Contributions
- Three Poems by Robin Arble
Read three poems by Robin Arble, our sixth of seven biweekly poets of the Summer 2025 issue, along with a few words about “The Last Time I Saw My PCP.”
About the Contributor
Robin Arble’s poems have appeared in 2River, Passages North, Poetry Online, and Up The Staircase Quarterly, among others. She studied writing and literature at Hampshire College and lives in New York.
Author Linktree
Recent Links
- Poem: “Direct Address” (Dialogist)
- Poem: “Trans Sonnet Without Ideation” (2River)
- Poem: “Letter from the Brooklyn Bridge” (beestung)
- Poem: “My Favorite Things (Live in Japan 1966)” (Passages North)
- Poem: “I and TV” (Up The Staircase Quarterly)
Contributor Q & A
Can you share a little about your life with our readers?
I lived the first nineteen years of my life in Holyoke. I went to school at Hampshire College, up in Amherst, where I studied literature and creative writing across the Five Colleges. I came out as trans there. It's also when my mom died—undiagnosed depression, alcoholism, and an eating disorder. My senior thesis, a chapbook of poems entitled “Direct Address,” is pretty much that: becoming my own mother the year I turned 21. Since I graduated I’ve been a dishwasher, a substitute teacher, a paraeducator, a gardener, a babysitter, a catsitter, and a freelance manuscript consultant. I live in New York with my one love, where we work as assistant preschool teachers. I write every day and read on the subway, in the park, and on the couch before bed.
How long have you been a writer and how did you get started?
The first time I understood I was a writer must have been 6th grade. My ELA teacher, Mrs. Langlois, knew I was a reader before I did. I wrote my first short story for our class novella, our final project for Seedfolks, a novel about a community garden where every chapter's spoken by a character in the neighborhood. It was my idea! and we perfected it together: each chapter must be in the first-person, contain an exchange of dialogue, and include a character from Seedfolks. Students must pair up to edit each other. I wrote my story, helped my classmate edit theirs, and drew the cover art for the book. My teacher printed and stapled a copy for each of us to take home. I consider this my first publication and I still have my copy. My other breakthrough as a writer—specifically as a poet—came a decade later. In the fall of my senior year, I discovered the poetry of Donald Hall. He showed me poets can spend hours or even years on a lyric poem, getting down (or out) exactly what they needed to say. That semester, I nearly failed my classes staying up all night, writing poems, revising others, and submitting, submitting, submitting. This is when I received my first journal acceptance and publication, a poem called "Laundry Day" in an online mag called Leveler, though the journal ceased production and yielded its domain after one decade.
What’s an accomplishment in your writing life of which you’re proud and what do you still hope to achieve?
My chapbook, Direct Address, first and foremost. It is the culmination of my time at Hampshire—coming out, losing my mother, falling in love—and contains many of my best poems yet. In this way, my chapbook contains all my other recent writing accomplishments: favorite poems and favorite publications (those links!), and three readerships that taught me to revise like a scientist and edit like a surgeon. As for writing goals? I’ll hold myself to it: get my MFA, write that full-length, write more essays, start a novel called The Boxer, run a journal, and teach poetry for a living. I’m making steady progress on each of these projects! It takes a lifetime. I’m just about on-schedule.
What do you look for in a book? Who are your favorite writers?
My favorite poetry books are worlds. I look for collections that are beyond cohesive—they tell a story. I love a living document, something that references its own creation. My very favorite contemporary poetry books: Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry by John Murillo, Short Film Starring my Beloved’s Red Bronco by K Iver, frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss, Brown by Kevin Young, Portrait of the Alcoholic by Kaveh Akbar, The World Keeps Ending, and The World Goes On by Franny Choi, White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia by Kiki Petrosino, Previously Owned by Nathan McClain, I Do Everything I’m Told by Megan Fernandes. Each of these books—I noticed this only as I was revising my thesis—are memoirs-in-verse. Yet each poem rose organically out of the poet’s ambitions, grooving on a form or mode (or several), not as a project with an end in sight. Their obsessions gave shape to the book’s: the up and down story of a life.
