Shō Poetry Journal

06/29/2025

Welcome to the world, Shō No. 7!

Can you believe it’s been two years since we released our revival issue?

We can’t wait to share this issue with you.

We’ll start shipping copies out this coming week.

Get your copy here:
https://shopoetryjournal.com/product/sho-no-7/

06/25/2025

🏳️‍🌈

For Pride Month, observed annually during the month of June, we asked the many independent literary presses and magazines that make up our membership to share with us some of the literature by authors identifying as LGBTQ+ that they recommend reading in celebration.   Fiction   Who Killed Buster S...

06/19/2025

We are thrilled to announce the winner of the Sita Martin Prize for our summer issue: Ohia, Ernest Chigaemezu for his poem “somehow.” Congratulations, Ernest!

“somehow” will be published in Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025). Get your copy at: shopoetryjournal.com

Ernest Ohia is a q***r Nigerian poet and editor, currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at the University of Alabama, where he also serves as Design Editor for Black Warrior Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lolwe, The Muse, 20:35 Africa, Agbowo, Rigorous, and elsewhere. His chapbook manuscript, The Wanting Flesh, was a finalist for the 2025 Garden Party Collective Chapbook Contest.

06/19/2025

We are thrilled to announce the winner of the Shō Poetry Prize for our summer issue: Christian J. Collier for his poem “Nocturne.” Congratulations, Christian!

“Nocturne” and two other poems by Christian J. Collier will be published in Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025). Get your copy at: tinyurl.com/shono7

Christian J. Collier is a Black, Southern writer, arts organizer, and teaching artist who resides in Chattanooga, TN. He is the author of Greater Ghost (Four Way Books, 2024), and the chapbook The Gleaming of the Blade, the 2021 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, POETRY, December, and elsewhere.

06/19/2025

Congratulations to Nina C. Peláez, runner-up of the Sita Martin Prize for her poem “Doubt.” Nina’s poem will be published in Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025). Get your copy here: tinyurl.com/shono7

Nina C. Peláez (www.ninapelaez.com) is a poet, essayist and educator based in Maui, HI where she works as Associate Director for The Merwin Conservancy. An adoptee and daughter of a Cuban exile, she was born in Las Vegas, Nevada and raised in Brooklyn, NY. A Best New Poets nominee, recent work appears or is forthcoming in journals including Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Rattle, Electric Literature, Willow Springs, Waxwing, diode, Pleiades, Swamp Pink, Only Poems & Verse Daily, among others. She was recently awarded the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association/ Gwenn A. Nusbaum Scholarship, a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Grant, and the Coniston Prize by Radar Poetry, judged by January Gill O’Neil, and her work has been supported with scholarships and fellowships from Yaddo, Tupelo Press, Key West Literary Seminars, and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, among others. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Bennington College where she is a 2025 Alumni Teaching Fellow. She is working on her first book. Find her on social media .

06/19/2025

Congratulations to Aldo Amparán, runner-up of the Shō Poetry Prize for their poem “Symptoms of Ghosts,” forthcoming in Shō No. 7 (Summer 2025)! Preorder your copy of our summer issue here: tinyurl.com/shono7

Aldo Amparán is the author of Brother Sleep, winner of the Alice James Award & finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, & The House Has Teeth, forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2026. They have received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts & CantoMundo. Amparán's work has appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, New England Review, AGNI, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, & elsewhere.

06/19/2025

As we prepare to announce the winners of our editors' prizes for our summer issue, we're circling back to highlight “The Starlings Were You” by Robert Okaji, winner of the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).

Read the poem in full with audio at: https://shopoetryjournal.com/robert-okaji-winner-of-the-sho-poetry-prize/

Robert Okaji served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, and once owned a bookstore. He has been diagnosed with late stage metastatic lung cancer, and lives, for the time being, in Indiana with his wife—poet Stephanie L. Harper—stepson, and cat. He is the author of "His Windblown Self"(Broadstone Books, 2025) and "Our Loveliest Bruises" (3: A Taos Press, 2024). His poetry may be found in Louisiana Literature, Threepenny Review, ONLY POEMS, Wildness, Panoply, Vox Populi, Evergreen Review, Boston Review, The Big Windows Review, Shō Poetry Journal, Indianapolis Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.

06/16/2025

We spy a bunch of Shō contributors in diode (vol 18, no. 2)!

