WATCHING THE 2026 ACADEMY AWARDS

by Nan Ottenritter

 

 

We treat our bald friend to the movies.
She’s three chemos down, three to go.

1.
A security officer at a women’s health clinic 
arrives in the morning dark, organizes to assure
guests’ safety as Christian abortion protestors 
take to the bull horn, scream at the sinners. 
This childless guard wonders if, by aborting 
her first child, she doomed the next to stillbirth. 

2.
In 2022, photojournalist Brent Renauld was killed in Ukraine.
He said his autism helped him remain calm in war zones. 
We see his war photos as well as videos of his brother with the 
friend who desperately tried to save him. In tears, I secretly 
wondered why we exposed our suffering friend to this.

3.
Journalist dad of a young girl reports on vacant bedrooms
of children murdered in school shootings. They remain as they were 
when the child was gunned down. SpongeBob pillows, hair ties,
trophies testify to a child’s life well-lived. Dad returns home and 
his daughter paints his fingernails green. 

The world’s pain surrounds us. No amount of candy or popcorn 
can keep it out of our movie theatres, health clinics, wars, or schools. 
We walk out, stunned, and apologize to our friend.


Nan Ottenritter has published chapbooks Eleanor, Speak (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and My Year 2023 (2024).  She co-edited Discovery, Recovery: A Journey with Veterans (2023) and has been published in Artemis, Still Points Quarterly, Poetry Society of Virginia Anthologies, Dissent: an anthology to end war and capitalism (2023), and Writing the Land: Virginia (NatureCulture LLC, 2024). Her concern about American democracy has prompted her to read and understand the books of contemporary historians and host informal Citizens' Salons with friends, neighbors, and strangers in informal settings. 

CALLING MY PERSIAN SISTER-IN-LAW THE DAY THE U.S. BOMBS IRAN

by Carol Boutard

 

 

We’re not close, the thicket

between us hard to cross after years

of my snide asides about her aloof Persian polish 

and her opinions about my sloppy American life. 

We chat about the weather in Santa Barbara, 

my brother’s iffy health, her worry for the citrus trees 

she had to leave behind when they moved. 

 

I remember stories about her childhood—

the neighborhood where she lived,

its tree-lined quiet and shaded gardens

far from crowded downtown Tehran,

skyscrapers like gravestones in the smog.

Finally getting her wish to enroll at Berkeley,

alone at 17, with little English and no friends,

Stranded in the states the day of the revolution,

her father was lost without his factory. Her mother, 

who had never held a job, taking in beadwork 

to earn enough for them to live.

 

She isn’t sleeping these days.

Her older brother, still in Iran, joked to her last week 

that traffic is light in Tehran now that so many people have left.

She mentions the trees she had to abandon 

as if they aren’t the only ones 

without protection in a world turned away

from the possibility of grace.

We’re not close. For now, we wait

within our separate lives for whatever comes 

as if nothing has changed,

now that everything has changed overnight.  

                                               

For nearly 30 years, Carol Boutard farmed a small piece of the Tualatin Valley with her husband, Anthony.  A farming partnership and the animal life migrating through their land were the focus of her book, Each Leaf Singing, published by MoonPath Press in 2021. Carol and Anthony now live in Penn Yan near Upstate New York’s Keuka Lake. Tucked into hardwood forest, their land is often occupied by deer, fox, turkeys and magnificent native marmots.

BREADCRUMBS IN A NATION OF LOAVES

by Jazmine Crandall 

 

 

The economic fallout of the US-Israeli assault and Tehran’s retaliation is spreading fast, and pushing the most vulnerable towards disaster. —The Guardian, March 12, 2026 

 

In the marble halls where voices echo  
like coins dropped into deep, indifferent wells, 
they debate the price of labor 
as though it were a frivolous shadow; 
weightless, distant, theoretical. 

Outside, the morning opens its weary eyes. 

A banker straightens his Hermes tie 
that costs more than a week of someone's rent. 
His salary is quite the dome; 
built stone by stone, pension and bonus, 
arches of security rising 
towards stained-glass futures. 

