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OUR SUMMER ISSUE IS HERE! ORDER HERE: SHŌ NO. 9
GET YOUR COPY BEFORE OUR WEB SHOP GOES ON BREAK (JULY 28 – AUGUST 30)

POETRY submissions are OPEn!
free bipoc pop-up: july 4 – 5 (capped) — submit here (opens 10am pt)

congratulations to erica dawson on winning a pushcart prize!
listen to her poem here.

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 [Read Contributor Bios]

Cover art: Past Looking by Nara Allsop

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"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 [Read Contributor Bios]

Cover art: “Hopi Leia” by Sikuyva Dawavendewa.

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Online Features

  • Jun 30, 2026

    Disability Pride Month 2026

  • Jun 29, 2026

    Xinyue Huang — Occasion #1 [Sita Martin Prize Winner]

  • Jun 29, 2026

    Rebecca Hart Olander — An Old Story [Shō Poetry Prize Winner]

  • Jun 29, 2026

    Elina Katrin — Beach Day with Tsvetaeva [Shō Poetry Prize Runner-Up]

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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

Repost with audio: “War” by Hananah Zaheer, which Repost with audio: “War” by Hananah Zaheer, which inspired the cover art for Shō No. 9 (Summer 2026).

About this Poem: I have been considering war for a very long time, having grown up intimately acquainted with its consequences, and even much more so over the last three years. This poem is part of a larger exercise on childhood and exile and grief as reflected between the natural world and the Self, and my attempt to understand one's (my) inheritance of, and relationship with, power, violence and vulnerability.

Hananah Zaheer is the author of Lovebirds (Bull City Press, 2021). Other recent work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Cut, Best Small Fictions, AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. You can find her @hananahzaheer or at www.hananahzaheer.com.

#poemoftheday #poetry #prosepoems
Pop-Up: Free Submissions for BIPOC Poets! This op Pop-Up: Free Submissions for BIPOC Poets!

This opportunity will open this Saturday July 4 at 10am PT and will close at Sunday July 5 at 11:59pm PT—or when our cap of 100 submissions has been reached.

If your submission with us is still in-progress when this project opens, please do not submit to this pop-up.

Full guidelines here:
shopoetryjournal.com/submissions

FAQ here:
shopoetryjournal.com/faq

#bipocpoets #callforsubmissions #poetry
For Pride Disability Month, we're showcasing work For Pride Disability Month, we're showcasing work by Apollo Chastain (@apollo.chastain) and sterling-elizabeth arcadia (@davidcronenbergscrash) recently published in Shō No. 8 and Shō No. 7. Check out the feature on our website or look out for their recordings this coming week!

#poetry #disabilitypridemonth
Rebecca Hart Olander was selected as the winner of Rebecca Hart Olander was selected as the winner of the Shō Poetry Prize for her poem “An Old Story,” forthcoming in Shō No. 9 (Summer 2026).

About this Poem: This poem is kind of mysterious to me—an unearthed memory that leapt onto the page when I wasn’t expecting it. It started in a mini writing marathon held by @joan_kwon_glass on New Year’s Day, 2026. One of the poems we read for inspiration was Laura Apol’s “Regret,” published in @theshorepoetry. That piece contains, among other things, a woodshed, some blue, and some orioles, and it closes with the idea of surprise, which was one jumping-off point for the prompt. I ended up surprising myself by recalling, though writing, a shed from my past, and, for me, blue jays flew in (an echo of the orioles, and the blue). As I worked on my poem, the birds became a way to enact how trauma insists on resurfacing, despite years, or miles. How you can try to think about something else—DO think about something else for decades—but it pokes back in anyway, insistent, weighty, lasting, even if limited.

Rebecca Hart Olander’s poetry has appeared recently in @merliterary, On the Seawall, and Poetry Northwest, and her collaborative visual and written work has been published in multiple journals and in They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing, from Black Lawrence Press. A Women's National Book Association Poetry Award winner, Rebecca’s books include Dressing the Wounds (a dancing girl press chapbook, 2019), Uncertain Acrobats (@cavankerrypress, 2021), a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and Singing from the Deep End (CavanKerry Press, 2026). Her work has been supported by Straw Dog Writers Guild and the @masscultural. Rebecca has taught writing widely, most recently as the James Merrill Visiting Poet @amherstcollege, and she works with graduate student poets at @wilkesu. She is the editor/director of @perugiapress, an independent feminist press publishing emerging women poets.

#poetsandpoetry #litmag #voiceofpoets
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Publishing Stats

Since our revival issue was published in Summer 2023:

444

Poems Published

310

Total Poets Published

176

Audio Features Published

61

Prize Nominations

6

Poems chosen for inclusion in anthologies

Shō Poetry Journal


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