• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer

submissions are open

Shō Poetry Journal

Established in 2002, revived in 2023

  • Read a Poem
  • Listen
    • Shō Number Six
    • Shō Number Five
    • Shō Number Four
    • Shō Number Three
    • Pride Month Playlist #1 (2024)
    • Black History Month Playlist (2025)
    • Women’s History Month RoundUp 2025
    • Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month Roundup 2025
    • Pride Month Playlist #2 (2025)
  • Interviews
    • A Conversation with Arah Ko
    • A Conversation with Nathan Xavier Osorio
  • Buy
  • About
    • Mission Statement
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
    • Accolades
    • Nominations
    • Contact
  • Shō Family
    • Contributors
    • Contributors (by issue)
    • Cover Art
    • Books from Shō No. 3 Poets
  • Submit
    • Submissions
    • The Sita Martin Prize
    • The Shō Poetry Prize
    • Prize Winners
  • Donate
  • Cart

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.

Learn More
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.

Order now

Online Features

  • Oct 7, 2024

    Audio Feature: Mollie O’Leary

  • Oct 1, 2024

    A Conversation with Arah Ko

  • Sep 23, 2024

    Audio Feature: Luke Johnson (Shō No. 3)

  • Sep 22, 2024

    Audio Feature: Megan Merchant (Shō No. 3)

Previous Page Next Page

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.

Purchase Now

Shō No. 5

Summer 2024

Shō No. 5 features 68 poems by 47 poets.

Cover art: “Lucy” by Harim Choi.

Purchase Now

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.

Purchase Now

Shō No. 3

Summer/Fall 2023

Shō No. 3 features 62 poems by 42 poets.

Cover art: “Grandfather Autumn” by Juanita Violini.

Purchase Now

Shō Poetry Journal on Instagram

shopoetryjournal

Shō Poetry Journal's Winter 2024/25 issue feature Shō Poetry Journal's Winter 2024/25 issue features four sonnets from "Pierce Junction" by Nicholas Pierce. Read two sonnets online (with audio) on our website.

About these poems: “Pierce Junction” takes its title from a Houston oil field that later become the site of a tragic injustice, when the land was redeveloped as the low-income Black neighborhood of Kennedy Heights. I became drawn to this history for a few reasons: superficially, because I happen to share a name with the oil field, and more significantly, because I grew up in a Houston suburb about thirty minutes down the road from Kennedy Heights and yet, until a few years ago, had never heard of the terrible things that had happened there. While writing the sequence, I drew on court transcripts and contemporaneous interviews, and from my research I learned that one of the Kennedy Heights residents had kept a journal in the margins of her Bible, noting each time there was a problem with the water in her home. I learned, also, that a tree in the neighborhood would sprout leaves on only one side. These two details helped me conceive of the sequence as a kind of postlapsarian story.

Nicholas Pierce (@nick.v.pierce) is the author of In Transit (Criterion Books, 2021), winner of the New Criterion Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared on Best American Poetry’s website and in such journals as 32 Poems, AGNI, The Hopkins Review, Image, Literary Matters, Revel, and Subtropics. He is completing a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah, where his honors include the University Teaching Assistantship, the Sherman B. Neff Fellowship, and the Jeff Metcalf Fellowship in the Humanities.

Read more: https://shopoetryjournal.com/nicholas-pierce
Join these poets in Shō No. 8! Status Update: We Join these poets in Shō No. 8!

Status Update: We've accepted 38 poems by 26 poets for our winter issue and are looking for more work! Each issue of Shō typically features 40-50 poets.

• Send 3-5 unpublished poems
• Simultaneous submissions are fine
• Submissions close August 31
• We respond to all submissions in 30 days or less
• Payment is one print copy
• All work from US-based residents will be considered for two editors’ prizes (the Sita Martin Prize and the Shō Poetry Prize)

More: shopoetryjournal.submittable.com

Note to Gmail users: Submission responses might skip your inbox. Check your Promotions folder regularly—maybe even Spam!
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!
Follow Shō on Instagram

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


is a proud member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses.

Our Story
Masthead
Accolades
Donate
Contact
Submit
FAQ
Newsletter

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Bluesky

Copyright © 2025 · Shō Poetry Journal · All Rights Reserved

Privacy policy

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.