Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Saturday, February 15, 2025

FRIDA KAHLO AS A KEYCHAIN

by Terri Kirby Erickson




My Frida Kahlo keychain, a gift from a longtime
friend in Lubbock, is made of felt, hand-embroidered 
with the brightest threads. Her pink floral headdress 
 
is rainbow-shaped, her eyebrows like a minimalist 
painting of a bird in flight—one solid line, double-
arched, meeting in the center of her forehead. With
 
eyes forever closed, this keychain Frida is always 
smiling. She never had polio or walked with a limp. 
Her spine and pelvis were never broken, her uterus 
 
never pierced by an iron bar. In fact, she has no body, 
only a lime-green tassel where her neck should be. 
To her, Diego is just a name, not a faithless husband, 
 
no one to whom her tortured letters were addressed. 
Hanging from a set of keys, she cannot know the fate 
of brown-skinned immigrants gathered like herds 
 
of cattle, handcuffed and transported, the families who 
may not find each other again, the crying babies, their 
stolen mothers. Keychain Frida has no arms to paint 
 
their pain in vibrant colors—a small portrait of herself 
in the corner of the canvas, boldly staring, her blood-
red heart dangling between her breasts like a pendant.




Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of award-winning poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” Latin American Literary ReviewONE ARTQuarterly Literary Review SingaporeRattleThe SUNValparaiso Poetry Review, and many other literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Among her numerous awards are the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina, USA.

Friday, February 14, 2025

IN CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND YOUR CONTROL

by Sara Sarna

You feel the cracking.
Vow to be a gap-filler,
leak-plugger,
like the boy at the dike,
who knows if he walks away,
the world drowns.
It seems there is no way

to stop things coming apart,
short of legions, armies
of the like-minded,
plugging holes.
But despair is pervasive,
contagious,
the goal all along.

Hold fast,
and I will hold you
and someone else 
will hold me
and on and on
until together we are 
stitch and bandage
to bind up the hurt,
the heart,
of a nation.


Sara Sarna is a poet, actor and hiker. She is a member of Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, Wisconsin Writers Association, and Write On, Door County. Her work has appeared in print, online, and been heard from stage and radio. Her chapbook Whispers from a Bench was published in 2020.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

DEFENSIVE POSTURE

by Michelle DeRose




On the DOD placing Julianne Moore’s Freckleface Strawberry under “compliance review” in Pentagon schools.


We hereby commit to fight freckles fearlessly.
The Pentagon’s five year-olds are too young
to learn that some are born freckled,
or that some assigned freckleface at birth
fade with age: it’s our official position
that none may transition. Further,
the book’s fruitist agenda betrays its bias
by elevating only the strawberry. We cannot
in good conscience allow any book
that won’t praise the apple in our curriculum.
We find additional offense in the redheads:
a clear red cap trademark violation.
Finally, the author’s first name puts two women
together. We vow to end such indoctrination!


Michelle DeRose, Professor Emerita of English, lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her poetry won the Chancellor's Prize in 2024 and the Faruq Z Bey award in 2023 from the Poetry Society of Michigan, and her chapbooks were finalists in the 2023 and 2024 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press competition.

NEW CHAIRMAN OF THE KENNEDY CENTER IMPOSED

by Leslie Kenna


AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.


Mr. Trump posted on social media: “It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees. We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!” —The New York Times, February 12, 2025


Dismiss the bass.
Silence the wind.
Send the oboes home.
 
Fling the flutes.
Torch the triangle.
Sever strings on the harp.
 
Stop the metronome.
Punch through drums.
Shred all sheet music.
 
Fire the conductor.
Topple the chairs.
Slam the curtain down.
 
No more music!
Except for the Trumpet,
the solitary Trumpet,
metallic and flatulent
one off note repeats
incendiary words.

We are revolting.
We are so revolting.


Leslie Kenna is a writer and scientist living in Maryland. Credits include New York Times Tiny Love, NPR-affiliate station KUNC, TedEd, @NYPL, and Bacopa Literary Review.

JUST ONE WORD... PLASTICS

by Steven Kent


The plastic Trump straws being sold at $15 for a 10-pack. Photograph: Official Donald J Trump Store


Trump signs order to bring back plastic straws, claiming paper ones ‘explode’ —The Guardian, February 10, 2025


Exploding straws? A liberal joke!
   The Prez says with emotion--
More plastic now for Diet Coke,
   More plastic for the ocean.
Ecology's a Commie plot,
   An antiquated notion—
More plastic now for stuff we've got,
   More plastic for the ocean.
The EPA, the Silent Spring—
   Abandoned, our devotion.
More plastic now for everything,
   More plastic for the ocean.


Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent BurnsideHis work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

INDESTRUCTIBLE NARRATIVE

by Peter F. Crowley


An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows displaced Palestinians returning to Rafah, a day after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect, Gaza Strip, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammad Abu Samra)


Trump Plan for Gaza “Worse Than Ethnic Cleansing,” Says UN Human Rights Expert: Unlawful deportation or transfer of a population constitutes both a war crime and a crime against humanity. —Truthout, February 9, 2025



The usurper grinned,
broad-brimmed sunbeam hat, squinted eyes
while folding a pair of old,
torn jeans and stuffing them 
into a Goodwill bag
muttering to himself, 

“What was before never was.
What is now is the beginning.
Plow the forest, melt the trees,
farm the virgin land 
and let grass grow over villages.
We will soon forget what never was.”

From a rip in the Goodwill bag, 
a jeans leg fell out.

No matter how deep you bury,
No matter how many villages are liquidated,
You cannot kill the narrative of those
who were there before.


As a prolific author from the Boston area, Peter F. Crowley writes in various forms, including short fiction, op-eds, poetry and academic essays. His writing can be found in 34th Parallel, Pif MagazineGalway ReviewDigging the FatAdelaide’s Short Story and Poetry Award anthologies (finalist in both) and The Opiate. He is the author of the poetry books Those Who Hold Up the Earth and Empire’s End, and the short fiction collection That Night and Other Stories.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

A FABLE

by Howie Good


AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.


Someone is shouting, “Freedom!” 
or maybe “Free them!” The shouts
 
echo through gray, empty streets 
and die. I don’t follow the news. 
 
I’m not into politics. I walk down 
a street lined with soldiers and tanks. 
 
I turn up a street named for a tyrant.


Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose newest poetry book The Dark is available from Sacred Parasite, a Berlin-based publisher.

Monday, February 10, 2025

VAGRANT

by Pepper Trail



This photo of a Ross’s gull, a rare bird generally found only in Siberia, Greenland, Canada, and northern Alaska, was taken Saturday [February 1] in southwest Kansas by Carol Morgan, president of the Topeka Audubon Society. Provided by Carol Morgan to The Topeka Capital-Journal, February 6, 2025. The body of the bird was recovered Wednesday evening, said Laura Rose Clawson, chief of public affairs for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.


The explorer Ross (James) ventured to the Arctic
            planted a flag on the North Magnetic Pole
and shot a gull, new to science (1824)—
small, delicate, remarkable for the soft pink blush
on its blood-stained breast—
Ross’s Gull
 
A High Arctic bird, mythical or nearly so still
            in this warming century and so its appearance among us
            —Kansas, January 2025—
was a sensation, and the bird-listers ventured from everywhere
aiming to see this last unknown, or nearly
 
Days later, it was dead, this Ross’s Gull
its body in the strange Kansas snow
end of an errant voyage, faulty spin of the magnetic compass
the disorientation of an unfreezing North, perhaps
 
Natural causes, is the thought
starvation (a goose carcass pecked in hunger and bewilderment)
avian flu (across the world, bewilderment a symptom and then death)
or exposure (the Kansas snow perhaps too strange)
and the birders turned back
the expedition a failure, nothing still to be found
only the known, and the dead


Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

BARRIERS WORTH BREAKING

by Tammy Smith


Supersonic prototype jet breaks sound barrier on US test flight: Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 hit Mach 1.1 over Mojave desert, bringing company closer to planned supersonic airliner. —The Guardian, January 29, 2025

Over the Mojave Desert —a sleek 
white object             breaking
the speed of sound —BOOM!
seems less grounding
in the middle of other exhilarating events
when I need less to suggest more
doesn’t have to mean faster 
measures represent progress.
 
If only the high-pitched hum
reverberating tens of thousands of feet 
above a crowd of captivating onlookers 
seared their sense of sovereignty. 
 
The return of supersonic travel
reminds me to pause. Focus
on the fullness of my breath. 
Dig my heels deep
into the             center 
of my purple yoga mat.  
Gently lower my body down
to rest in a child's pose.
 

