Whale Road Review

New Issue of Whale Road is here💙

These Currents Turn Awry form loosely based on Amy Lowell’s “Chalks: Black, Red and White” (1914) The river is the color of tea, cedars leaching their tannins into its run. Still, it reflects the branches above it, a muddi…

Been traveling for three weeks and absent from here, but I wanted to share this new piece in @whaleroadreview.bsky.social, a hybrid piece that features grief, Ophelia, and the weather. I'd be grateful if you read it... This one is special to me.
www.whaleroadreview.com/vorreyer-4/

an atheist’s prayer bless me, Fatherfor I have sinnedlustingover the womanat the USPS storewho looks like Raquel Welchbless me, Father,I have imaginedour lives together—picnics by Mesa Lake,car rides under the desert …

“bless me, Father
for I am imaginative
and the desert is long”

❤️ 📦 🌅 🌈

Chelsea Catherine’s “an atheist’s prayer” is a wonderful opening to the newly dropped Issue 39 of @whaleroadreview.bsky.social

www.whaleroadreview.com/catherine/

Model What’s Natural Instead of Integrating the Artificial When I was a graduate student, the professor teaching our pedagogy class gave an unpopular task: we had to write the paper we were about to assign in first-year composition. Then we’d exchange pape…

" I didn’t work on a poem for a boss or for a salary, but I worked on my poem because it was an intellectual challenge." from @whaleroadreview.bsky.social www.whaleroadreview.com/hirt

I wrote “Smothering Villanelle” with poetry queens Beth Gylys & Denise Duhamel. It’s a contoured villanelle using Julie Kane & Erica Reid’s “The Double Image Redux.” Thank you, @whaleroadreview.bsky.social & @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social.

#poetrysky #poetrynews #poems

Submission Guidelines We are currently open to submissions of poetry and short prose. We are only open to submissions of creative work during our June 1-15 and December 1-15 reading periods.We are always open to submiss…

P.S. We’re now open for submissions from June 1-15. Check out our guidelines and send some work our way!

www.whaleroadreview.com/submission-g...

Issue 39 / Summer 2025 Do you ever read something and feel like it’s reading you back? Our summer issue is doing this to me. My dad died just over a month ago (“A storm cannot grieve, but a grief can be a storm.” –…

Please make a writer’s day and send a little something (or a lot) using the Tip the Author links below many of the bios. As ever, thank you for reading!

@katiemanningpoet.bsky.social
Editor-in-Chief

www.whaleroadreview.com/issue-39-sum...

We’ve also got interviews with Allison Pitinii Davis and Anand Thakore thanks to the excellent work of Molly Mayhead and Lili Newberry.

Thanks to Miriam Calleja, Kevin Densley, Raphael Kosek, Gloria Monaghan, and Mary Ellen Talley for their thoughtful reviews of recent books by Julia Kolchinsky, James Roderick Burns, Lucia Cherciu, Eileen Cleary, and Annette Sisson.

Model What’s Natural Instead of Integrating the Artificial When I was a graduate student, the professor teaching our pedagogy class gave an unpopular task: we had to write the paper we were about to assign in first-year composition. Then we’d exchange pape…

In pedagogy, Jen Hirt brings us a timely and much-needed example of modeling the writing process rather than integrating AI.

www.whaleroadreview.com/hirt/

Issue 39 features work by @djvorreyer.bsky.social @janemuschenetz.bsky.social @miriamcalleja.bsky.social @dustinbrookshire.bsky.social @chelscath0215.bsky.social @karladaly.bsky.social @kevindensley.bsky.social & more!

I’m leaving soon to meet up with dear friends in Paris (“…rain, the end of a baguette, the spine / of a book, and you in a long wool coat.” – Janine Certo, “Jetlag, Paris”). This is such a special issue, and I suspect many more people will find themselves being read by these pieces too.

Do you ever read something and feel like it’s reading you back? Our summer issue is doing this to me. My dad died just over a month ago (“A storm cannot grieve, but a grief can be a storm.” – Donna Vorreyer, “These Currents Turn Awry”).

Wooden bowl with white cloves of garlic in it

Many thanks to @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social , editor of @whaleroadreview.bsky.social, for promoting my poem "Exorcised Vampire":

www.whaleroadreview.com/sheahen/

Thank you! ❤️

Just donated. ❤️ Please help in any little way.

I remember this! This hits different now that I’ve finally read Flannery O’Connor through a grad school lit seminar.

