Poetry International

Poetry International Poetry International is a world class literary magazine based on the campus of San Diego State Unive

12/12/2025

Sakinah Hofler reading her outstanding poem “Grieve, Goddess Sings, for the Dark Sons of America,” included in Issue 29 of Poetry International.

Sakinah originally recorded this video for our Issue 29 launch party last week. It was wonderful to have her in the room with us, in spirit and virtually, and now we’re happy to share it with you.

🔗📕To learn about Issue 29, read more selections, and get a copy of your own, make sure to visit the link in our bio.

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Thank you to everyone who came out to support the launch of Poetry International Issue 29 last week! It truly meant a lo...
12/10/2025

Thank you to everyone who came out to support the launch of Poetry International Issue 29 last week!

It truly meant a lot to be able to gather in community to celebrate this collection, including listening to wonderful readings from and of their poems included in Issue 29.

This issue features a formidable yet approachable array of work from poets from around the world offered in both the original language and English translation.

➡️🔗 Read selections from Issue 29 and grab a copy of your own at the link in our bio.

Your purchase supports the continuation of Poetry International and our championing of poets and translators from around the world.

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Join us tonight to celebrate the launch of Poetry International Issue #29 with contributors and editors who will share ...
12/03/2025

Join us tonight to celebrate the launch of Poetry International Issue #29 with contributors and editors who will share and discuss their work.

📍SDSU Love Library, Room 430, Dec. 3, 7pm

➡️ Can’t make it in person? Check out the live stream at The Hugh C. Hyde Living Writers Series om YouTube

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11/19/2025

It was a privilege hearing Elaine Sexton read from her latest book, Site Specific: New and Selected Poems, at the SDSU Living Writers Series last week.

Thank you, Elaine, for sharing your work with our community of poets and poetry enthusiasts!

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11/16/2025

Thank you, Carson, for bringing this collection to the forefront for our series!

As Carson mentions, Love is a Dangerous Word is a posthumous selection of poems from across Essex Hemphill’s career. We highly recommend picking up a copy if you can.

Our reading recs series is all about sharing and celebrating recent collections of poetry—and we want to hear from you, too. Let us know in the comments what poetry books from the last few years more people should be reading ⬇️⬇️

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In “Walking Backwards Home,” poet and mindfulness teacher David Keplinger reflects on his experience translating Rainer ...
11/13/2025

In “Walking Backwards Home,” poet and mindfulness teacher David Keplinger reflects on his experience translating Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Buddha in Glory” from German to English.

Rilke’s poem proposes enlightenment as a turning inwards to find something so infinite that it mirrors the ever-expanding cosmos. Keplinger discusses his application of the poem’s core elements to the translation process itself–by using translation as a form of meditation, it becomes a way of walking backwards home to find one’s true self from within.

To read more of Keplinger’s insights on translation and meditation, click the link in our bio 🔗

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11/05/2025

We asked the PI community to share recent poetry collections that stuck with them. Our podcast host Artrice Bennett spotlights Post Colonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz. Thanks, for bringing this must-read book to the table.

Is there a contemporary poetry collection you can’t stop talking about? Let us know in the comments!

Over the next month, we’ll be selecting one commenter to win a free copy of PI issue #29. Must be following to participate.

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It's giveaway time! Enter for a chance to win a free print copy of Poetry International Issue 29. How to enter: 1. Make ...
10/26/2025

It's giveaway time! Enter for a chance to win a free print copy of Poetry International Issue 29.

How to enter:
1. Make sure you're following us.
2. Tell us in the comments: What's a collection of poetry from the past few years that you can't stop talking about?

The winner will be picked at random in 3 weeks.

10/26/2025

Suzanne Frischkorn reads her poem “The Season: Contents,” inspired by a move to Central New York.

Make sure to watch until the end to hear how the poem ties into broader themes in Frischkorn’s upcoming manuscript.

Poetry text in English below.

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The Season: Contents

The runoff at the creek held tiny toads,
we crossed the bridge

to see ducklings. We are not swan eaters,
and memorial day has passed.

Who carved the stone steps into the gorge?
My knees shook when I began the trail

and I thought everyone noticed.
I tried not to look down,

but all the wonder was pooled at the bottom—
no that’s not it at all.

The weather broke at last
and the heat moved to a new glen,

breeze in the tree limbs,
breeze through the porch screen,

I sit on the porch when I can’t sleep—
a nocturne for another day.

The pines have an ailment that has no cure.
The pines are shaped like old men.

You’d be surprised what shows up
when you forgo w**d killer. Cardinal, crow,

yellow warblers—the robins wake me
on the sunporch. They are the first to sing.

Everywhere I look it is green, green, green.

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10/23/2025

We’re asking poets and poetry enthusiasts to share contemporary collections they think more people should be reading. 

Tell us in the comments: What’s a collection of poetry (or poetry-adjacent writing) from the past few years that you can’t stop talking about?

Over the next month, we’ll be selecting one respondent to win a free copy of PI issue #29. Must be following to participate. 

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“The Chair” by Fayad Jamís from Poetry International Online. Read more poems from our archives by going to the link in o...
10/19/2025

“The Chair” by Fayad Jamís from Poetry International Online.

Read more poems from our archives by going to the link in our bio 🔗

Poem text in English below.
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The Chair 

On the chair a favorite book a dirty shirt
a glass full of noise and thirst
or a beach where dolphins of smoke
are meditating
Its wood has rested my bones
insubstantial air
international politics love
I’m sick of traveling
In this room which the Queen of England has never visited
in this room which groans like a lurching boat
while morning wind lashes the black spires of churches
I feel only dust ground down by light
Chair of silence of joy of dark wood
Electric chair
where every night my soul is burnt to ash
under the blind stare of the electric bulb.
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10/12/2025

When speaking about his poem “La Carabina de Ambrosio,” Gustavo Hernandez reminds us that “in any search for joy, there’s always something at stake.”

Make sure to watch the full video for a captivating reading of the poem and its backstory.

Poem text in English below.

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La Carabina de Ambrosio
By Gustavo Hernandez

I’ve named the stray cat that tries to get at the canaries
El Destino. This last month I’ve been half cynic,
half television special. My mother, who still believes
improvised altars are lightning rods for a miracle,
says the humor—the good that has returned to me—
is grace, and sometimes I want to agree with her,
but who these days really remembers the definition
of grace, or every one of its definitions and then
each one’s reach and breadth? These years have not
been years made to be sure of anything. We wonder
if El Destino will forget the birds if we stop taking
the cage out to the yard. We both think it unlikely.
Just about everything now is in some way unrelenting,
and the birds are no good to anyone locked up inside.

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An Annual Literary Journal

Described by former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera as a “one of a kind” collection, and by Fady Joudah as “diving for pearls in pearl-infested waters.”