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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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"Hopi Leia" relief print by Hopi artist Sikuyva Dawavendewa

CURRENT 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.

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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.

PREVIOUS 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

  • Dec 24, 2023

    Audio feature: Alfonso Zapata (Shō No. 3)

  • Dec 20, 2023

    Audio feature: Ellen June Wright (Shō No. 3)

  • Dec 14, 2023

    Contributors’ Notes, Shō No. 4

  • Dec 14, 2023

    Editors’ Note, Shō No. 3

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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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Listen to February Spikener read “The First Autops Listen to February Spikener read “The First Autopsy” from Shō No. 7. Check out our full playlist for Black History Month here: tinyurl.com/ShoBHM26

February Spikener (they/she) is a Black femme poet from Detroit. Her work has been published in Black Warrior Review, Muzzle Magazine, and Poet Lore, among others. Ever inspired by their loved ones, their poems reflect how they navigate through the world and what it means to love and be loved. She believes that love is and has always been the answer and that the mastery of love is a form of survival. They are also a member of the multimedia group, the Basement Artists Collective. She lives in Chicago.
Listen to Christian J. Collier read “I Know Grace Listen to Christian J. Collier read “I Know Grace Best" from Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025). If you haven't heard our full playlist for Black History Month, check it out here: tinyurl.com/ShoBHM26

Christian J. Collier is a Black, Southern writer, arts organizer, and teaching artist who resides in Chattanooga, TN. He is the author of Greater Ghost (Four Way Books, 2024), and the chapbook The Gleaming of the Blade, the 2021 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, POETRY, December, and elsewhere.
Listen to Cortney Lamar Charleston read “It's Impo Listen to Cortney Lamar Charleston read “It's Important I Remember That Being Alone and Being Lonely Aren't the Same Thing—” which appears in his newly-released collection IT'S IMPORTANT I REMEMBER (Curbstone Books @nupress, 2026).

“'History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.' In his sweeping third collection, Charleston brings a poet’s ear for echo and rhythm to bear on American history and life after 2016. For Charleston, these rhymes cut two ways: the long tradition of American racism and fascism, and the steady pulse of Black persistence. The collection’s titular invocation frames each poem, at times an oratory to rally a crowd, in other moments a private prayer whispered as the speaker gathers himself to face another day. Charleston insists that should we cede memory of our national biography—whether to repression or indifference—we will witness the country’s dissolution into something unrecognizable to many, yet all too familiar to its most marginalized people. But with each reiteration and riff, he also invokes a tenuous hope—that if we summon an American history of Black resistance, we might still make a more perfect union.”

Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Telepathologies (Saturnalia Books, 2017), selected by D.A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; Doppelgangbanger  (Haymarket Books, 2021), named a best book of 2021 by the New York Public Library and The Boston Globe; and It’s Important I Remember (Curbstone Books/Northwestern University Press). He was awarded a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and he has also received fellowships from Cave Canem and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, his poems have appeared in POETRY, The Nation, The Atlantic, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review and elsewhere.
We had a couple of cold days here in North-Central We had a couple of cold days here in North-Central Arizona—here’s our review folder curled up near our wood stove.

The oldest submission in our queue is dated January 29. We’ll be making final decisions on a few older submissions soon—we respond to all submissions in 30 days or less. If it’s been more than 31 days (y’know, time zones) please check your spam folder or send us a note.
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Publishing Stats

Since our revival issue was published in Summer 2023:

375

Poems Published

269

Total Poets Published

111

Audio Features Published

57

Poems Nominated for Prizes

5

Poems chosen for inclusion in anthologies

Shō Poetry Journal


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