A Prayer & Coupling with Big Ben (w/ Katie Manning) Katie brings some really fun poems to the show that frankly aren't bad at all! Embarrassing...maybe... but even that is up for debate. What isn't up for debate is t…

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed through an entire interview before, but @mybadpoetrythepod.bsky.social made it happen. Thanks to Aaron and Dave for the hilarious conversation about my old poems!

www.mybadpoetry.com/a-prayer-cou...

St. Flannery Gets Her Wig I told Charlie, the blue-haired lady working at Toll Road House of Wigs in South Bend, that I wanted something old-fashioned, something like this. I held up a snapshot of Flannery O’Connor. She wri…

And here's Chad's story from way back in Issue 2. ❤️

www.whaleroadreview.com/gusler/

Donate to Chad’s Cancer Treatment Fund, organized by Aaron Gusler Chad has recently been diagnosed with esophageal/ stomach cancer. We are looking for help to… Aaron Gusler needs your support for Chad’s Cancer Treatment Fund

One of our contributors has cancer. Please join us in giving Chad Gusler some support. ❤️

gofund.me/124918ba

#FF It’s National Walnut Day! Give some ❤️ and a follow to these folks in the lit community beginning with the letter “W”:
@westchesterreview.bsky.social
@westofcanon.bsky.social
@whaleroadreview.bsky.social
@whiptailjournal.bsky.social
@wildwillowmagazine.bsky.social
Cont ⬇️

Grubb Run Sonnet We tromp through August’s only shade along a creek that feeds the Susquehanna, when— “The water calls to me!” she screams, and lands between the shale, between the shade, between unknown and known. To hold her hand would mean I fear the mud on which she slips, and yet to let her go recalls the aged dad who gave his son, his line, his love atop the pyre. And I don’t know a thing about all this. Not roots and mycorrhizal growth, but how to give her where the stream began, or how to feel a joy as strong as oaks that stand despite the question and the curse: What if she is all I really have?

2. "Grubb Run Sonnet" considers Abraham/Issaac and me/my own children at @whaleroadreview.bsky.social.

We do.

Why I’d Make a Great Chemist Because my father was the X in X+ -e > X- + energy. Because my sister knits plutonium sweaters. Because none of my valence shells will ever fill. Because I love figuring out what all the arrows …

We're so sad to learn that Martha Silano has passed. It was an honor to publish her work.

"Because solving’s just another word for letting go."
- from "Why I'd Make a Great Chemist" by Martha Silano

www.whaleroadreview.com/silano-2/

Happy writers toast with little cups at the Whale Road review

What a joy to celebrate 10 years of Whale Road Review at AWP last week! We had sparkling cider toasts, nonstop author signings, and a fantastic off-site event with @swwim.bsky.social, @merliterary.bsky, @perugiapress.bsky.social, and Cultivating Voices Live Poetry!

The amazing AWP pix keep rolling in! Here’s board member Shoshana Olidort w/ Editor/Director Rebecca Olander & poet Melody S. Gee at our offsite & w/ some of the other co-organizers, Catherine Esposito Prescott & Mary Block from @swwim.bsky.social & Katie Manning from @whaleroadreview.bsky.social ♥️

So many beautiful moments at AWP—The amazing poets and writers who read at our two off site events, Off site.On purpose. with our colleagues from @whaleroadreview.bsky.social @swwim.bsky.social @perugiapress.bsky.social and @cultivatingvoiceslive

This was an AMAZING event. If they pull together this “Off Site/ On Purpose” group reading again next year, seek it out! Powerful poems and an exceptionally warm, inclusive vibe @merliterary.bsky.social @swwim.bsky.social @whaleroadreview.bsky.social @perugiapress.bsky.social

Two poetry collections by Melissa Fite Johnson. GREEN has a light green cover ft. a picture of a young blonde child sitting down and looking up in awe and wonder. The setting appears to be in the corner of a light green tent. MIDLIFE ABECEDARIAN has a bold, high contrast black and white photo on the cover, ft. shelves chock-full of DVDs for rent. (I’m sorry if I get this description inaccurately, I think that’s what it is)

What a joy to meet @mfitejohnson.bsky.social, (whose work I’ve enjoyed in @whaleroadreview.bsky.social) at #AWP25 and to get her lovely poetry collections! 📚 ✨

Still buzzing from last night’s 🔥Off Site. On Purpose. reading - every piece was strong & moving & beautifully shared. Gratitude to all the readers, the audience & our amazing collaborators: @merliterary.bsky.social @whaleroadreview.bsky.social @swwim.bsky.social & #cultivatingvoiceslivepoetry 🌟♥️✨