PEN Poetry Series

Through 2019, the PEN Poetry Series published work by writers from all over the world. 

PEN Poetry Series: Nin

These days, looking out at the bleached billboards, / or the rows of jacarandas lining the street, // I hardly have cause to remember. / Charred cars in Venezuela… More

Two Poems by Callie Garnett

This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features two poems by Callie Garnett.  Serial Mom If obsession arrests you in time Consider me ten, when I turned to mom &… More

Goshogaoka

This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features a poem by Christine Larusso, whose debut collection, There Will Be No More Daughters, is out now from Northwestern University… More

Elegy

I told my therapist that gayness // has always been more aesthetic for me / than sexual. I’d rather have the magazine // than the man in the magazine.… More

from People Finder, Buffalo

Officers Parisi & McAlister write a false report at the station. / Officer Tedesco files a false report in hell. / Narcotics detective Joseph Cook, during a drunk /… More

How to Let Go of the World

In Flint I turn on the tap and out comes war wrapped in putrid cellophane. In Detroit I flip the switch and boil war for tea. In Providence I… More

from Song of Songs

I’m waking up. God is howling between my legs. Between my legs pulling on my new hair. The hair that’s growing for God. More

Two Poems by Jack Nancy

the first time I read Proust / it’s a booth in a diner, / a once-great American city / defiled under blue fluorescent blue, / over piles of pig… More

Resurrection Rock

it’s true we called them pigs // said we hated them / feared them // said fuck them / when they weren’t around // I guess that was the… More