Tammy Smith is a social worker and a single mother from New Jersey. Her writing has been published in Grand Little Things, Eunoia Review, Poem Alone, and Verse-Virtual

Sunday, February 09, 2025

A TIDAL WAVE POEM

by Gil Hoy




in my dream, the strongman threw my pages 
of poems into a wastebasket and told me 
not to write another poem about democracy. 
no more poems about human rights 
and fundamental freedoms, free and fair 
elections, independent branches of government, 
freedom of expression and press, 
constitutional guarantees of civilian authority. 
no more poems about democratic principles 
that fashioned my poems, they, that turned chaos 
and madness into people power, would no longer 
have permission to enter my poems. so instead, 
I wrote a tidal wave poem about a tidal wave coming.
not an about-democracy or about-democratic principles 
type of poem, not a poem about diversity and inclusion, 
one man-one vote, international law, or equal justice 
under the law. no, this poem was about a tidal wave. 
a tidal wave so strong and so powerful, 
so potent and so heavy, it could destroy evil 
in its path. a tidal wave thousands of miles long 
propelled by the strength of the sun, 
the moon and the earth. a tidal wave so 
demanding so dominant that his eyes 
and his lungs looked drowned. 
a tidal wave that yelled
don't ever fuck with my country again. 
a tidal wave so powerful, so so heavy
and strong, that, yes, it deserves its own poem.


Gil Hoy is a Best of the Net nominated Tucson, Arizona poet and writer who is studying fiction and poetry at The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and previously at Boston University. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy is a semi-retired trial lawyer and a former four-term elected Brookline, MA Selectman. His poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Third Wednesday, Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Penmen Review,  Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, The New Verse News and elsewhere.

IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE

by Jim Burns

with echoes of Buffalo Springfield


AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.


it can’t happen here 
they say
and go on 
with their day, 
but are they sure,
do they remember a time 
way back in their prime 
when they raised voices and sang
that something’s happening here,
it’s not exactly clear,
but we’d better beware
and look what’s goin’ down
what’s that sound, 
it ain’t exactly clear, 
but something for sure 
is happening here, 
the Constitution, institutions, 
are biting the dust, 
like used up metal 
they’ll dissolve into rust 
while we whistle 
in the dark, 
take a walk 
in the park, 
say it’ll be alright
and forget 
that what follows
the dark 
is the night


Jim Burns was born and raised in rural Indiana, received degrees from Indiana State University and Indiana University, and spent most of his working life as a librarian. After retirement he turned to an earlier love of writing and has been fortunate to have seen over 20 of his poems and prose published either online or in print. He lives with his wife and dog in Jacksonville, Florida.

MAGA SAGA... OR PROJECT 2025 CONTRIVED

by Gilbert Allen


Fear queers.
Ban trans.
Hire liars.
Bring on Elon!

Pardon felons.
ICE raids
housemaids
nurse aides.

Prez sez
"I buy
Gaza Plaza!
Bombshell hotel!

Max tax
Canuck crooks!
Vex Mex!
They pay

duty booty!
Hate great!
True Blue?
Screw you.

Gilbert Allen has tried to live True Blue in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, since 1977. For more information about him and his work, check out the interview here.

Saturday, February 08, 2025

MISS-SPOKE

by Adele Evershed




I Google the name of the new White House
Press Secretary—Karoline Leavitt—
and find she’s young—27,
the youngest press secretary in history.
This, and the fact she is a woman doing a difficult job,
should make me like her,
so I start to listen. 
Her manner is abrasive,
like a loofah on your ear,
rubbing my skin the wrong way.
But sometimes an album is more than its cover,
so I persevere.
She cycles through her talking points:
Egg prices—blame sleepy Joe Biden,
Trump’s visit to North Carolina—
like the hand of God.
a plane crashing—DEI policies.
Round and round,
like a malevolent Barbie News Anchor.
All the while the cross at her throat
bops about virtue signaling
like a protest outside an abortion clinic,
‘I’m only doing what Jesus wants.’ 
But on someone who has no virtue,
it’s just another fashion accessory,
the same as Madonna’s
when she sang, ‘Like a Virgin’
(and Karoline—definitely no virgin,
 married a man 32 years her senior,
 had a baby six months after the wedding—just saying). 
Her fake smile is as nauseating, 
as her ‘Make America Blonde Again' t-shirt.
Then she tweets about education— 
how it should only clothe a child
in those below the knee old fashions— 
Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic
AND NOTHING ELSE.
As a teacher I think—
maybe she has a point
because if she knew her ABCs,
she’d spell Karoline with a C.


Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who now lives in America. You can find some of her work in Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press), The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press) and an upcoming chapbook, In the Belly of the Wail, with Querencia Press.

Friday, February 07, 2025

IN PRAISE OF SMALL THINGS

by Michelle DeRose


Things too small to hold
today’s news: the fingernail
of a newborn, sharpened
tip of this pencil, a candle
flame, our old Tom’s purr.
The last breath of a dissolving
mint, the dog’s white brow
curling in her brown patch.
The chip of slate my six
year-old once passed me.
Hold it in your hand and it will soothe
you, he said. And it does.


Michelle DeRose, Professor Emerita of English, lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her poetry won the Chancellor's Prize in 2024 and the Faruq Z Bey award in 2023 from the Poetry Society of Michigan, and her chapbooks were finalists in the 2023 and 2024 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press competition.