Pride Month Playlist 2025
Twelve tracks to celebrate Pride Month by contributors to Shō Poetry Journal.
Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month Roundup 2025
To celebrate Asian/Pacific heritage month, we’ve curated this selection of poems that give voice to Asian American experiences centered around inheritance, history, memory, and belonging.
This roundup features poems and audio recordings by Ally Ang, Monica Kim, Arah Ko, Vannida S. Kol, Sati Mookherjee, Jessica Nirvana Ram, Eylie Sasajima, Jeddie Sophronius, Sophia Terazawa, Elise Thi Tran, Bunkong Tuon, and MT Vallarta. These poems first appeared in Shō No. 3, Shō No. 4, Shō No. 5, and Shō No. 6.
Audio Feature: Jose Oseguera (Shō No. 5)
Listen to Jose Oseguera read “Ode to the Foreskin” from Shō No. 5 (Summer 2024). About this poem: In this poem, I meditate on the foreskin as a symbol of fragility, ancestral protection, and the body’s first encounter with violence—an aspect of male vulnerability that I feel is often hidden or dismissed in society. Inspired …
Women’s History Month Roundup 2025
In honor of Women's History Month, read this selection of poems by Sage Ravenwood, Gabriela Bittencourt dos Santos, Kuhu Joshi, Tianna Bratcher, Ari B. Cofer, and Dorsey Craft. These poems were published in Shō No. 4, Shō No. 5, and Shō No. 6.
Audio Feature: Cortney Lamar Charleston (Shō No. 5)
Listen to Cortney Lamar Charleston read “It’s Important I Remember That Even Beyoncé Got Cheated On—” from Shō No. 5 (Summer 2024). About this poem: Despite its seeding in popular culture, this poem is part of a larger project concerned with the ascent of fascism and, resultingly, how rips in our relationships limit our ability …
Black History Month Playlist
Listen to poems by Jae Nichelle, Saida Agostini, Ellen June Wright, Corey Baron, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Erica Dawson, and Elontra Hall. These poems appeared in Shō No. 5 and Shō No. 6.
Audio Feature: Ellen June Wright (Shō No. 5)
Something heavy lingers in the lines
/ of her cheeks and bags under her eyes. // No matter how she tries, she can't smile, / even as she offers us voluptuous, pink peonies.
Audio Feature: Claire Zhou (Shō No. 5)
You are what you eat. Your every sinew / born from the tomb of history: liver, / kidney, lungs, brain. Heart. Red as a cow's / tongue flicking
Audio Feature: Elontra Hall (Shō No. 5)
His body glistens from / etching pebbled leather / into his skin. My brother, // practicing his jump shot— / its gather, lift and release / reminds me of a samurai
Audio Feature: Monica Kim (Shō No. 5)
praise: for the sisters putting on rubber suits for each other / praise: for preparing the day’s catch with soy sauce & pan-fried onions
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: Rebekah Wolman (Shō No. 5)
as abecedarian. Beehive. Corner cabinet, desk / detritus. Earthshine. Faultline. As gristle and gall.
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: 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: 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
Audio Feature: Corey Baron (Shō No. 5)
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?
Audio Feature: Jessica Nirvana Ram (Shō No. 5)
The days have been heavy lately, /
an albatross on each shoulder