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POETRY submissions REopen DECEMBER 15

Shō Poetry Journal

Established in 2002, revived in 2023

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Shō Poetry Journal is a nonprofit print journal emerging from a 20-year hibernation. We publish an eclectic range of poetry twice a year and publish audio features on a rolling basis. We strive to champion voices that have been historically underrepresented or overlooked. Browse a list of our contributors and follow us on Instagram for updates.

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A girl in a long white dress and a bird head mask sits on a bough under a full moon in a night forest landscape. Her hands are folded in her lap and her feet can't be seen. Text says: Shō Poetry Journal No. 7 Summer 2025.

CURRENT ISSUE

Shō No. 7

SUMMER 2025

This issue features 67 poems by 48 poets, including:

– Christian J. Collier (Winner, Shō Poetry Prize)
– Aldo Amparán (Shō Poetry Prize Runner-Up)
– Ohia, Ernest Chigaemezu (Winner, Sita Martin Prize)
– Nina C. Peláez (Sita Martin Prize Runner-Up)

Cover art: “Interim” by Tanya Rastogi.

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Online Features

  • Oct 27, 2025

    Audio Feature: Michael Garrigan

  • Oct 21, 2025

    Audio Feature: Kate Pyontek

  • Oct 16, 2025

    Audio Feature: Aleks Zywicki

  • Oct 1, 2025

    Filipino American History Month Round Up

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Past Issues

Shō No. 6

Winter 2024/2025

Shō No. 6 features 57 poems by 40 poets.

Cover art: “In Gilded Walls” by Tanya Rastogi.

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Shō No. 5

Summer 2024

Shō No. 5 features 68 poems by 47 poets.

Cover art: “Lucy” by Harim Choi.

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Shō No. 4

Winter 2023/2024

Illustration of girl wearing a large deer head mask with antlers. She is clothed in a dark blue tshirt and pants and stands in a high desert landscape, holding plastic flowers. A ghostly girl’s head is placed beside her in the grass.

Shō No. 4 features 73 poems by 47 poets.

Cover art: “Girl with Deer Mask” by Harim Choi.

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Shō No. 3

Summer/Fall 2023

Shō No. 3 features 62 poems by 42 poets.

Cover art: “Grandfather Autumn” by Juanita Violini.

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Shō Poetry Journal on Instagram

shopoetryjournal

“Who can say for sure // how death starts, or wh “Who can say for sure // how death starts, or where. Maybe at the place / where grief left teeth marks on the body.”

“Bakandamiya: An Elegy” by Saddiq Dzukogi is a book-length epic poem set in northern Nigeria and will be released on December 1. Preorder it from @africanpoetrybookfund / @univnebpress (tinyurl.com/bakandamiya). Here’s a teaser, ”Bakandamiya IX.” which appeared in Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25). We nominated this poem for Best Spiritual Literature.

Ilya Kaminsky says: “Bakandamiya does not disappoint—this work is incredible in how it blends epic breath and lyric impulse, a timeless meditation . . . that knows ‘night is the truce between the battles of spirits.’ A conversation with sources as various as the Qur’an and Dante, Eliot and Gibran, here is a choral gathering of the tribes that’s unafraid to reach for the truth.”

Saddiq Dzukogi is a Nigerian poet and assistant professor of English at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of Your Crib, My Qibla (Nebraska, 2021), winner of the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Julie Suk Award and shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature. His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, Guernica Magazine, Poetry London, Best American Experimental Writing Anthology, and Cincinnati Review. He has received fellowships from the Nebraska Arts Council, Mississippi Arts Commission, and Cave Canem.
We are pleased to announce our nominees for Best S We are pleased to announce our nominees for Best Spiritual Literature:

From Shō No. 6:
* T. De Los Reyes (@andhow_), “living room spacetime”
* Saddiq Dzukogi (@saddiqdzukogi), “Bakandamiya IX.”
* Susanna Lang, “If I could pray anywhere”
* Becka Mara McKay, “Golden Shovel as Anthropomorphism”

From Shō No. 7:
* Matthew Tuckner (@tuckner_matthew), “Mimesis”
* Nicholas Yingling (@nicholasyinglingpoet), “Somewhere Between Salvation and Creation”

We’ll be sharing audio features from these posts in the coming weeks. Please give them some love!

Best Spiritual Literature is one of our favorite anthologies to nominate for. Much appreciation to @orisonbooks for their work and care in putting together this anthology.

Cover art: Tanya Rastogi @tanyarastogiart 

#bestspiritualliteraturenominations
Hey fly fishing poets and lovers of rivers—here’s a poem for you! Michael Garrigan reads "In Last Light We Drive to the River,” published in Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24). We nominated this poem for Best Spiritual Literature.

About this poem: I wrote this poem in my head as I drove back late at night after fishing an incredible sulphur hatch on the Little Juniata River in central Pennsylvania. The sulphurs don't hatch until dark, so my friend and I were in the water as dusk fell and the sulphurs started filling the air. Brown trout became reckless during the hatch, eating with abandon, and we fished until we couldn't see anymore, setting the hook at the sound of water breaking. We hiked back to our cars with headlamps on and I spent the 2.5 hour drive home crafting this poem. I love driving home in the dark after fishing a hatch and those liminal moments that life offers us. 

Michael Garrigan writes and teaches along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and believes every watershed should have a Poet Laureate. He is the author of two poetry collections: "River, Amen" and "Robbing the Pillars." You can read more of his writing at www.mgarrigan.com.
Listen to Kate Pyontek read “Nocturne with Const Listen to Kate Pyontek read “Nocturne with Construction Detour” from Shō No. 5 (Summer 2024).

About this poem: I wrote the first draft of this poem in an online class I took with Aimee Nezhukumatathil on writing aubades and nocturnes. The poem considers a period where I wasn’t sure whether I still had feelings for someone. There’s a point for me at the end of love where my heart is confused by the habit or memory of love, and it takes a difficult negotiation to find my way. That negotiation never gets easier, but there is a path through.

Kate Pyontek is a poet, writer, and artist who has been awarded fellowships from arts institutions including Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and The Volland Foundation. Their work is published or forthcoming in POETRY, Southeast Review, Ecotone, Mississippi Review, Consequence, The Glacier, Shō Poetry Journal, Another Chicago Review, Southern Indiana Review, and elsewhere. Kate lives and works outside of Boston.
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Publishing Stats

Since our revival issue was published in Summer 2023:

327

Poems Published

224

Total Poets Published

90

Audio Features Published

42

Poems Nominated for Prizes

2

Poems chosen for inclusion in Best Spiritual Literature

Shō Poetry Journal


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