Audio Feature: Jessica Nirvana Ram (Shō No. 5)
The days have been heavy lately, /
an albatross on each shoulder
Audio Feature: Nathan Xavier Osorio (Shō No. 4)
My mother fell in love with the way you cracked / into an urchin.
Audio Feature: Lana Matthews Sain (Shō No. 4)
I smelled like churned earth, breasts bouldered and leaked / through my support bra into my shirt / for days after his deathbirth.
Audio Feature: Eben E. B. Bein (Shō No. 4)
Mom, since we stopped / speaking, I've been searching / for the first word / you gave me.
Audio Feature: Andrew Payton (Shō No. 3)
My father came to this country / through the womb. My mother, too. // Their mothers and their fathers, too. / But somewhere behind them: a crossing.
Audio Feature: Ally Ang (Shō No. 3)
Today, my heart is working / remotely. I watch it thump / and thrum reliably behind / the blur of a computer screen.
Audio Feature: Richard Vargas (Shō No. 4)
i’m drinking coffee and reading an essay / by Tarantino breaking down Scorsese’s decision to / cast Harvey Keitel as the pimp in Taxi Driver
Audio Feature: Nazifa Islam (Shō No. 4)
The sirens—remembering—often sing to me / of my own deathwish.
Audio Feature: Quinton Okoro (Shō No. 4)
how else would i describe it? / somewhere below all of us // i paced the dirt floor of a deep / and airless pit, digging and uncovering // only daylilies tight and green
Audio Feature: Dare Williams (Shō No. 3)
I’m not good at holding / anything real // the glass the weight these night- / blooming jasmine
Audio Feature: Cass Garison (Shō No. 3)
I share an arm rest / with a stranger who has desires // too.
Audio Feature: Bunkong Tuon (Shō No. 3)
I can tell you about strength. / How the sun warms our skins. / How the moon turns tides.
Audio Feature: Sean Thomas Dougherty (Shō No. 3)
I think I'm tired of auditioning. / I'm not dancing for bread anymore. / I'm not paying your fee.
Audio Feature: Cassandra Whitaker (Shō No. 3)
I split into two and the wolf split into four and we kept dividing
our greatness until I matched the air and the wolf matched the earth
Audio feature: Alfonso Zapata (Shō No. 3)
I sling myself up those stairs / with all the other tired men because //
who am I to refuse the slap / of hunched playing cards
Audio feature: Ellen June Wright (Shō No. 3)
Sometimes I forget I came from the Earth / from the rocks, from the spongy moss // was a home for all the squirming, crawling / slippery life that lived under me.