and other writers in conversation curated by Helene Achanzar @heleneiswaiting. This first installment features a dialogue between January Gill O’Neil @jgill27494 and Andy Sia @andyaways. January’s poem “Mississippi Season” can be found in the Winter & Spring 2021 issue of Poetry Northwest. Andy’s poem “Rabbit God Unravels the Red Thread of Fate” was published on our website in March 2021. ⁠ ⁠ Read their conversation using the link in our bio!
Here's a peek at a poem recently published on our Here's a peek at a poem recently published on our website: "Rabbit God Unravels the Red Thread of Fate" by Andy Sia @andyaways⁠ ⁠ Click the link in our bio to read the full poem!
Martha Mae @marthamae_andersonville will host a Vi Martha Mae @marthamae_andersonville will host a Virtual Event Ticket Reading & Discussion with THEOREM artists Elizabeth Bradfield @e.bradfield and Antonia Contro @ajcontro moderated by Jill Riddell TODAY 4/6 at 4pm PST.⁠ ⁠ We invite you engage through the book, the virtual reading later today, the print “It Divides Absolutely”, and our “creative kit” inspired by THEOREM shown above.⁠ ⁠ Register for this even using the link in our bio.⁠
CLMP

Partners

Seattle Arts & Lectures
In-Na-Po (Indigenous Nations Poets)
Vandal Poem of the Day
poets.org

With the support of

Everett Community College
The Kinsman Foundation
The Community Foundation of Snohomish County
Everett Cultural Arts Commission
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
Humanities Washington
readers & supporters like you

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

Follow Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • © 2021 Poetry Northwest and its authors