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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

  • Jul 25, 2025

    Audio Feature: Jo Bear

  • Jul 24, 2025

    Audio Feature: Richard Collins

  • Jul 23, 2025

    Audio Feature: Shawnte Orion

  • Jul 7, 2025

    Audio Feature: Erica Abbott

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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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An audio feature for August 14—here’s Maja Luk An audio feature for August 14—here’s Maja Lukic reading her poem “Wings of Desire” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25). Happy 80th Birthday, Wim Wenders! @wimwendersfoundation

Recorded by @reedturchi at @secondtakesound.

Maja Lukic’s poems have appeared in New England Review, Narrative, A Public Space, The Adroit Journal, Colorado Review, Bennington Review, Image, Sixth Finch, Copper Nickel, Poetry Northwest, Brooklyn Poets, the Slowdown podcast, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from the MFA Program for Writers at @warrenwilsonmfa. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn where she serves as curator of @fourwaybooks’ Translator’s Page and as a poetry reader at @narrativemag.
Haven’t been on here much, partly because we’r Haven’t been on here much, partly because we’re busy reading submissions! We’re open till August 31. Send us some poems!
Listen to Jo Bear read “After the Gulls” from Listen to Jo Bear read “After the Gulls” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).

About this poem: In Ireland, where I lived for several years, a town called Balbriggan is the only place in the country that has been given permission to cull its seagull population. On a national level, the gulls are protected, but Balbriggan was able to successfully lobby for an exemption to address the severity of the conflicts between gulls and town residents. While doing further research, I learned that gulls intentionally return to the same nest year after year; they return to a place of familiarity to rear their family, regardless of what may have been built around them in the meantime. This policing of migration—the natural movement of the living world—struck me as drawing instructive and alarming parallels to the processes through which fear leads to the dehumanization and disappearance of bodies deemed expendable in pursuit of the false promise of safety.

Jo Bear (@jobearwriting) is a poet, scholar, and educator with an MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University and an MA in Drama and Performance Studies from University College Dublin. They are a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and a 2023 Zoeglossia Fellow. Their poems appear or are forthcoming in ONLY POEMS, The Adroit Journal, The Offing, Shō Poetry Journal, West Branch, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere.
Listen to Richard Collins read “Wind Flows Over Listen to Richard Collins read “Wind Flows Over Stone Nest Dojo” from Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24). We nominated this poem for Best Spiritual Literature.

Richard Collins is the Abbot of the New Orleans Zen Temple (@noztinfo) and lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he directs Stone Nest Zen Dojo. He has taught at universities in Romania, Bulgaria, and Wales, as well as Louisiana (where he was editor of Xavier Review) and California (where he is Dean Emeritus of Arts and Humanities). His recent poetry has appeared in BarBar, Clockhouse, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Marrow, Pensive, Think, The Plenitudes, Shō Poetry Journal, Urthona: Buddhism and the Arts, and Willows Wept Review. His books include No Fear Zen (Hohm Press, 2015) and, most recently, In Search of the Hermaphrodite: A Memoir (Tough Poets Press, 2024) and two forthcoming volumes of poetry: Stone Nest (Shanti Arts) and Cartoons for the Chaos (Shanti Arts).
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Publishing Stats

Since our revival issue was published in Summer 2023:

327

Poems Published

224

Total Poets Published

78

Audio Features Published

28

Poems Nominated for Prizes

1

Poem chosen for inclusion in Best Spiritual Literature

Shō Poetry Journal


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