Established in 2002, revived in 2023
Listen to Aleks Zywicki read “rewatching the film” from Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025). About this poem: “rewatching the film” is an ekphrasis poem inspired by the 2013 film, Under the Skin. I don’t really like violent movies and I’m not even sure that I can say I enjoyed seeing this one. But right in …
To celebrate National Filipino American Heritage Month, we've curated this selection of poems by by Hannah Keziah Agustin (Shō No. 7); Karla Myn Khine and Akira Ritos (Shō No. 5), and Elise Thi Tran and MT Vallarta (Shō No. 4).
Listen to Bobby Elliott read “The Fall of 1990” from Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025).
To celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, we've curated this selection of poems by US-based Shō Poetry Journal contributors. This playlist features audio recordings by Jenna Martínez, Asheley Nova Navarro, Nina C. Peláez (Shō No. 7); Alejandro Lucero (Shō No. 6); Jasmine Khaliq, José Oseguera, Sara Santistevan (Shō No. 5); Faith Gómez Clark, Nathan Xavier Osorio, Laura Villareal (Shō No. 4); and Alfonso Zapata (Shō No. 3).
Two Sonnets from Pierce Junction: No one knew what to make of the pear tree, / why only one side sprouted fruit, as if / the branches were opposed to symmetry / or cursed.
Listen to Richard Collins read “Wind Flows Over Stone Nest Dojo” from Shō No. 4 (Winter 2023/24).
Listen to Shawnte Orion read “Poem Yet To Be Written By Erik Bitsui (who wrote the book Mosh Pit Etiquette Volume One: Secrets of a 21st Century Navajo Headbanger)” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
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).
"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
“Sugar Baby Sonnet” by Paige Passantino:
The website for meeting daddys was free to use
with a student email address. On the sugar side, of course.
The others paid. Both sides were merely seeking, arranging
something with range: six images for pleasure, a curation
dependent on if today’s girl would be show, or telling
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.
“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
“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.
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
Listen to Rosemarie Dombrowski read “Epistolary for the New Year” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
Listen to Allisa Cherry read her poem “Second Anointing” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
“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.
Twelve tracks to celebrate Pride Month by contributors to Shō Poetry Journal.
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.
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 …
Listen to Becka Mara McKay read “Golden Shovel as Anthropomorphism (Song of Songs 2:10)” from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).
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.
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 …
