Pride Playlist #2 | tOTAL RUNTIME: 21.59
Twelve tracks to celebrate Pride Month from poets recently published in Shō Poetry Journal.
To listen to this roundup as a continuous playlist, play it on SoundCloud.
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- Daniel Brennan reads “Morning Affirmations”
- Ciaran Pierce reads “Grindr Etiquette”
- William Ward Butler reads “Reciprocity”
- Mickie Kennedy reads “Finding My Boyfriend in Bed with a Stranger, 1993” and “American Porn, 1985”
- Jarrett Moseley reads “Before the News Hits”
- Quinton Okoro reads “what i witnessed as i prepared to return”
- Hannah Tennant-Moore reads “Queer Adolescence at 41”
- Hannah Smith reads “Friday Night in Zilker”
- Jackson D. Moorman reads “At Lake Merritt I’m wearing a hoodie with nothing under it”
- Bella Zhou reads “Ghazal for When You Lose Your Hong Kong Passport in Buenos Aires”
- Reuben Gelley Newman reads “Summer, 1980”
Daniel Brennan reads “Morning Affirmations”
About this poem: “Morning Affirmations” was a way to put voice to the sort of mental ping-pong, the back and forth, I so often play with myself…the little things I tell myself in order to put off feelings of sadness, or frustration, or isolation. So often, desire has been a form of escape for me: as if another man wanting my body can remove me from my own body, or from the building, even just for a moment. If I distract myself with physical pleasure, perhaps I can put off reality a little bit longer.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 5 (Summer 2024).
Daniel Brennan (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. Sometimes he’s in love, just as often he’s not. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net, and has appeared in numerous publications, including The Penn Review, Puerto del Sol, and Trampset. He can be found on Twitter @DanielJBrennan_.
Ciaran Pierce reads “Grindr Etiquette”
About this poem: The idea for “Grindr Etiquette” came to me when I redownloaded the app after a three-year purge. As I scrolled through the grid of cropped torsos and leather jockstraps, I began to reflect on nature of gay hookup culture, which, in my subjective experience, has always been a very procedural, monotonous activity. One is almost expected to conduct themselves with a particular etiquette. There’s a role to inhabit, much like in a game, and if you don’t know the rules, you’re better off leaving the meat cage. “Grindr Etiquette” interests itself in the aftermath of said game. It gestures to the scraped elbows and invisible lacerations that come with engaging in such sterile, objectifying interactions (see the last two stanzas). It asks, What happens when the harshness of our textual interplay bleeds into physical intimacy?
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Ciaran Pierce (he/him) is a recent Comparative World Literature graduate of California State University, Long Beach. His poetry has appeared in West Trade Review, Sky Island Journal, Ponder Review, Runestone, and elsewhere. To connect, go to @ciaranpierce.
William Ward Butler reads “Reciprocity”
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
William Ward Butler is the Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California. He is the author of the chapbook Life History from Ghost City Press. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bennington Review, Denver Quarterly, Five Points, Hunger Mountain, Switchyard, and other journals. He is a poetry reader for TriQuarterly and co-editor-in-chief of Frozen Sea.
Mickie Kennedy reads “Finding My Boyfriend in Bed with a Stranger, 1993” and “American Porn, 1985”
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Mickie Kennedy is a gay writer who resides in Baltimore County, Maryland. His work has appeared in POETRY, The Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, The Sun, and elsewhere. His first full-length book of poetry, Worth Burning, will be published by Black Lawrence Press in February 2026. Follow him on social media @MickiePoet or his website mickiekennedy.com.
Jarrett Moseley reads “Before the News Hits”
About this poem: “Before the News Hits” circles the feeling of knowing something is about to change drastically, even though it hasn’t been said. It’s the understanding you have when it’s clear something is coming to an end, and maybe other people know it too, yet no one speaks it—because language is so powerful that once a thing is described, it’s difficult to undescribe it.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Jarrett Moseley is a Bisexual poet living in Miami. He is the author of Gratitude List (Bull City, 2024) and his poems have been published in POETRY, Ploughshares, AGNI, and elsewhere.
Quinton Okoro reads “what i witnessed as i prepared to return”
About this poem: This poem was drafted from a series of notes scribbled on post-its during a period of my life when I was in and out of psychosis following a suicide attempt. I believe the notes were my attempt to describe what I had witnessed in my brief moment between life and death. While putting together and revising the poem to fit into my manuscript-in-progress, I tried to incorporate a very loose religious reference to the story of Cain and Abel with the two fawns (the notes originally described only one dead fawn), but I don’t think that came through in the end haha.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24).
