Contributions
- Three Poems by Joshua Zeitler
“To fit the nuanced, dimensional experience of dysphoria and transition into narrative…often feels flattening, falsely assured. I wanted to look at this discomfort I felt, to see what was necessary in it.” Read three poems by Joshua Zeitler, our fourth biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Cobbling.”
About the Contributor
Joshua Zeitler is a queer, nonbinary writer based in rural Michigan. They are the author of the chapbook Bliss Road (Seven Kitchens Press, 2025), and their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Foglifter, Nimrod, Shō, and elsewhere.
Books
Bliss Road (Seven Kitchens Press, 2025)
Joshua Zeitler is a queer, nonbinary writer based in rural Michigan. They received their MFA from Alma College, and their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Foglifter, Impossible Archetype, HAD, and elsewhere. This is their first chapbook.
Recent Work
- Poem: “Postcard from the Sinking City” (Daily Poetry)
- Two Poems (Gone Lawn)
- Poem: “Transition Diary X” (Frozen Sea)
- Two Poems (Arcturus Magazine)
- Poem: “The Animal” (Pine Hills Review)
Contributor Q & A
Can you tell readers a little about yourself and your life?
I'm a queer, nonbinary writer who lives in the almost-exact-middle of Michigan's lower peninsula. I've lived here my entire adult life, and for the past six years I've worked at an independent bookstore called Ballyhoo Books, which has supported me financially and given me the freedom to pursue my education and career as a writer. I'm heavily involved with my local community theatre, and have been known to strum a little on the ukulele--although less so lately as I've been focusing on getting my first book out into the world.
How long have you been a writer and how did you get started?
I've always been a writer, though I haven't always given myself the permission to describe myself as such. In my undergraduate studies at Alma College, which I failed to complete until a good six or seven years after I should have graduated, I really struggled. It may have been a crisis of focus, or motivation, or belief in myself, or belief in the system that places so much faith in a piece of paper rather than actual lived experience and expertise. It was when my alma mater began a low-residency MFA in creative writing, on the heels of the pandemic and losing the serving job that had sustained me, that I began to think seriously about devoting myself to being the best writer I could be. In the program, around 2023, I began sending my work into the world, and published a little in smaller journals. Over time that little became a lot. Around a year ago, my debut chapbook Bliss Road was published by Seven Kitchens Press. I had a poem that was really dear to me published in Ploughshares this January, which felt like a big deal, but I also don't see myself as a writer who's terribly invested in the game that is the business side of poetry. I get excited by poetry. I want to be wild and messy and in love and making out with poetry in the back of the theatre. My debut full-length collection Intransigent is currently making eyes at people in the dark. It all started small, though, scribbling poems and plays on guest checks. I never want to lose that energy, that feeling that what I'm saying needs to be said so deeply that it will make its way into the world however it can.
What’s an accomplishment in your writing life of which you’re proud and what do you still hope to acheive?
I can't say the thing I'm most proud of yet, but I have so many dreams. I'm in the process of putting together PhD applications--which I never thought I'd do--because I want to teach. I want to write, yes, a lot, and I want my body of work to be ever-evolving and informed by an engagement not just with what poetry is, but what it hasn't found the permission to be yet. And I think a lot of that happens in the moments when we're being taught what the rules are, and in our resistance to them. Something magical happens there that can be suppressed or nurtured, and I want to be a writer who is shaped by these moments, and who gives younger writers the freedom to be shaped by them too.
What do you look for in a book?
I like to think that I don't go into a book looking for something in particular, but with an open mind toward what the book has to show me. I'm most excited when a book seems to surprise even itself. Every poet, I think, grapples consciously or unconsciously with that central question of definition, of what a poem is. To me, a poem is a negotiation between clarity and mystery. Ideally, some territory should be ceded to either side. As for who comes out on top, I'm cheering a windfall for mystery. What keeps me reading in any genre, though, is the feeling that something is at stake. When I was learning acting, we would practice projecting by talking across the space. There's a difference, my mentor said, between shouting and strengthening your need to communicate. All good art, in any medium, aspires to the latter. I refuse to pick favorites, because I'd go on forever and still feel guilty that I'd left someone out. But one in each genre that has shaped me: Diane Seuss, Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Benjamín Labatut, Henrik Ibsen.
