Audio Feature: Erica Abbott
Listen to Erica Abbott read her poem "Portrait of a Wildfire Photographer in a Near-Apocalyptic World," published in Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24).
Amber Adams – Okinawa, 2016
"Okinawa, 2016" by Amber Adams:
In the years before you died, you lived
on the island where the kijimuna eat the eyes
of fish, and seeing the sea is inescapable.
By the time I made the many flight trek,
you’d become boyish again in linen shirts
and water shoes. Surf-polished, less
Christian J. Collier — Nocturne [Shō Poetry Prize Winner]
Read “Nocturne” by Christian J. Collier, Winner of the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025).
I believed I could be more than man &, for two hours, became
the darkest bird in Hamilton County—barely eighteen,
midnight blue, resting my warm, bare feet on sheets of gale
as fog-sopped night made kindred of me.
Ernest Ohia – somehow [Sita Martin Prize Winner]
“somehow” by Ohia, Ernest Chigaemezu, Winner of the Sita Martin Prize for Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025):
it begins with dreams where your heart flutters nonstop in an airplane bound for america used to be a part of your dreams now are like cicadas throwing a wild party & you're clueless as fuck your papery heart
Nina C. Peláez – Doubt [Sita Martin Prize Runner-Up]
“Doubt” by Nina C. Peláez, Runner-Up of the Sita Martin Prize for Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025).
At the cattle farm, I fell in love with a boy
who thought he was a god. I too, believed
this sometimes.
Aldo Amparán — Symptoms of Ghosts [Shō Poetry Prize Runner-Up]
Runner-Up of the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025).
“The main reason behind the gay orientation of some
men is that they are possessed by female ghosts.”
— Spiritual Science Research Foundation
Audio Feature: Rosemarie Dombrowski
Listen to Rosemarie Dombrowski read “Epistolary for the New Year” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Audio Feature: Allisa Cherry (Shō No. 6)
Listen to Allisa Cherry read her poem “Second Anointing” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Robert Okaji – The Starlings Were You [Shō Poetry Prize Winner]
“The Starlings Were You” by Robert Okaji, Winner of the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Morning was a jaundiced memory,
a burnished smear on the kettle
shrilling its warning.
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 …
Audio Feature: Becka Mara McKay (Shō No. 6)
Listen to Becka Mara McKay read “Golden Shovel as Anthropomorphism (Song of Songs 2:10)” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Maja Lukic – Your Mother Knew Many Words for Beauty and Used All of Them to Call You [Sita Martin Prize Winner]
Winner of the Sita Martin Prize for Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
In shop windows, you are strange / to yourself, your face a drifting moon, / eyes and mouth dark shafts.
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 …
Ranudi Gunawardena – Girl Cousins, Pixelated [Sita Martin Prize Runner-Up]
Runner-Up of the Sita Martin Prize for Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
The fruit / hung bending the branches, like a hundred // small stomachs, bird-eaten and naked / where the beaks had pierced.
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: Maja Lukic (Shō No. 6)
Listen to Maja Lukic, inaugural winner of the Sita Martin Prize, read “Your Mother Knew Many Words for Beauty and Used All of Them to Call You” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25). You can also read Maja’s poem here. Audio recorded by Reed Turchi at Second Take Sound. Maja Lukic is a Brooklyn-based poet. …
Audio Feature: Ranudi Gunawardena (Shō No. 6)
Listen to Ranudi Gunawardena read “Girl Cousins, Pixelated” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25). For this poem, Ranudi was honored as the runner-up of the Sita Martin Prize for Shō No. 6. You can also read Ranudi’s poem here. Ranudi Gunawardena is a Sri Lankan poet whose work explores the wombscape, childhood in rural landscapes, …
Audio Feature: Jae Nichelle (Shō No. 6)
Listen to Jae Nichelle read “alternate timeline” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25). “I began this poem thinking about the cyclical nature of time, specifically relating to my matrilineage and my family’s fraught relationship with the bodies of water around us as Louisianians. We face the persistent threats of floods and hurricanes while relying on unsafe …
Audio Feature: Danielle Shandiin Emerson (Shō No. 4)
Listen to Danielle Shandiin Emerson read “Sometimes, she listened to his stories.” from Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24). We nominated this poem for a Pushcart Prize. “I wrote this as a sort of release from a lot of complex father and mental health related emotions. It’s written in third person to sort of distance myself, while …