Quinton Okoro is a Black, nonbinary poet from Nigeria and an MFA student at New York University. They are a 2024 Djanikian Scholar, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets, among other awards. They currently serve as a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine. Their work has been featured in The Adroit Journal, Poetry Northwest, Nimrod International Journal, and elsewhere. More at quintonokoro.com.
Hannah Tennant-Moore reads “Queer Adolescence at 41”
About this poem: I was hiking alone a few years ago when I stopped dead in my tracks and knew I had to leave my marriage. The sense that there was a constant, deep lack in my life had become unbearable. Every time I saw a lesbian family or a literal rainbow, I felt like I was looking through a one-way window at the life I would always want and never have. But as certain as I was that I needed to leave, leaving felt impossible: I was seven months pregnant and the primary parent for my three-year-old, it was the height of Covid, my husband made much more money than I did and still we could barely support a single household on our combined incomes. “I need magic,” I said out loud. My brain was too small and limited from all its inherited thinking to get me out of the hell I’d made of my life by ignoring the clarity of my desire for women when I was younger. “I believe in magic.” Somehow, several years later, I did manage to come out to my kids and separate from my husband and finally give the 17-year-old dyke inside me the experiences she had long ached for. I have spent way too much time analyzing the confluence of reasons I—like so many other gay adults—missed out on an actual queer adolescence. But this poem is a hit of pure life, free of analysis. I have no memory of writing it, which is very unusual for me. It’s like it came directly from my body, a battle cry of freedom.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Hannah Tennant-Moore is a queer writer and sex coach who specializes in working with people with disabilities. Her novel Wreck and Order (Hogarth/Random House, 2016) was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She is a contributor to the New York Times Book Review, and has also written for The Sun, Tin House, The New Republic, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Her poetry appears in Shō Poetry Journal, ONE ART, and Josephine Quarterly.
Hannah Smith reads “Friday Night in Zilker”
About this poem: This poem is a love letter to my sister. It is a love letter to my home state. It is a love letter to country music and nine-banded armadillos and flat horizons and queer joy in red states and yes, also, to the fucking moon. In all honestly, I wrote this poem as a way to convince myself to move back to Texas. And I’m so happy I did.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 5 (Summer 2024).
Hannah Smith is a writer from Dallas, Texas, where she works as the Production Manager for Southwest Review. She is a National Poetry Series Finalist, and her poems have been published in Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Image Journal, and elsewhere. She is the co-author of the collaborative chapbook, Metal House of Cards (Finishing Line Press, 2024).
Jackson D. Moorman reads “At Lake Merritt I’m wearing a hoodie with nothing under it”
About this poem: This piece is an attempt to examine the intertwined nature of feeling fear and getting free; the possibilities that are borne out of things which were previously unimaginable. It originates from a prompt I encountered during a session of “In Surreal Life,” the digital creativity school run by poet Shira Erlichman.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Jackson D. Moorman (he/him) is a queer and trans poet, organizer, and nurse who lives in Oakland with his wife and their two tiny rescue mutts. He is co-editor-in-chief of the poetry journal Frozen Sea. You can find him and his poems on instagram @jacksondmoorman or jacksondmoorman.com
Bella Zhou reads “Ghazal for When You Lose Your Hong Kong Passport in Buenos Aires”
About this poem: Happy Together is my comfort film. Watching it at 2 AM again and again, I think I’ve internalized its world—B roll of Buenos Aires twilights, the listlessness of Lai Yiu-fai’s face, ‘Chunga’s Revenge’ by Frank Zappa. Growing up with it, I felt heard for the first time when I grasped its themes of queer joy, migration, and resistance. This poem expands on the racial and spatial dynamics of estrangement within the film, specifically through the appropriation of foreign geography and a circular Ghazal format.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24).
Bella Zhou is a student at Pearson College UWC. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Poetry Online, Palette, Narrative, Another Chicago, etc. Elsewhere, she plays bass, directs movies, and sleeps in temples in the Tianmu Mountains.
Reuben Gelley Newman reads “Summer, 1980”
About this poem: This piece is part of a project inspired by the life and music of avant-garde cellist and composer Arthur Russell (1951-1992). Russell was born in Oskaloosa, IA, and lived in New York, NY, from 1973 to the end of his life. Drawing on an interview in Gothamist of Arthur’s longtime partner, artist and teacher Tom Lee, I playfully imagine a scene between the couple. I’m ever grateful for Arthur’s music and for Tom’s generosity and work to share it.
This poem first appeared in Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24).
Reuben Gelley Newman is the author of Dear Dear (Trio House Press, 2026), which won the 2025 Louise Bogan Award, and a chapbook, Feedback Harmonies (Seven Kitchens Press, 2024). His poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Fairy Tale Review, and Shō Poetry Journal.