Poetry by:

Aaron Caycedo-Kimura
http://diodepoetry.com/caycedo-kimura_aaron/

Sean Thomas Dougherty
http://diodepoetry.com/dougherty_sean-thomas-3/

Melissa Fite Johnson
http://diodepoetry.com/fite_johnson_melissa/

Nina C. Peláez
http://diodepoetry.com/pelaez_nina-c/

and a review of Natalie Louise Tombasco’s "Milk for Gallby" by Susan L. Leary
http://diodepoetry.com/leary_susan-l-2/

Review by By Susan L. Leary “What is my / True utterance?” asks the speaker in “Drawbridge + Moat,” the opening poem of Natalie Louise Tombasco’s Milk for Gall, which sets the stage for this deeply enchanting, linguistically spry, and pleasure-rich rush of girl vitality hell bent on outsma...

06/13/2025

Coming soon: Shō No. 7 | Summer 2025 ✨
Cover art: “Interim” by Tanya Rastogi.

Our summer issue features 67 poems by 48 poets, whose names are listed below.

Preorder Shō No. 7 at: tinyurl.com/shono7
Issues will ship in July.

Shō No. 7 Contributors:
Amber Adams ()
Emily Adams-Aucoin ()
Hannah Keziah Agustin ()
Ai Khanoum (.khanoummm)
Aldo Amparán ()
sterling-elizabeth arcadia ()
Michael Bazzett ()
Jared Beloff ()
Aaron Caycedo-Kimura ()
M. Cynthia Cheung ()
Christian J. Collier ()
Will Cordeiro
Crystal Cox ()
Sean Thomas Dougherty
Bobby Elliott ()
Danielle Shandiin Emerson ()
Clare Flanagan ()
Matthew Gellman ()
Kelly Gray ()
Saúl Hernández ()
Sara Hovda ()
Amorak Huey ()
Olivia Jacobson ()
Vasvi Kejriwal ()
Daniel Lurie (.lurie)
Jenna Martínez ()
Malia Maxwell ()
Rishona Michael ()
Tim Moder ()
Asheley Nova Navarro ()
Ohia, Ernest Chigaemezu ()
Kunjana Parashar (.squid)
Paige Passantino ()
Nina C. Peláez ()
Sofia Rasic (.rasic)
Remi Recchia ()
Mallory Rodenberg ()
Brooke Sahni ()
Joan Jobe Smith
February Spikener ()
Jessica Q. Stark ()
Claire Taylor ()
J.K. Tsosie ()
Matthew Tuckner ()
Han VanderHart (.vanderhart)
Fred Voss
Nicholas Yingling ()
Aleks Zywicki ()

Shō Poetry Prize and Sita Martin Prize winners and honorees will be announced soon.

06/01/2025

We are officially open for submissions!

We are reading for Shō No. 8, our winter issue (launch in January 2026). We accept work as we go and typically publish 60-70 poems by 45-50 poets per issue.

Details:
• Submit 3-5 previously unpublished poems.

• We charge a $3 fee (waived for Native American and Indigenous Canadian poets); we respond to all submissions in 30 days or less.

• Every contributor receives one print copy (including international poets);

• Work accepted for publication is considered for the Sita Martin Prize and the Shō Poetry Prize, which each come with cash awards of $150;

• We nominate for four different prizes.

For more details, visit our website:
shopoetryjournal.com

Cover art: Close-up of “In Gilded Walls” by Tanya Rastogi from Shō No. 6 (Winter 2024/25).

05/29/2025

Get your packets ready! Submissions for Shō Poetry Journal open June 1 at midnight MST.

We'll be reading for Shō No. 8, our winter issue, which will be published in January 2026. We accept work as we go and typically publish 60-70 poems by 45-50 poets per issue.

Details:
• Submit 3-5 previously unpublished poems.

• We charge a $3 fee (waived for Native American and Indigenous Canadian poets); we respond to all submissions in 30 days or less.

• Every contributor receives one print copy (including international poets);

• Work accepted for publication is considered for the Sita Martin Prize and the Shō Poetry Prize, which each come with cash awards of $150;

• We nominate for four different prizes.

For more details, visit our website:
shopoetryjournal.com

05/25/2025

For Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, observed annually during the month of May, we asked our member presses and literary magazines to share some of the literature by Asian American and Pacific Islander American writers they recommend reading in celebration.   Poetry Hard Damage by Aria Aber U...