Philly Chapbook Review is pleased to present four original poems by Nivara Lune as our fourth biweekly featured poet of the Spring 2026 issue.
Poems
Self-Portrait as River Delta
I keep dividing. Each tributary
believes it is the original.
This is not metaphor,
this is hydrology, the way
a thing that moved as one
learns the luxury of argument —
the red clay loosened from a hillside
three counties upstream,
a drowned branch still leafed,
the gray silt that was once
someone’s riverbank, someone’s
ordinary afternoon of standing there —
to go this way, to go
that way, to deposit
silt at the mouth
the sea will sort eventually
into whatever it needs
to build the next thing.
Someone I was
is still moving toward the gulf.
I wish her well.
I no longer know her name.
Before the Dry Season
One sky the color of tin.
One road the color of the sky.
One grandmother who knew the names of clouds.
One grandmother, gone.
One language for clouds, going.
One baobab. One fever tree. One fig
the birds still know about.
One field that was a field
that is now a field
but differently —
less bird, less rain, less name.
One farmer reading the sky
the way his father read it
the way his father’s father —
One sky that is no longer
the same text.
One dry season arriving
like a relative who used to bring gifts
and now arrives empty-handed
and stays longer than before.
One language. One landscape.
One mouth trying to hold
both at once,
finding it cannot,
finding the jaw aches
with the effort, finding
the words fall out
anyway,
does not catch them.
Notes Toward an Elsewhere
First: the airport at 4 a.m.
has its own theology,
all that waiting
dressed as purpose.
Second: I have confused homesickness
with hunger so many times
my stomach no longer knows
which country it is mourning.
Third: the child on the train
who pointed at the window and said
look, look, look
she was right–
A water tower, the name of a town
no one on the train was from,
three horses standing with their backs
to the same wind, a child’s bicycle
left against a fence, wheel still turned —
The field she meant was ordinary.
The Static Between Us
The blue light of the bedside clock is our only shared signal.
We turn our backs to the dark, searching for a different signal.
In the subway’s throat, a hundred thumbs swipe at the hollow signal.
No one looks up to see the hawk circling, a feathered, ancient signal.
You say “I love you” through rare-earth minerals and wire.
The voice arrives wrung out, a cloth that once was signal.
I remember when silence was a room you could sit inside.
We have forgotten how to be in places with no signal.
The doctor points to the monitor, a jagged rhythmic green.
Even now, the body insists: I am still a signal.
About “Notes Toward an Elsewhere”
‘Notes Toward an Elsewhere’ is a poem about a child on a train pointing at a window. That pure, unself-conscious insistence on looking. I kept thinking about how easily adults learn to stop seeing what’s right in front of them, especially when they’re somewhere between one country and another, neither arriving nor leaving. The poem is structured as numbered notes because displacement doesn’t resolve, it accumulates.
The field at the end is ordinary on purpose. That’s what I kept trying to say.
Author Bio
Nivara Lune is the pen name of a writer and storyteller writing ebooks, blogs, web novels and serialized tales across genres including horror, romance, and supernatural fiction. Her work blends creativity, insight, and engaging storytelling, drawing readers into worlds where suspense, emotion, and hidden truths collide. She explores themes of love, identity, and self-discovery, often with a queer or supernatural twist. Nivara Lune contributes to platforms like Midnight & Indigo, Zoetic Press, Webnovel, and others.
Contents
Chapbook Poem: Slow Burn by Evan Wang
“The concept of personifying a slow burn deeply resonated with who I thought myself to be—a slow burn, love flickering around me.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for April 2026, “Slow Burn” by Evan Wang, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: She wants shimmering scales by Nicole Alston Zdeb
“The nexus of the erotic, the social, and the body felt relevant to what I was experiencing at the end of the 20th Century. There are glimmers of personal lore as well…” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for April 2026, “She wants shimmering scales” from The End of Welcome by Nicole Alston Zdeb, along with a few words from the poet.
“I wanted to explore how time was registered not only by the calendar and clock, but also in the various utilitarian tasks of my mother’s life.” Read three poems by Ron Mohring, our first biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Fuse.”
Three Poems by Andrew Pelham-Burn
“Children in these circumstances are deprived of love at a formative stage and learn to immediately behave like adults without the benefit of the learning path of childhood.” Read three poems by Andrew Pelham-Burn, our second biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Conkers.”
A Conversation with John deSouza
“Language is a powerful tool and can do great harm both to ourselves and to those most close to us when used cruelly or selfishly.” Poet John deSouza discusses his chapbook, This Rough Magic, his creative process, and the influence of John Ashbery in this interview with editor Danielle McMahon.
Chapbook Poem: from Stray Hunter’s Bullet by Lance Le Grys
“…what interested me was the idea of a character who didn’t do what he was capable of, not because of external circumstances, but because of either a lack of will or a seemingly perverse one.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for May 2026, from Stray Hunter’s Bullet by Lance Le Grys, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Love does not exist by Maria Giesbrecht
“This poem was inspired by a dream… I had this strange feeling when I woke up that it meant something more and started writing a poem to see if anything would reveal itself to me.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for May 2026, “Love does not exist” from A Little Feral by Maria Giesbrecht, along with a few words from the poet.
“After a loss in my family, I discovered one grieves for both the living who hide their pain and for the dead who sleep in silence.” Read two poems by Patricia Wallace, our third biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Fox.”
May ’26: New Staff, New Calls, New(ish) Name
Editor Aiden Hunt provides information about changes to PCR’s name, format, and staff in this editor’s note, which also contains links to our Spring calls for submissions.
“I kept thinking about how easily adults learn to stop seeing what’s right in front of them, especially when they’re somewhere between one country and another, neither arriving nor leaving.” Read four poems by Nivara Lune, our fourth biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Notes Toward an Elsewhere.”