Poetry | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
Poetry | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
PUBLISHING NOTHING BY BILLY COLLINS SINCE 2003 | IMAGE: NOAH SATERSTROM
Jeff T. Johnson, excerpts from “the portal”
"Welcome, then, & stay a while, & keep the wolves in the wings, tearing the red curtains, a growling engine for our supernal machine, cast among the leaves." -- the portal by Jeff T. Johnson, shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Jessica Bozek, excerpts from “Grief Machine: A Diary”
"Go to a wide field some windy afternoon. Look toward the horizon, where the animals, one by one, will stutter out of view. Lie down in what looks like the center. Grind the aching blue sky, if you can, to a fine powder and scatter it across the dirt as you mouth the options." — from Jessica Bozek's Grief Machine: A Diary, shortlisted for Tarpaulin Sky's 2019 Book Awards.
Emily Carr, excerpts from “The Emergency of Feeling Manual”
"you gotta lean over the wastepaper basket, you gotta wipe your mouth, you gotta swallow." -- excerpts from Emily Carr's The Emergency of Feeling Manual, shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Laura Goldstein, excerpt from “Golden Infection”
“i can see myself standing at the front of the room / this play is about relationships between bodies, / i tell them. they infect one another with their mouths,” — from Laura Goldstein's Golden Infection, shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Zeeshan Pathan, “The Minister of Disturbances”
"This is my prayer. The doors of the night / Have been eaten by termites. I am just beginning." -- from Zeeshan Pathan's The Minister of Disturbances, shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Julianne Neely, poems from “I’m Like the Language Boys”
"Yes / my insides / look like bar graphs / don’t act like / you’re unsure what that / means Yes I am invested in your well-being / but / I must reinvent the opus I am" -- from Julianne Neely's I’m Like the Language Boys, shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
maia vlcek, “(in a gas station when the desert was raining)”
"+ in situ MISS knoxville, tn: 1-minute miss for $3 best fried chicken drive-thru i’ve ever had miss drove thru too afraid to get out looking half a boy" -- poems from maia vlcek's (in a gas station when the desert was raining), shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Ryan Kaveh Sheldon, poems from “mechanical turk”
"My face aches / from shouting / I don’t ask / what the God is here, / the geopolitical / reticulations / that make it permissible / for someone to talk / about sword and book / without regard for currency / and its schematizing evils" — from Ryan Kaveh Sheldon's mechanical turk, shortlisted for Tarpaulin Sky's 2019 Book Awards.
Candice Wuehle, poems from “Death Industrial Complex”
"for our initiation we prayed to a sponge; we looked real close at our tan lines to try and decide where the darkness started and stopped; we knew we were living when our voices came out like theremin, when we could sense the fault lines moving under our feet." — from Candice Wuehle's Death Industrial Complex, shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Valerie Hsiung, poems from “Tell Me How It Makes You Feel”
"There’s a lot I have to tell you / but the oil keeps burning to please the spirits who let us even speak / In every epoch / I have called your name back to me / Your cheek to the inside of my palm / My cheek to the inside of your palm" — from Valerie Hsiung's Tell Me How It Makes You Feel, shortlisted for Tarpaulin Sky's 2019 Book Awards.