Philly Chapbook Review is pleased to present three original poems by Kait Quinn as our fifth biweekly featured poet of the Spring 2026 issue.
Poems
The Tomato
after James Crews’s “The Peach”
It is almost enough to pluck
the sun sugar tomato
from serpent vine,
let the garden linger
on our hands, the gold voyeurs
adorn the counter, still
whole, the pomodoros—
love apples—kiss
the store-bought honeycrisps.
It is almost enough
to let the apple cake
bake in the oven and never
leave its pan, let the house
swell with cider, brown
sugar, and sin.
Almost enough to lick
the marinara sauce made
from hand-peeled, seeded,
and crushed Romas off a spoon,
never softening the pasta,
sauteing the zuchinni,
minding our chins.
Just the two of us hovering
over the pot with our gnawed
tufts of bread,
two slices of equinox
cake for dessert.
Everything Happens While I Sip My Coffee
In the tinsel of the Hoar Frost moon, carolers breathe spearmint
into happy faces. Even though December has shuttered
its windows and all the curbed evergreens
have been hauled to the dump.
The scent of the Catholic church’s Christmas tree
farm slipped from the neighborhood while I was inside
getting caffeinated.
January’s asphalt begins to thaw.
For the first day since November: the sun.
Too painful to be imaginary.
I’ve been living off solstice light and wanderlust.
The tea kettle whistles upstairs, and the tenant hasn’t been home
in five days.
Marshmallows bob in the hot chocolate of a warmer home
while I sip my latte.
Whispers recede back to their graves. The tides and the moon.
Minuscule skin renovations; tattoos screaming a little less every day.
We haven’t had a blizzard or slick sidewalk all winter, and still
I cannot coax my social-starved brain to unfold itself from the bed.
I don’t belong in a plant pot; I need a meadow.
I sip my coffee and stale air
in my brackish binds, begrudging the neighbors’ 6 a.m. flight
to Tucson.
To think I wanted to stay.
To think I once shunned all that sun.
Bookshelf, 2025
after Thomas Lux’s “Refrigerator, 1957”
A worship of pigment and handcrafted earrings.
The goddesses didn’t bless me with acrylic
marrow, clay blood, pens that speak
in picture, but bless these women with their
carmine and verdigris hearts stained
onto my walls while I fever dream of Eden.
The typewriter’s a fraud, and the candle
smells like “classic pumpkin with a modern,
spicy twist!”; the cloudy stone actually plucked
from the damp, grey sand of a Massachusetts
beach. And to the far left, still kept
in the vet’s cardboard coffin, my cat’s ashes
on a makeshift altar: a poem, a photograph,
linen peonies and chrysanthemums
bought on sale at a craft store with the decorative
typewriter, because death did us part,
and something’s got to live forever.
About “The Tomato”
I wrote this poem, with inspiration from ‘The Peach’ by James Crews, just after my partner and I moved into our recently purchased house. The previous owners left their garden, which was abundant with Roma and sun sugar tomatoes. Every time I plucked a few of the little orange sun sugars to take inside, their garden smell lingered on my fingers. It was almost enough to just sit with that scent and not eat them—almost! I used most of the Romas to make tomato sauce from scratch—my first time making it from fresh tomatoes. I’ve heard people say that they’ll make tomato sauce that’s so good, they’ll forego the pasta and just scoop it out of the pot with bread. When I made that sauce, I finally got what they meant. So much so, I needed to commemorate these memories of my first homegrown tomatoes (though not personally grown) with a poem.
Author Bio
Kait Quinn (she/her) was born with salt in her wounds. She flushes the sting of living by writing poetry. She is the author of five poetry collections, and her work appears in Anti-Heroin Chic, Exposition Review, Full House Literary, and elsewhere. She received first place in table//FEAST’s 2025 Nano & Micro Contest for Women Writers and Sad Girl Diaries’ 2023 Fall Poetry Contest. Kait is an Editorial Associate at Yellow Arrow Publishing. She enjoys cats, repetition, coffee shops, tattoos, and vegan breakfast. Kait lives in Minneapolis with her partner and their very polite Aussie mix.
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.”
The Lines of Landscape: on The Catastrophes by Marie Scarles
“Scarles’ choice of title points away from place, and toward the book’s deeper and more powerful offering: a changed way of seeing, one of the hallmarks of any successful poetics.” Read the full chapbook review by contributing editor, D.W. Baker.
“Every time I plucked a few of the little orange sun sugars to take inside, their garden smell lingered on my fingers. It was almost enough to just sit with that scent…” Read three poems by Kait Quinn, our fifth biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “The Tomato.”
Chapbook Poem: Superbloom by Joyce Schmid
“That June, flowers bloomed everywhere in Northern California—as if to honor her, to celebrate her life. This poem is an attempt to accept the fact that she is really gone.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for June 2026, from Superbloom by Joyce Schmid, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: The Well by Robin Becker
“Allowing flickering sentiments and images to play against one another, I replicated one form of consciousness. A surprising aspect of the poem: the sudden appearance of figures of government.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for June 2026, “The Well” from Midsummer Count by Robin Becker, along with a few words from the poet.
“Like a lot of my poems, this one reaches toward something impossibly out of grasp. But … maybe that’s the power of a poem, to momentarily touch something out of our reach.” Read three poems by Scott Weaver, our sixth and final biweekly poet of the Spring 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Annotating The Inferno.”
A Conversation with Abby Minor
“[A] long time ago I realized, and more or less accepted, that I would commune with most of my poet teachers and comrades via their work, not in person. And my work is how I talk to them.” Poet Abby Minor discusses her chapbook, Infinity Ballot, her Jewish-Appalachian heritage, and her convictions in this interview with new contributor, Julie Swarstad Johnson.