Contents
“This language offers one possible framing through which to appreciate the law’s capacity to hope for, request, and even command commitment to a more just future.” Read two poems by Maggie Wang, our first biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Possibilities for Action.”
Chapbook Poem: I’ll Never Look This Good Again by Douglas Piccinnini
“[The poem] came out of real pressure: despair, worry, and grief I wanted to hold unflinchingly, alongside the anxiety of becoming a parent… For me the poem became a meditation on all the feeling that surfaces precisely when we’re told to feel only joy.” Read an excerpt from Douglas Piccinnini’s chapbook, House of Bad Memories, along with a few words from the poet.
“She sees herself in carbon, the element that bonds with almost anything- not because it wants to, but because it has empty spaces and things keep showing up to fill them. Notifications. Noise. Needs that never stop arriving.” Read four poems by Joely Williams, our second biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Single Mother Considers the Periodic Table.”
ADHD in a Non-ADHD World: on Undersight by Alison Hurwitz
“[Hurwitz] shares moments of angst and moments of awe. More than that, there are moments of deep recognition. She sees herself in [her sons] and, in fact, receives a later-life ADHD diagnosis of her own.” Read the full chapbook review by new contributor, Nancy Murphy.
“The woman’s head & hair are lavishly dressed. I probably leapt off the logic of the hairdresser being blind and therefore had to work on the head/body/mind rather than just hair as a surface issue of presentation.” Read two poems by Irene Cunningham, our third biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “The Blind Hairdresser.”
Flash Fiction: Nova by Kimmy Chang
“‘Nova’ is a lyrical second-person story about the narrator’s first true encounter with death…the story presents loss not as beautiful in itself, but as the place where beauty begins.” Read the first original fiction piece of the Summer 2026 issue, “Nova” by Kimmy Chang.
“To fit the nuanced, dimensional experience of dysphoria and transition into narrative…often feels flattening, falsely assured. I wanted to look at this discomfort I felt, to see what was necessary in it.” Read three poems by Joshua Zeitler, our fourth biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Cobbling.”
Excerpt: “On the puzzle still inside my head” by Truong Tran
“I am trying to excavate memories. I am trying to negotiate the difficult realities of existing as a brown man in this country and within the consciousness of white America.” Read an excerpt from Truong Tran’s forthcoming book from City Lights, How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir.
“These poems try to make sense of how I arrived at a life that probably seems well thought-out, but has been one reactionary choice after another.” Read three poems by A.R. Dugan, our fifth biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Sleeptalking.”
Original Fiction: Muse by Somtoo Celestine Ezioha
“What I tried to trace was the underside. How watching someone closely for long enough becomes a substitute for approaching them.” Read the second original fiction piece of the Summer 2026 issue, “Muse” by Somtoo Celestine Ezioha.
“After childbirth, my body became a site of criticism rather than something to be celebrated for what it had endured and created. Writing this became a way to confront that experience…” Read three poems by Tanya Tuzeo, our sixth biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “i get Botox.”
“Through images of a familiar street, personal belongings, and a figure suspended in time, the poem considers absence, remembrance, and the quiet ways we continue searching for those who are gone.” Read two poems by Aardhra Chandran, our seventh, and final, biweekly poet of the Summer 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Street View, 2021.”
Original Fiction: Aletheia by Kalliste Hardy
“Each fragment opens a door to the unsaid or the forgotten, letting language bruise and bloom. It is a study in red, in inheritance, in language, and of the quiet haunt of becoming.” Read the third, and final, original fiction piece of the Summer 2026 issue, “Aletheia” by Kalliste Hardy.