dialogist

Poetry, Week 36: Alexa Doran — DIALOGIST After My Son and I Decide Which Selfie   makes me look skinny, I launch my botched ass body across the algorithms #FilterFree. I know Frost meant exactly this branch, this road. But I only under...

"My son doesn’t believe in the multiverse. / When asked? Math."

Poem in Which Touch is a Theory and After My Son and I Decide Which Selfie by Alexa Doran, who currently works as an Assistant Professor English at Tallahassee State College.

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Poetry, Week 35: Jon Provens — DIALOGIST My Father’s God is a silent one. Better disguised than the praying mantis and not once recanted. A flame flickered shadow, broken-winged sparrow in my living room, whom I’ve witnessed tend  to ...

"Swallow, / will you sing me your song?"

My Father’s God by Jon Provens, an Argentine-American writer and educator currently based in Southern California.

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Poetry, Week 34: Todd Boss — DIALOGIST People steal scenes. The sweeping green sward, the flock- dotted forest, the far-distant steeple, and the steep cliff of palette-knifed cumulonimbi ought to be enough,   but no, the Dutch mas...

"Where’s he / from, what’s his mission, why’s he here on this floor / in this particular exhibition?"

People by Todd Boss, who is working on three novels, a nonfiction project, a choral operetta, and a screenplay.

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Poetry, Week 33: Jonathan Focht — DIALOGIST it’s just a ride   centennial of daily specials czech pilsner full-pour a dull illness thought better exponential direction adventure keep adding to it more of it faster sending horse stealers t...

"centennial of daily specials..."

it’s just a ride by Jonathan Focht, who lives in Northern Ontario, Canada.

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Poetry, Week 32: Sophia Pan — DIALOGIST a quiet list of unsettled matters when i go to the grocery store 3:00 p.m. i. cotton       blooming orange          &nb...

"3:00 p.m."

a quiet list of unsettled matters when i go to the grocery store by Sophia Pan, who is from Chicago, IL and loves reading and writing slightly disturbed poetry.

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Poetry, Week 31: Cindy King — DIALOGIST Art & Objecthood   I like losing my breath, Pollocking in the wind, white as bleached coral, stiff as the wrist of a Post-Expressionist. Expressing with all the elegance of a busted tongue ...

"How, if at all, does a feeling unwind?"

Art & Objecthood & Still Life with Airstrike and Kant by Cindy King. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she currently lives in Utah, where she is a professor of creative writing at Utah Tech University.

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Poetry, Week 30: Will Sheets — DIALOGIST At the Heart of a Spiral Michael stands before me, says he knows my bible better than he knows the earth we try not to tread upon. His smile carries a mass, isolated and levitated. His smile car...

"There are insects in the canopy."

At the Heart of a Spiral & Under a Burnt Out Sun by Will Sheets, an undergrad student at the University of Richmond studying Creative Writing and English.

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Poetry, Week 29: Robin Arble — DIALOGIST Direct Address You sit at your desk, starving, trying to transfer $400 from your savings to your checking account in case the Massachusetts Health Connector refuses to pay for your next 90-day supp...

"You sit at your desk, starving, trying to transfer $400 from your savings to your checking account..."

Direct Address by Robin Arble, who studied writing and literature at Hampshire College and lives in New York.

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Poetry, Week 28: Stephen Mead — DIALOGIST Ripples Picture this:  darkest draped cloth, magnesium powder flash from a match, & slight smoke quickly drifting over figures for forever or for ever how long that image may last.  F...

"Picture this: darkest draped cloth, magnesium powder flash / from a match..."

Ripples by Stephen Mead, a retiree whom, throughout all his pretty non-glamorous jobs still found time for writing poetry/essays and creating art.

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Poetry, Week 27: Penny Wei — DIALOGIST Unparented Rituals My grandfather devours carambola in the bathtub, the faucet’s underlip weeps, clotted ochres where the enamel resigned. Something unsaintly ferments in the belly of a drain, or a...

"Tell me, how do you become / less animal without becoming more ghost?"

Unparented Rituals by Penny Wei, a poet from Shanghai and Massachusetts.

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Poetry, Week 26: Miss Jackson Newbern — DIALOGIST LENGTHS When I come in, my friend is in the middle of giving her boyfriend a trim. Chair drug into the kitchen where the hair won’t get stuck in the rug. Once she introduces us, he can’t seem to re...

"Yes, / I’ll sweep up. A pile of ends / just beginning to bend."

LENGTHS, THE LANDLORD, & SUPERSTITION by Miss Jackson Newbern (they/them), a poet from Georgia.

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Poetry, Week 25: Arushee Bhoja — DIALOGIST Self-Portrait as Lesbian Artifact In the neighborhood Rite Aid, museum of my gay awakening, I was browsing butterfly mascara as her voice spoke through Bruno Mars. By this point, everything sounded l...

"In the neighborhood Rite Aid, museum / of my gay awakening, I was browsing / butterfly mascara as her voice spoke / through Bruno Mars."

Self-Portrait as Lesbian Artifact by Arushee Bhoja, a queer Indian-American poet from California.

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Poetry, Week 24: Lisa Compo — DIALOGIST Hold On

"What does the hand / of God feel like? I ask you."

Hold On by Lisa Compo, a PhD student in SUNY Binghamton’s creative writing program who obtained her MFA from UNC – Greensboro.

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Poetry, Week 23: Josh Luckenbach — DIALOGIST Junk Hour

"Listen, / it isn’t the drag queens stripping / my kids of Medicaid."

