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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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Past Looking by Nara Allsop

CURRENT ISSUE

Shō No. 9

SUMMER 2026

This issue features 69 poems by 45 poets: Conal Abatangelo • Jessica Ballen • Anne Barngrover • Madeleine Bazil • Finnegan Bly • Jackson Burgess • Isha Camara • Piera Chen • Shelbi Church • Jordan Cobb • David Eileen • Liv Evans • Allison Field Bell • Emily Harman • Rebecca Hawkes • Kiyanna Hill • Xinyue Huang • Lucas Jorgensen • Sophie Kaiser Rojas • Sheema Kalbasi • Eli Karren • Elina Katrin • Collin Kim • Victoria Kornick • Carolene Kurien • Ethan Kwak • Alice Liang • Jenny Molberg • Ruby Hansen Murray • Adeniyi Odukoya • Rebecca Hart Olander • Misha Ponnuraju • Jenny Sadre-Orafai • Brooke Sahni • Sloane Scott • Alia Shaukat • Jacob Herrera Spears • Nora Sullivan • Aspen Taylor • Gordon Taylor • Preeti Vangani • Jeff Whitney • Andrew Chi Keong Yim • Hananah Zaheer • Joshua Zeitler

Cover art: Past Looking by Nara Allsop

Pre-Order now
"Hopi Leia" relief print by Hopi artist Sikuyva Dawavendewa

PREVIOUS ISSUE

Shō No. 8

winter 2025/2026

This issue features 72 poems by 48 poets: Sean Cho A. • Hiwot Adilow • Elisa Luna Ady • courtney alyce • Seth Amos • Jack B. Bedell • Shlagha Borah • Apollo Chastain • Lyn Li Che • Chen Chen • Stephanie Choi • Lindsay D’Andrea • Loisa Fenichell • Cheyenne C. Fletcher • Reuben Gelley Newman • Carlos Andrés Gómez • Iain Grinbergs • Shira Leah Haus • Sarah Jordan • Joan Naviyuk Kane • Aiman Tahir Khan • Sophie Klahr • Whitney Koo • Giljoon Lee • Elizabeth Loudon • Betsy Mitchell Martinez • Rebecca Morton • Lisa Mottolo • James O’Leary • Mollie O’Leary • william o’neal ii • Konstantinos Patrinos • Ngoc Pham • Jessica Nirvana Ram • Jemma Leigh Roe • Adrie Rose • Rukan Saif • SM Stubbs • Virgil Suárez • Will Summay • Tiezst “Tie” Taylor • Tianyi • Reed Turchi • Margaret Wack • Joey Wańczyk • Gwenyth Wheat • Ross White • Yan Zhang

Cover art: “Hopi Leia” by Sikuyva Dawavendewa.

Order now

Online Features

  • Jun 23, 2026

    Contributors’ Notes, Shō No. 9

  • Jun 5, 2026

    A Conversation with Mckendy Fils-Aimé

  • May 30, 2026

    Pride Month Playlist | 2026

  • Apr 29, 2026

    Mental Health Awareness Month Playlist

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Past Issues

Shō No. 7

Winter 2025/2026

Shō No. 7 features 67 poems by 48 poets.

Cover art: “Interim” by Tanya Rastogi

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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 Poetry Journal on Instagram

shopoetryjournal

Cover reveal: Shō No. 9 | Summer 2026 Cover art: “ Cover reveal: Shō No. 9 | Summer 2026
Cover art: “Past Looking” by Nara Allsop

Our summer issue features 69 poems by 45 poets, whose names are listed below.

Preorder Shō No. 9 at: tinyurl.com/shono9
Issues will ship in July.

We’ll be announcing the winners and runners-up of the editors’ prizes this week!

Shō No. 9 Contributors:
Conal Abatangelo (@cabatangelo)
Jessica Ballen (@jeez_ballen)
Anne Barngrover (@annebarngrover)
Madeleine Bazil (@mads_baz)
Finnegan Bly (@specialtvmicrowavecomputer)
Jackson Burgess (@_jacksonburgess)
Isha Camara (@ishatheartistt
Piera Chen (@pierachen)
Shelbi Church (@shelbichurch)
Jordan Cobb (@on_the_cobb)
David Eileen (@thevibeguardian)
Liv Evans (@onionstackr)
Allison Field Bell (@afb1987)
Emily Harman (@emilyaharman)
Rebecca Hawkes (@gorse_bloom)
Kiyanna Hill (@kiyawnna)
Xinyue Huang (@lucie.xinyue.huang)
Lucas Jorgensen (@lucasljorgensen)
Sophie Kaiser Rojas (@sophiemkaiser)
Sheema Kalbasi (@kalbasisheema)
Eli Karren (@eli.james.karren)
Elina Katrin (@elinatkatrin)
Collin Kim (@ck9im)
Victoria Kornick (@victoriakornick)
Carolene Kurien (@carolenekurien)
Ethan Kwak (@stucco_cloud)
Alice Liang (@aliceyliang)
Jenny Molberg (@_jennysue_)
Ruby Hansen Murray (@ruby_hansen_murray)
Adeniyi Odukoya (@adeniyi_odukoya)
Rebecca Hart Olander(@rholanderpoet)
Misha Ponnuraju (@anothermishap)
Jenny Sadre-Orafai (@jennysadreorafai)
Brooke Sahni (@brookesahni)
Sloane Scott
Alia Shaukat (@alia.shaukat)
Jacob Herrera Spears (@sundowner.xyz)
Nora Sullivan (@nora.sull)
Aspen Taylor (@aspen.leaves)
Gordon Taylor (@cuddlyshark)
Preeti Vangani (@preetivangani)
Jeff Whitney (@jwhitney5)
Andrew Chi Keong Yim (@bootcutkhakis)
Hananah Zaheer (@hananahzaheer)
Joshua Zeitler (@the_jayest_of_zees)

