PEN Poetry Series
Through 2019, the PEN Poetry Series published work by writers from all over the world.
Two Poems from Red Doc>
He hadn’t known his / grandmother long or well. / She smelled like Noxzema. / Didn’t like doctors. Believed in herbs and the / Bible. When the apostles /… More
Three Questions with C.D. Wright
Clearly authoritarian states are afraid of even small, solo voices. Less mucked-up states with grandiose images of themselves are afraid of truth-speakers as well. But they can just paper… More
Obsurity & Shelter
a one-story clapboard with stuff / crammed into drawers / waiting for the adults to go out / never enough closets / so he could roll a smoke… More
Three Questions with Maggie Nelson
I hope that what we are working for, when we work for freedom of expression, is the right of writers and editors to be irresponsible in language without threat… More
from Bluets
At the bottom of the swimming pool, I watched the white winter light spangle the cloudy blue and I knew together they made God. When I walked into my… More
Three Questions with Shane McCrae
Self-obsession is an inevitable by-product of capitalism. And capitalism has become—mistakenly, I think—inextricably tangled up with most folks’ sense of what “the American way” is (but it’s hard not… More
Nursing the Master’s Children
I felt my milk going out // relieved / And sick like / As if the Master if he ever had had / fed me from his own plate More
Bon Voyage to Guest Poetry Editors Ana Božičević & Amy King
Last week we waved our hankies and said goodbye to guest poetry editor Ben Mirov as he moves on to pastures new, and now it's time once again for… More
A Farewell to Guest Poetry Editor Ben Mirov
This month, the PEN Poetry Series bids a fond and heavy-hearted farewell to Ben Mirov, one of the founding guest editors of our poetry series, along with Ana Božičević &… More
The Big Smoke: Five Poems
That horse back-kicked so hard / my leg bone broke, split skin // like a lazy plum. I layed back / in that stall bleeding & hollering // in… More
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