Junk Hour by Josh Luckenbach, a Web Editor for the Coalition for Community Writing.

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Poetry, Week 22: Connor Arakaki — DIALOGIST After the Metal Door Stopper

"Someone had left me a book with two definitions of a door:
the first is simply an entrance."

After the Metal Door Stopper by Connor Arakaki, a writer at Yale University, where they serve as the current Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Herald.

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Poetry, Week 21: Mirthe van Popering — DIALOGIST Temple I. [slepo] something blind A Dr. med. warns my face, paternally inflected, Slim projection , he says. It is invisibly nestled in the seam of me       ...

"The place you want kissed is temple, / [slepoočnica]—I remember."

Temple by Mirthe van Popering, a writer and translator based in Berlin. Her work dismantles—moving through rupture, subversion, and the strange edges of desire.

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Poetry, Week 20: Hafsa Zulfiqar — DIALOGIST Sestina In Which I Try to Escape My Inheritance   In a dream, grandmother commands me bol! and I speak to the ancestor in my bone. Stuttering words cross borders, unstitching themselves f...

"In a dream, grandmother commands me bol! / and I speak to the ancestor in my bone."

Sestina In Which I Try to Escape My Inheritance by Hafsa Zulfiqar, a poet from Pakistan.

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Poetry, Week 19: Michel Krysiak — DIALOGIST genesis 22:19   so abraham returned to his young men with isaac, and they arose and went together to beer-sheba; and abraham  and isaac live at beer-sheba.  now after these things...

"calling his / brother ishmael to ask him for the netflix password."

genesis 22:19 by Michel Krysiak, a philosophy research student, currently residing in Kyoto. They write in English and Polish. This is their first published poem.

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Poetry, Week 18: Joshua Gregory — DIALOGIST Reservoir Meditation A season for looking at last leaves:  falling, thin, per-  forming winter  ’s sound like willows or  whipping, white fabric. & still  this nig...

"A season for looking at last leaves:"

Reservoir Meditation by Joshua Gregory, the Spiritual Director and Bereavement Counselor of the Hospice of the Fisher Home in Amherst, MA.

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Poetry, Week 17: Emily Updegraff — DIALOGIST Green Reigns                             &n

"Not even they are forever. In this glorious re-greening /
something comes next for us, too."

Green Reigns by Emily Updegraff, an MFA student at Northwestern University.

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Poetry, Week 16: Benjamin Bellet — DIALOGIST Stabat Mater                             &n

"Sometimes they’d ask you / —are these all yours?"

Stabat Mater by Benjamin Bellet, a clinical psychologist and military veteran.

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Poetry, Week 15: Cole Barry — DIALOGIST Boots The news, then, was full of warnings  A child’s mitten detached at the knuckle             found in a valley   Co...

"It was a story only I could / tell in order to become / my own person"

Boots by Cole Barry, who you can find on Instagram @cole.barryy.

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Poetry, Week 14: Bruce Bond — DIALOGIST Picture Postcard from an Atom Bomb Test, Yucca Flats, 1953 How did you know. I was just thinking of the irredeemable, pictured here, as we might stand among them behind a scrim of sunglass ...

"How did you know. I was just thinking / of the irredeemable, pictured here..."

Three poems from Bruce Bond, who teaches part-time as a Regents Emeritus Professor of English at the University of North Texas.

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come out to the New Orleans Healing Arts Center tomorrow for a collaborative poetry event with Tyger Quarterly at the NOPF! Featuring @browatch.bsky.social, kathy wu, Alyssa Moore, Emily Pittinos, Shira Dentz, and Emily Barton Altman

Poetry, Week 13: Aimee Wai — DIALOGIST Reading Travels to Writing as Sound Travels to Light   The audience doesn’t always know what they want. Most of the time, they want what they don’t want. The director’s job is to fulfill their...

"Mostly, I know hunger and pain or no pain at all and that is all I write about."

Reading Travels to Writing as Sound Travels to Light by Aimee Wai, a creative writer and engineer.

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Thanks to all who came to our reading! #awp #awp2025

tomorrow night! 8pm, 3/28 at Sibylline Records

reading with Helene Achanzar, @tarikd.xyz, Amanda Gunn, Ricardo Frasso Jamarillo, Caroline Kanner, and Ethan Seeley!

15 S El Molino Ave, Pasadena

Poetry, Week 12: Garnet Juniper Bennet — DIALOGIST Fear is its own low country after Aaron Coleman   As it coalesces around us, we feel sticky to the touch, thrust into awkward air like a clot coughed clear out of a lung, tree-...

"Is that not poetic? Shall we try again?"

What can you answer? & Fear is its own low country from Garnet Juniper Bennet, a writer & seeker of truth.

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Poetry, Week 11: Xiadi Zhai — DIALOGIST Pulling Over What happened: the rabbit died because I struck it. I struck it quick & so I suppose I struck it well, if we want to put things that way. I should have seen it but I didn’t, not t...

"What happened: the rabbit died / because I struck it."

Two poems from Xiadi Zhai, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop from Boston, Massachusetts.

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Poetry, Week 10: Natalie Eleanor Patterson — DIALOGIST After the Breakup,   she calls me & calls me again, drops off bags of my useless things in the apartment building lobby, tearfully asks Is this the kind of breakup where I buy you flowers &...

"she... tearfully asks Is this the kind of breakup where I buy you flowers & win you back?"

"After the Breakup," by Natalie Eleanor Patterson, a poet, editor, and instructor from Atlanta, Georgia, with an MFA in poetry from Oregon State University.

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