Cover Artist Feature: Tanya Rastogi, Shō No. 6
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. …
Audio Feature: Em Townsend (Shō No. 5)
Rolling fields kiss the edges of town, farmland / lying flat and fallow like the rest of us.
Audio Feature: Susan L. Leary (Shō No. 5)
There's a certain surrender / to being an optimist—one which begins / with the day but, in fact, begins // with the evening.
Audio Feature: Robert Okaji
When I say moon, I recall brown calves lowing / at night, sheltered under their mothers' calm grace / in star-studded pastures.
Audio Feature: Melissa Fite Johnson
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.
Audio Feature: Laura Villareal
the turkeys arrive while I’m deciphering / the if this, then that of taxes.
Audio Feature: Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer
"I was thinking a lot about human mortality and environmental catastrophe, and how we all are momentary in the world"
Audio Feature: Sophia Terazawa
One / becomes my aunt. Enter AUNT in wide / angle shots. Flickers form infinite / possibilities cast on that screen.
Audio Feature: Rebekah Wolman (Shō No. 5)
as abecedarian. Beehive. Corner cabinet, desk / detritus. Earthshine. Faultline. As gristle and gall.
Audio Feature: Mollie O’Leary
It’s true—the scene is charged / with a heat surpassing what I endured to arrive here.
A Conversation with Arah Ko
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 …
Audio Feature: Luke Johnson (Shō No. 3)
“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.”
Audio Feature: Megan Merchant (Shō No. 3)
This poem is part of a larger epistolary exchange, "A Slow Indwelling", with Luke Johnson, and will be published this fall with Harbor Editions.
Audio Feature: Jeddie Sophronius (Shō No. 5)
I’m more broken than I’ve ever been. / This shell of a body, emptied / and longing.
Audio Feature: Arah Ko (Shō No. 4)
These trees war scalded from the mountains, burnt stubble, replanted when my father was a child, now tall again.
Audio Feature: Donna Vorreyer (Shō No. 5)
The last night with my mother, I blinded like a snake in the blue, /
shed the skin of daughter and switched roles
Audio Feature: Eylie Sasajima (Shō No. 4)
i am here with you by the premade sushi. / by the out-of-season strawberries. / by the tofu.
Audio Feature: Mckendy Fils-Aimé (Shō No. 5)
we stumble through a forest / of awkward silences, careful not to touch // the brambles.
Audio Feature: Nyree Abrahamian (Shō No. 5)
I can think of a few things more entrenched, / like language, syllables strung together // in a lilt
A Conversation with Nathan Xavier Osorio
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 …