PEN Poetry Series
Once a week, the PEN Poetry Series publishes work by emerging and established writers from coast to coast. The series is edited by Danniel Schoonebeek, along with a rotating group of guest editors. Subscribe to the PEN Poetry Series mailing list and have poems delivered to your email as soon as they’re published. Submissions are currently closed, but please feel free to familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines. Due to the extremely high volume of submissions we receive for the series, we are unable to respond to each individual submission, though you are welcome to follow up with us at [email protected] about your submission.
from L’Heure Bleue
When I say what I think, / someone always tells me they agree / or disagree, which ruins / the thought for me . . . // There’s a… More
Agnes the Elephant
There is no / such thing // as infinity. / I started counting // when I was / very young // and I can tell / you now //… More
A Kentucky of Mothers
God my poor real mom she would have died. // But people say her eyes contain a twinkle they believe in. When they see it they don't need a… More
Five Poems by Liu Xia
I’m a philosopher who thinks / with my body, I’m biological / theater, non-fiction, the body / of spirit whose language is / poetry. I am prosody. More
Four Poems by Jamaal May
To the mop, galvanized bucket, / sawdust, and push broom—the felled / tree it was cut from, dulled saw, blistered hand, // I offer my apologies. To the road.… More
Elegy with Crop-Duster
a great big nothingness happening / from field to canal / from canal to the fields beyond // power lines criss-crossing the formlessness of grief . . . The… More
A Song Called Shudder
Whose passions but your own startled you / yelling up to a window at night / for a love to come to the glass / & down the stairs?… More
Four Poems by Brian Blanchfield
A second bird somewhere he said undid the doom, / but I never saw either. On we walked. Women feel / intimate face to face. Men, shoulder to shoulder,… More
Four Poems by Marc Rahe
I am a caretaker; / I worry from afar. // I worry a sore. // Where / do you go, after? // Between privacies is the dark / of… More
from A is for Addis
When I tell people about my impending trip, I try to avoid the word “Africa,” though I can’t explain why. I am struck by the timidity, the lack of… More
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