Established in 2002, revived in 2023
Tanya Rastogi is an artist and writer from Iowa. Her work is published or forthcoming in the Adroit Journal, Gone Lawn, and others and has been recognized by the Scholastic Awards, Adroit Prizes, and NCTE. She is the founding editor of the Seraphic Review. In her free time, she enjoys nature walks and cute cafés. …
Rolling fields kiss the edges of town, farmland / lying flat and fallow like the rest of us.
There's a certain surrender / to being an optimist—one which begins / with the day but, in fact, begins // with the evening.
When I say moon, I recall brown calves lowing / at night, sheltered under their mothers' calm grace / in star-studded pastures.
We’re all something else / to someone else. Maybe he became better, a person / who hated sharing a body with the person he used to be.
the turkeys arrive while I’m deciphering / the if this, then that of taxes.
"I was thinking a lot about human mortality and environmental catastrophe, and how we all are momentary in the world"
One / becomes my aunt. Enter AUNT in wide / angle shots. Flickers form infinite / possibilities cast on that screen.
as abecedarian. Beehive. Corner cabinet, desk / detritus. Earthshine. Faultline. As gristle and gall.
It’s true—the scene is charged / with a heat surpassing what I endured to arrive here.
INTERVIEW A Conversation with Arah Ko Shō intern Claire Zhou interviews Shō contributor Arah Ko, whose poems “Magpie 까치” and “Fiddleback” appear in Shō No. 4. Arah is the author of Brine Orchid (YesYes Books 2025) and the chapbook Animal Logic (Bull City Press 2026). Claire Zhou Hi Arah! I’ve read both of your poems …
“This poem is one of many calls and/or responses to the poet Megan Merchant. Our co-authored collection A Slow Indwelling comes out Fall 2024 from Harbor Editions and deals with a father and mother wrestling through cultural violence, the fragility of childhood, the preciousness of a parents love, and the beauty and pain expressed through the natural world.”
This poem is part of a larger epistolary exchange, "A Slow Indwelling", with Luke Johnson, and will be published this fall with Harbor Editions.
I’m more broken than I’ve ever been. / This shell of a body, emptied / and longing.
These trees war scalded from the mountains, burnt stubble, replanted when my father was a child, now tall again.
The last night with my mother, I blinded like a snake in the blue, /
shed the skin of daughter and switched roles
i am here with you by the premade sushi. / by the out-of-season strawberries. / by the tofu.
we stumble through a forest / of awkward silences, careful not to touch // the brambles.
I can think of a few things more entrenched, / like language, syllables strung together // in a lilt
INTERVIEW A Conversation with Nathan Xavier Osorio Shō intern Claire Zhou interviews Shō contributor Nathan Xavier Osorio, whose poems “How to Cook a Wolf,” “Empty Stadiums,” and “Come, Little Hunger” appear in Shō No. 4. Nathan’s debut collection of poetry, Querida, won the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, selected by Shara McCallum. Claire Zhou …
After all, what way is there to leave / a dance floor other than wet // & shaking under a mass of pleading / legs all huddled into a single moving // sacrifice—swaying tall & drowning / in bass?