Contents
Chapbook Poem: The Blessed Knot by Li-Young Lee
“A well-made poem is a knot, but not a tangle. The well-made knot of a poem can disentangle readers from illusion, to free them from confusion. Poetry is a form of disillusionment.” Read the July Chapbook Poem by Li-Young Lee along with words from the poet.
“This work is an archive of my attempts to become more familiar with who I am, and why I am here, to immerse myself in these ancient spiritual questions…” Check out five poems and five images by Laynie Browne along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Creating Space by Lisa Sewell
“Yoga, the walks, and the writing became a daily exercise in paying attention—to the world, to the bodies in the world around me and to my own body…” Read the Excerpt Poem of the Month for July 2025 by Lisa Sewell along with words from the poet.
“My poetry tries to examine … the difference between the lives we live inside ourselves and the lives we expose to other people.” Read five poems by William Doreski along with a few words from the poet.
July ’25: Poetry Readers Wanted
Read a note from editor Aiden Hunt about PCR’s Summer poetry and new poetry reader opportunities brought by our growing original poetry submissions.
Four Poems by allison whittenberg
“I grew up as a film buff and I loved reading Hollywood Babylon. Over the years, I have learned to separate the truth from the myths.” Read four poems by allison whittenberg along with a few words from the poet.
Chapbook Poem: August Peaches by Winshen Liu
“I wanted to sit with a particular end-of-summer indulgence, where a host has saved specialty foods to welcome visiting friends and family–fancy chocolate, favorite sodas, a certain snack.” Read a poem from Winshen Liu’s chapbook Paper Money along with words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Cheesecake Factory by Max McDonough
“This poem lives in the weirdness of the suburban mall spaces a lot of us grew up visiting (or loitering in!), places that feel like they could be anywhere and nowhere at once.” Read a poem from Max McDonough’s chapbook along with words from the poet.
Three Poems by Alexandra Meyer
“Love had made me stronger in a lot of ways, but also showed me the weakest parts of myself that were left crystallized for him to see. This was much like wood morphing into rock during the petrification process.” Read three poems by Alexandra Meyer along with words from the poet.
Three Poems by Kristiane Weeks-Rogers
“Anchored by sensory detail, the poem journeys between childhood safety and adult experience in a canyon town shaped by rivers and monsoons. … This poem is a meditation on time, tastes, and tenderness of memory.” Read three poems by Kristiane Weeks-Rogers along with words from the poet.
Chapbook Poem: The Seventh Age of Shakespeare’s Father by Scott LaMascus
“This poem hit me hard last winter, sitting a moment near my late father, as our family was trying to absorb the meaning of his ALS diagnosis … I wondered, if ‘all the world’s a stage,’ what role had I just been assigned?” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for September 2025 along with words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Landscape with footprints in ash by Selma Asotić
“When I want to sound smart, I say things like: a poet is one who leaves. When I accept that I’m not very smart, mostly just perplexed and a little scared, I write poems about ghosts and circle farms.” Read a poem from Asotić’s new book, Say Fire, along with words from the poet.
“All of my encounters with the U.S. healthcare system follow the protocols of the ridiculous. This poem, couched in the conventions of the contemporary sonnet, explores my latest, decisive encounter with a doctor’s office.” Read three poems by Robin Arble along with words from the poet.
September ’25: Best of the Net Nominations
Editor Aiden Hunt announces Philly Chapbook Review’s Best of the Net 2026 anthology nominations in this editor’s note and provides links to the nominated poems.
Verses of Mourning: in the aftermath by Jessica Nirvana Ram
“[Ram] presents a revealing and heartbreaking collection that asks the reader to think about what they remember the most about those they have lost.” Read Alex Carrigan’s full review.
“This poem reckons with our capitalist, product-driven society to ask people why disabled stories are only relevant if they portray the ‘other’ overcoming trauma to become abled people’s inspiration porn.” Read three poems by Makena Metz along with words from the poet.