Amy Saul-Zerby

last call for submissions for our fall issue! ⌛️ call & send in a poem by midnight pacific time to be considered ✨

one week left to submit! ⌛️ send us a poem 👻

hosting for @moonstonearts.bsky.social tomorrow at Fergie's Pub! ✍️🎉 thrilled that our featured poets are Michael Joseph Walsh & Ebs Sanders 🙌

come hang 🤙 bring a poem for the open mic if you want! 🩷

Through our Pop-Up Libraries, Book Arks, and Free Book Shelves, we’ve been distributing between eight to ten thousand (!) books per month 📚✨

Due to the overwhelming demand for books, we are seeking donations to help us continue to stock our arks, shelves, and tables.

“I dreamed of a canoe, and of the two of us”

- Devan Murphy

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/t...

“But dawn,
Because you hid behind the horizon
torches blazed, blinding,
breaking sleep and families
as parents were taken from screaming kids
to be jailed then charged then sent back to the islands
 
Dawn,
because you were silent,
because all murmurings were silenced.”

- @kakapowhakatoi.bsky.social

two more weeks to submit! ⌛️ send us a poem 🎃

“My neighbor listens patiently, amused by my young life.
We’re the only Black gay men in our building,
so he has me over for Sunday tea. I fill our cups.
For the heart, he says, adding whiskey to his.”

- Derrick Austin (@paradiselaust.bsky.social)

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/s...

“sometimes at 10:37pm you need to change your life / so you do the next best thing / and you cut your hair”

- Sarena Brown

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/s...

we are currently accepting submissions for our FALL 2025 issue, & we'd love to hear from you! ✨🍁✨

voicemailpoems.org/submit

🧡 deadline october 1st 🧡

one sweet thing about my job is that sometimes i get to give free books to lovely families at a backpack giveaway in a local church, and it warms my heart

“There was happiness in 1930s Germany and at the end of Rome, too."

- Jill McLaughlin

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/p...

“we talked about the final moment
and how I might not make it
(I did, he waited)
 
we talked about how a summer would never
be enough time, as the days stretched out
my son, his namesake, waited in the cherry tree”

- Annie Powell Stone

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/m...

"Let's say,
This is for me.
This is because I want.
This is because I exist.
This is because I take up space,
as much as I want, & more,
& I survive despite your best efforts
to tamp me down,
& I will fucking wear my defiance
like a punch to the gut"

- Maia Brown-Jackson (@andyetpoetry.bsky.social)

“On Fridays, management makes movie popcorn
to celebrate the end of the week.
Why are we always so hungry?
The smell of fake butter is rich.
We follow it. We eat.”

- Jaime Jacques

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/k...

“the olive jar says you should take only nine, yet seventeen have passed through your teeth. it is okay. it will all, one day, be okay.”

- Annabelle Chen

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/g...

any presses accepting full-length poetry manuscript submissions?

“Lake Berryessa, azure at our backs / the man from / Toluca slips me / lozenges from under his tongue / Spanish alive / in my mouth”

- Tatiana Chaterji

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/f...

We had a wonderful time giving away books at DJ Wagner’s Annual Community Drive over the weekend 🙌

Many thanks to Keyann’a at City of Camden Government for inviting us to be part of such a great event! 🙏

"b/c one day i will want for nothing
b/c one day i will not want"

- Diandra Williams

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/d...

"What song do you serve your ears
the morning after your mom sends you home
with a peace flower
and you say goodbye in the dark
because it hurts to see?"

- @marissadesantis.bsky.social

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/b...

Publishing Voicemail Poems continues to be one of the great joys of my life (after more than a decade!)

I am consistently impressed by the quality of the submissions we receive, & grateful as always for my wonderful team of editors.

Check out our new issue!

Thanks!!

Eggs We turn out As tippy as Eggs. Legs Are an illusion. We are held As in a carton If someone Loves us. It’s a pity Only loss Proves this.

From ‘Erratic Facts’ (2015)
—Kay Ryan

#poetry #poem #booksky

one year sober today 🙌

last day to submit a poem for our summer issue! ⌛ call & send in a poem by midnight pacific time to be considered 💛

one week left to send us a poem for our summer issue ⏳

give us a call! 📞✨

Today we celebrate Black freedom, resilience, and achievement, and as we observe Juneteenth, we reflect with gratitude and admiration on all who have fought for hard-won progress and liberation, and all who are still working to make our society more equitable & just ✊❤️

"First rule of depression:
We don’t talk about depression."

- David J. Schast

voicemailpoems.org/2025/05/13/w...

“Uncle Loser taught his parrot all the best curse words to use on everyone except grandma & his daughters / We thought that damn bird was gonna outlive us all but she died early from lung cancer / Family Tradition”

- RJ Equality Ingram

voicemailpoems.org/2025/05/13/u...