Shō Poetry Journal

Sections of Sho poetry journal art

Arizona-based @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social publishes two print issues of poetry a year. They strive to build community by championing poets through audio features, playlists, and editors’ prizes awarded to work in each issue. Find out more at table 605!

Submissions close March 15th!

In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Johnny Cordova | Water~Stone Review

t was fun to be interviewed by Water~Stone Review about my poem "Li Po took a driving test." Check it out:

Read at your leisure!

Copyist Susan L. Leary After we give the animal a writing utensil, what 1s needed next: a mind or a piece of paper? This is not a question or a riddle but an argument of practicality. The idea of a brother is not a brother. The idea of freedom is made tangible in the hands of arbitrarily good men. How to invent the after-life? How to absolve oneself of hierarchy while kissing another man's feet? On the outside, my brother passes me the clippers. He passes the dog a coin & I hide the dog in my purse. If I must remember for him, must I remember accurately? On the questionnaire, my sister gets shit done. I count the fan blades. I call the public defender. I leave a message for the 29* time. No one gives a fuck, my brother says—& all I can do is listen. All I can do is thumb through the pages & continue to learn his whereabouts. Bunk 22. Bunk 32. Where against the false pretense of sunrise, he dreams from an unidentified bed & I dream in the bed of his language. If you are someone who is likeable only in comparison to your captor, What are we doing? he says. If we hold the state accountable, do we do it through language or through love? On the outside, my brother passes. I take his pen & invent the mouth of his archive. I am delegate. I am yammerer. Of myself, my brother should get the credit.

Honored to have a new poem in The McNeese Review, a journal I absolutely love! Thanks to editor, Michael Robins, and poetry editor, Gwenyth Wheat, for giving “Copyist” such a kind home and for inviting me to speak about my process in crafting it (included in the replies)! Check it out, friends! 💙

So honored to have a poem on Poets.org. It's been a dream of mine for so long. I have infinite gratitude for everyone involved in getting this poem out into the world. ❤️

♥️♥️♥️

NAWP! said the ostrich. Our 4th annual poetry reading (for those unable to attend AWP) March 5th at 7pm

Hey! Don't miss out on the FOMO and poems. Sign up to read here:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Registered to attend (readers & nonreaders) here: www.eventbrite.com/e/nawp-open-...

Just a little over halfway full with less than a month to go. Send strong work!

A photo of the Cloudwatcher book cover with text reading Forthcoming April 7

Cover Art: SeamlessOo Cover Design: Gopa and Ted2, Inc.

Forthcoming April 7: CLOUDWATCHER by MICHAEL BAZZETT, winner of the 2025 Stern Prize from The American Poetry Review!

In today's #coverfeature, BAZZETT tells us about the uncanny resemblance—and rightness—between his speaker, self, and cover figure:

Black text bubbled in a light peach background on a periwinkle background. Text reads: “Join these poets in Shō No. 9 Summer Issue.” Poets listed: Madeleine Bazil · Isha Camara · Piera Chen · Jordan Cobb · David Eileen · Rebecca Hawkes · Jacob Herrera Spears · Lucas Jorgensen · Sophie Kaiser Rojas · Sheema Kalbasi · Eli Karren · Victoria Kornick · Ethan Kwak · Carolene Kurien · Jenny Molberg · Alia Shaukat · Nora Sullivan · Aspen Taylor · Preeti Vangani · Jeff Whitney · Andrew Chi Keong Yim · Hananah Zaheer · Joshua Zeitler

Shō No. 9 Update: We’ve accepted 34 poems from 23 poets for our summer issue, and we’re looking for more strong work!

Submissions are open until March 15, 2026 (11.59pm MST).

Submit here: shopoetryjournal.submittable.com

We'll be sharing more forthcoming and recently published books soon! Shō contributors—share book news with us via email!

APRIL AND BACK AGAIN by Claire Taylor @clairemtaylor.com
www.publishinggenius.com/catalog/apri...

GHOST HUNTING GLACIERS by Michael Garrigan (Winner of the Grayson Books Poetry Prize, Selected by Alberto Ríos) @mgarrigan.bsky.social
www.mgarrigan.com/store/p9/Gho...

ADDICTION APOCALYPSE by Remi Recchia
www.tamupress.com/book/9781680...

ODDEST & OLDEST & SADDEST & BEST by Jane Zwart @janezwart.bsky.social
www.orisonbooks.com/product-page...

MORE FLOWERS by Susan L. Leary @susanlleary.bsky.social @triohousepress.org
triohousepress.myshopify.com/products/mor...

Sharing a few February poetry releases from Shō contributors:

Happy Publication Day to IT'S IMPORTANT I REMEMBER by Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social
nupress.northwestern.edu/978081014964...
(25% off with code NUP2026)

Anti-Fascist Love Poem image, featuring the graphic of a black hand with red painted nails taking off its own handcuff. Text: Anti-Fascist Love Poem HAN VANDERHART DOMINIQUE AHKONG MICHAEL TODD COHEN Reading ADRIAN DALLAS FRANDLE JENNIFER A SUTHERLAND CATHERINE ROCKWOOD JOHNNY CORDOVA ELIZABETH SYLVIA RITA MOOKERJEE AMORAK HUEY ERIN VACHON TARA SHEA K. IVER Baltimore, MD Saturday, March 7|7-9pm Fells Point 1640 Thames Street (use entrance to: 1636)

You like love poems? Anti-Fascist love poems? Erin Vachon and I have been working on organizing this reading to take place during AWP this year—hope you can join us. @erinvachon.bsky.social 🖤 💪

From DRESSING THE BEAR 💙⬇️

@triohousepress.org

Shō Poetry Journal, an Arizona-based print journal, offers free submissions to Native American poets. Submit up to 5 poems. Response time is 30 days or less. Shō No. 9 will be published in summer 2026. Shopoetryjournal.submittable.com

Shō Poetry Journal is committed to supporting the work of both established and emerging Native American poets. Submissions are always free for US Indigenous poets with tribal affiliation. We look forward to reading your work!

