When the River Speaks

31/08/2025

30/08/2025

Goodbye
by Geoffrey Brock

—after Akhmadulina

ABOUT THE POEM -
“I first came across Bella Akhmadulina’s 1960 poem ‘Прощание’ in Jean Valentine’s haunting 1966 adaptation, also called ‘Goodbye,’ which inspired me to look up other versions as well. Both the poem’s numb grief, apparently inspired by an abortion that led to the disintegration of [Akhmadulina]’s marriage to Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and its tightly rhymed quatrains put me in mind of [Emily] Dickinson’s poem ‘After great pain a formal feeling comes.’ In my own adaptation, which inhabits a personal failure, I took a quite different approach, paring the original ruthlessly down but also trying to evoke something of its formal feeling.”
—Geoffrey Brock

29/08/2025

We Be Ludere
by Atsuro Riley

ABOUT THE POEM - “Once upon a time I lived surrounded by brothers—blood-born ones and others who were not. Now that they’ve all gone, I’ve been trying to tune myself to the memory of them, straining to hear them (and me) again at vivid play.
I want the key of their wild note (to paraphrase George Meredith’s ‘The Lark Ascending’). The racket in this song will have to do.”

—Atsuro Riley

28/08/2025

The Raven

By Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

to read the full poem, visit
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven

27/08/2025

☠️🕸️🕷️⚰️🔪🧟‍♀️👻

27/08/2025

FOR OUR NEXT ISSUE, THE THEME IS "SPOOKEY" so here's a few writing prompts to help get you started. Remember to send in your original poems, photographs & artwork to [email protected]

1. Night-time - what happens after the sun goes down? What changes occur under the night sky? What fears or feelings arise after dark?

2. A particular color - what color speaks "spooky" to you? Black and orange? Red and purple? What color did you choose to write about and why?

3. Being underwater - is it refreshing? Do you imagine yourself a fish or mermaid? Or do you feel like you are drowning?

26/08/2025

What Is Poetry? Here's one answer from Poetry 101

Poetry is a type of literature that conveys a thought, describes a scene or tells a story in a concentrated, lyrical arrangement of words. Poems can be structured, with rhyming lines and meter, the rhythm and emphasis of a line based on syllabic beats. Poems can also be freeform, which follows no formal structure.

The basic building block of a poem is a verse known as a stanza. A stanza is a grouping of lines related to the same thought or topic, similar to a paragraph in prose. A stanza can be subdivided based on the number of lines it contains. For example, a couplet is a stanza with two lines.

25/08/2025

FROM OUR JULY SUBMISSIONS - ENJOY!
Work by Danette Bermea

Saving energy for what hasn’t happened yet,
compressed bodies hold the future.

Dew clings to an ivy’s wavy tip.
Other garden flora—smooth grass blades,
rough fig leaves, crinkly veined basil,
jagged holly—buds, fruits, something wriggling
underneath.

Past the oleander hedge, a mom surrenders
her little ones to the school bus pulling away,
doors closed, brakes hissing.

Even in stillness,
work is being done.

When what’s been stored is released,
kindergarten legs bounce in seats, launch into run,
mom swipes makeup, merges onto the freeway commute,
Morning Glory vine turns light into food.
A purple, sun-faced bloom.

Each morning’s experiment bursts into outcome.
Physics of living.
Day’s bright hours.
A heart-shaped leaf cresting up, out.

24/08/2025

“Raven with a Sunflower”

Upon the twilight canvas he stands,
a shadow stitched from midnight threads,
each feather heavy with whispers of forgotten skies.
His eyes, dark lanterns, hold the silence of ages—
a mirror of storms,
a keeper of secrets never spoken.

Yet in his beak he carries the sun,
a single golden blossom,
fragile as a promise,
tender as forgiveness rising after grief.
The flower burns softly against his darkness,
a dawn clasped within dusk,
a hymn sung through contrast.

Is he omen, or blessing?
Perhaps both—
the raven who walks the border of night and day,
bearing light in the very heart of shadow.

🎨: Serin Alar

22/08/2025

Theological
Wayne Miller

ABOUT THIS POEM - “For years I’ve told the anecdote of my super [from] back when I lived in New York in the late nineties. But recently it occurred to me that, formally speaking, her relationship to the rest of us in the building was godlike—and that, like any god (I must assume), she had her own emotional and psychological life which we never saw. As I was writing, I realized I wanted the poem to be sonnet-like, though it never managed to be a true sonnet.”
—Wayne Miller

21/08/2025

Send a message to learn more

20/08/2025

FROM OUR CACHE OF SUBMISSIONS - ENJOY!

La playa

Gracias, papa y mama,
yo encontré un penny
en la playa.
Gracias por dejarnos
ir al agua.
La puedo oir—
¡Woosh, woosh!
Por un momento puedo oir
La voz del océano
Y dice—Ven, yo tengo
vida, peces, y animales del océano.
Cuando entre,
senti paz en el mundo.

por Stephanie Cardoso, 8