#printmag #litmag #poetrycommunity
Shō No. 7 features two poems by Sara Hovda. Here s Shō No. 7 features two poems by Sara Hovda. Here she is reading “One Goal” for our Pride Month Playlist.

About this Poem: I often write poems to one person in particular. In this case, I went to the Festival of Lights in Riverside, CA, with a friend who also happens to be a transgender woman. Afterwards, I got to thinking about our lives, our pasts and futures, what led to this individual moment, this individual nexus of experience, and how, of course, what matters in a life and universe where we don’t know what happens when we die and nothing is guaranteed, is that we have these moments.

Sara Hovda is a transgender woman from rural Minnesota. She currently attends the MFA program at UC-Riverside while also working as a streamer on Twitch. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines such as Passages North, South Dakota Review, and Shō Poetry Journal, among others. She can be found online at SaraHovda.com.
Before we reveal our cover art for our forthcoming Before we reveal our cover art for our forthcoming issue, we want to look back at the cover art for our previous issue. Here’s a home printer mockup for Shō No. 8. Swipe to read Sikuyva Dawavendewa’s artist statement on “Hopi Leia” and a short bio!

Hopi Leia is a tie with the Star Wars character Leia Organa. Showcasing the resiliency, power, and leadership of women. Similar to the story of the Warrior Maiden in Hopi. 

Star Wars has been a big influence on my artist career. The iconography is not the only symbolism to Hopi. Behind her is a village but in the style of Tatooine’s Mos Eisley town, with the two suns as well. The border is also symbolism to rain clouds with rain falling on the side.

Sikuyva Dawavendewa is a contemporary Hopi artist focusing his work in 2D mediums such as drawing, printmaking, and paintings. His work revolves around Hopi symbolism and iconography and various ties with Popular Culture media. Follow Sikuyva on Instagram: @art_by_sikuyva
Remi Recchia reads “ABECEDARIAN While Traveling fo Remi Recchia reads “ABECEDARIAN While Traveling for My Sex Change.”

About this Poem: I wrote this poem the night after traveling out of state to access gender-affirming healthcare (GAC). The irony of having traveled across the country for healthcare at a facility known for inclusion but then turning on the TV in my room at that facility to a Fox News host saying “biology isn’t bigotry” was not lost on me. I was sitting in the hospital cafeteria at the University of Michigan and thought it would be an interesting challenge to write an ABECEDARIAN that was all one sentence. (Incidentally, the phrase “sex change,” is, of course, partially in jest, because there’s not one specific operation or procedure that can lay claim to treating gender dysphoria, but it is relevant to the contents of my poem.)

This poem is special to me because in a serendipitous turn of events, when my mom, who was going to be my post-op caretaker, couldn’t come at the last minute (my family suddenly caught Norovirus), I called one of my oldest childhood friends, who lives a few hours away from the University of Michigan, who is also trans. That friend happened to be taking their partner to a gender-affirming surgery consult at the same hospital at that exact moment and agreed to stay with me while I was recovering from surgery. My favorite phrase from that time, “tummy checks”—we had to make sure I wasn’t constipated—has remained with me fondly.

In yet another miraculous set of circumstances, the chaplain who visited me after the surgery was trans. What my poem doesn’t share—or at least not explicitly—is that I am a deeply religious person. (In fact, I’m currently in seminary!) The experience of being prayed over by another trans person after having gone through GAC was an incredible spiritual gift that I’d never before received. The chaplain called GAC an act of “co-creation.” Co-creation is a decision I make each day as both a trans man and a future priest.

Remi Recchia is a Lambda Award-winning poet, essayist, and editor from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is the author of Addiction Apocalypse (Texas Review Press, 2026).
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Publishing Stats

Since our revival issue was published in Summer 2023:

375

Poems Published

269

Total Poets Published

170

Audio Features Published

61

Prize Nominations

6

Poems chosen for inclusion in anthologies

Shō Poetry Journal


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