Cover Art: Detail from "Hopi Leia" by Sikuyva Dawavendewa.

Reviews - Until the Spring-Summer 2025 issue, Rat’s Ass Review has been a review in name only. It has published hundreds of poems, many of them quite good, but it has never attempted to offer an assessment of a...

A heartfelt thank you and deep gassho to Zen Abbot Richard Collins for his review of The Broken Buddha, live today at Rat’s Ass Review (lol).

It’s the second review when you scroll down the page: ratsassreview.net?page_id=4452

Black text on pale lavender background reads: Stats: Free Submissions for BIPOC Poets | Shō Poetry Journal | Capped at: 75 submissions Time it took to reach our cap: 35 hours 54 minutes U.S.-based submitters: 42 International submitters: 33 International submissions by location: Australia: 1 Brazil: 2 Cameroon: 1 Canada: 6 Egypt: 1 Ghana: 2 India: 5 Indonesia: 1 Mexico: 1 New Zealand: 1 Nigeria: 6 Pakistan: 1 Philippines: 1 South Africa: 1 Sri Lanka: 1 UK: 2

Our free BIPOC call for Shō No. 9 is now closed—thank you to everyone who submitted. This is the first time we've reached our submissions cap for a BIPOC call...we've got a lot of reading to do.

Everyone will hear back from us in 30 days or less.

Free submissions for BIPOC poets open today at 12pm MST.

Black-and-white photo of printed poems laid out in sequence on a black mat. Black text on pale lavender background reads Shō Poetry Journal: An Arizona-based print journal • “Free Submissions for BIPOC Poets” • January 24-25 • Opens: Noon MST • Closes: 11:59pm MST • One submission per person • Capped at 75 submissions • Swipe for FAQ • shopoetryjournal.submittable.com

Black text on pale lavender background reads Shō Poetry Journal • FAQ • How do I submit poetry? • Can international poets submit? • Where are your guidelines?

BIPOC Poets: Get your packets ready! We're offering 75 free submissions this weekend.

Project opens: Saturday 24 January @ 12pm MST
Project closes: Sunday 25 January @ 11:59pm MST (or once cap is reached)

If you have a submission pending, please wait until you receive a response.

Black-and-white photo of printed poems laid out in sequence on a black mat. Black text on pale lavender background reads Shō Poetry Journal: An Arizona-based print journal • “Free Submissions for BIPOC Poets” • January 24-25 • Opens: Noon MST • Closes: 11:59pm MST • One submission per person • Capped at 75 submissions • Swipe for FAQ • shopoetryjournal.submittable.com

Black text on pale lavender background reads Shō Poetry Journal • FAQ • How do I submit poetry? • Can international poets submit? • Where are your guidelines?

BIPOC Poets: Get your packets ready! We're offering 75 free submissions this weekend.

Project opens: Saturday 24 January @ 12pm MST
Project closes: Sunday 25 January @ 11:59pm MST (or once cap is reached)

If you have a submission pending, please wait until you receive a response.

REUBEN GELLEY NEWMAN nostalgia, or call it fantasy, or call it obsess, nonsense, song-sense, song-flesh, song-gone, song-run, undone, honey-spun, body-none- I'm no body of music exhaling like a fishless lake, I'm nobody begging for a kiss-but yes, I know body, I know its full-bodied wine, it tastes of lyric, I'm frantic with lyric, giddy-up, Lyric, my canteen's about to burst, giddy-up, Lyric, wrest my heartbeat, brim my blood-

2/2

Self-Portrait as the Cowboy in a Mitski Song That moment before the song grooves you, before you know this is what you want your life to move to for the next three minutes or hours or days, that moment before the lover loves you, before the hope heaves you, before the pop seethes you & thought eases its synth drumbeat-churns into the physical, the thigh-ache & calf-itch & flesh-seize, before the lover needs you, you're inconsolable, you're inexorable before they leave you, spinning through summer sweat you're an aging racetrack greyhound who scours Genius for Mitski lyrics, you're the horse named Cold Air, the heart that won't stop washing itself of love, & why everyone pores over lyrics as if they were a poem, & why someone compares her music to a greyhound, "graceful, but still kind of sad," I can't say, & why I'm comparing myself to a cowboy, aching to bridle the tenor of metaphor, song, & poem, galloping off on an eighth-note groove, leaping into the do-mi-ti of my soul, the shatter me, the geyser me, the Brokeback Mountain me, call it 100 SHO POETRY JOURNAL

Over the moon to have the opening poem of DEAR DEAR (!!) in the lovely new issue of @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social Read on for Mitski gay sadness and order the issue at link in bio 1/2

announcing the winner of our 2025 chapbook contest Susan L. Leary for her book SENTENCE nine syllables press

HAPPY NEWS! I am grateful to the amazing Eugenia Leigh for choosing my manuscript SENTENCE to win the 2025 Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest! These poems are as much my brother’s as my own & I am thankful to everyone at Smith College for believing in them! Coming fall 2026!

Image: 9SP IG page

one of 2 poems from my angel series in the new issue of @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social 🖤