Could be the last time
Robin LaMer Rahija is the author of Inside Out Egg (Variant Lit 2024). She received her MFA from the University of Kentucky, where she is an administrative assistant in the Department of English. Her poems have appeared in Puerto Del Sol, FENCE, Spoon River Review, and elsewhere.
Soulmate As a Verb by Kelsey L. Smoot
Reviewed by Bess Cooley | Mar 28, 2026 Dopamine Books, February 2026 Paperback, 120 pages, $16.95 I had the pleasure of hearing Kelsey L. Smoot read his work in a bookstore in the Atlanta area last spring. The room was small, quiet but crowded—in that way poetry readings are meant to be. Smoot had his audience, and […]
We Open on a Field
Michaela Brown is a Midwest transplant currently teaching English in Vigo, Spain. She is the first place recipient of the 2020 Marjorie Stover Short Story Prize and has previously been published in Unstamatic Magazine, Gone Lawn, The Daily Drunk, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @mikienbrown.
Parable of Sparrow and Crocodile
Originally from the DC area, Matthew Moniz has poems appearing in or forthcoming from The Iowa Review, Notre Dame Review, Crab Orchard Review, Meridian, Tupelo Quarterly, Fourteen Hills, and minnesota review. His work has been awarded Poetry by the Sea’s Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Crown Contest prize and the SCMLA Poetry Prize.
MY GRANDMOTHER AFTER KOREA
Arah Ko is a writer from Hawai’i and the author of Brine Orchid (YesYes Books 2025) and Animal Logic (Bull City Press 2025). Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, The Threepenny Review, New Ohio Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Arah edits at Surging Tide Magazine and is pursuing her Ph.D. in English at the University of Cincinnati. Catch her at arahko.com.
One Winter in Vermont
Emily Light is a poet, educator, and mother living in northern New Jersey. Her poetry can be found in such journals as Inch, Salt Hill, Cherry Tree, Cumberland River Review, and RHINO, among others.
How to Love the Natural Sciences
Based in West Texas, Jennifer Loyd is a poet, translator, and a former editor for Copper Nickel, West Branch, and Sycamore Review. For her poetry exploring the archives of Rachel Carson, she has received a Stadler Fellowship, as well as research grants from Purdue University, where she earned an MFA. Her poems and prose, which explore the intersection between private voice and public narratives, appear in Best New Poets, The Southern Review, The Rumpus, Swamp Pink, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and elsewhere.
self portrait as saint dymphna
MJ Lu (she/they) is a Southeast Asian American poet who hails from North Carolina. Her work was previously published in MudRoom, Bulb Culture Collective, and Von Aegir Literary.
This Map of the Profane by Erin Elkins Radcliffe
Erin Elkins Radcliffe is a third-generation oldest child and the author of “Station of Rain” (dancing girl press) and “Bottomland” (Sundress Publications). Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in The Adroit, Tupelo Quarterly, Iron Horse Literary Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Indiana, she now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her family.
Wedded, at Last, to the Idea of Weeds by Rosanne Singer
Rosanne Singer been a teaching artist in the Maryland schools and part of small arts teams working with wounded warriors and their families at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and with pediatric patients at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. Currently she is getting her MFA at the University of Baltimore. Recent work has appeared online in The Baltimore Fishbowl and Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine and is forthcoming in Allium and 1-70 Review. Social media handles are Twitter: @poetsinger and Instagram: @rosannesinger5.