A manager clocks in, 
midway up the ladder of breathing space. 
Her wages are a narrow bridge—
not golden, not broken,  
but sturdy enough to cross the river of bills 
if the current stays calm. 

And then there is the worker 
whose hands smell of fryer oil and sanitizer, 
whose chapped palms hold the ghosts  
of a thousand barcodes, 
and ears fatigue of a million complaints. 

Their meager wage is a candle in winter. 

Each hour they feed the flame, 
yet the room refuses to grow warm. 

And no one says the quiet truth aloud: 
this fire was never meant to heat the house. 

It was meant to prove endurance. 

So the worker learns the mathematics of survival—
how many hours equal a gallon of milk  
and a carton of eggs, 
how many aching hours on torn soles 
and blistered toes equal rent, 
how many meals must disappear 
so the light bill does not. 


Jazmine Crandall is a Colombian-Cuban poet in Atlanta, Georgia. She's beginning her journey of sharing her poetry and strives to make a difference. Her work explores feminism, inequality, and the struggles of immigrants and the working class, using her writing to advocate for marginalized voices.

BAI TASHCHIT (DO NOT DESTROY)

by Lenore Weiss

Israeli settlers and soldiers killed three Palestinians in their village near Ramallah on Saturday night, the third deadly attack in a week of surging Israeli violence across the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers have shot dead five civilians during invasions of Palestinian olive groves, villages and grazing land, in the brief period since Israel and the US launched a new war on Iran at the end of February. —The Guardian, March 8, 2026. Photo: WAFA archive.

Deer bite off the heads of my coreopsis, yellow sunbursts of blossoms I was hoping to see every morning outside my window, but now only sad stumps are left leaning against the pavement. Every day, I go outside to encourage the plant, hoping it might grow back, sprout a few new leaves. The way olive trees are being cut, burned and poisoned, and the olive, which is more than a fruit, a symbol of resistance, buckets picked and pressed with a wooden beam, sometimes with a stone to produce golden flowing oil. Every tree which is not being harvested, is lost to the occupation. Deuteronomy 20:19-20 prohibits cutting down fruit-bearing trees during a war as they provide life-sustaining food. Isn’t this an ongoing war? Olive trees growing in the West Bank are the first to go, surrounded by settlements built high on ridges that strangle villages, and even when armed renegades desist, they return with more venom. Concentration camps and the multitude of prisons throughout the United States produce men and women who understand how physical space can be controlled, minds never. Villagers living in Burin say their olive oil is spicier because it is laced with tear gas.

Lenore Weiss’s novel Pulp into Paper and a poetry collection, Video Game Pointers were both published in 2024. Prior poetry collections form a trilogy about love, loss, and being mortal: Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island (West End Press, 2012), Two Places (Kelsay Books, 2014), and The Golem (Hakodesh Word Press, 2017). Alexandria Quarterly Press published her prize-winning flash fiction chapbook Holding on to the Fringes of Love. Lenore edited a poetry and prose anthology for Kehilla Community Synagogue entitled From the Well of Living Waters: Voices of the 21st Century. She is a member the Writers Grotto and serves as the Associate Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Editor for the Mud Season Review.

WAR SECRETARY

by Lisa Fogarty

Pete Hegseth by Ian Baker

RE: WARY WAR 

WRY WAR WAYS 

ROTE WAR STORY 

RAW SCORE 

SORROW 

WORST RAT YET

Lisa Fogarty is a journalist and creative writer from New York. She is a mother of two whose work has appeared in several magazines, newspapers, and journals. 

I WEEP FOR THE WORLD

by Mary Saracino

“Weeping World” print by Marinka Bendova at Saatchi Art

I weep for the world,

for women and girls

for boys and men,

living and dying at the mercy

of those without mercy,

the merciless misers,

the autocrats who have sold

their empathy for power,

their compassion for money,

who have sacrificed their souls

for privileges they did not earn—or deserve.

The world they manifest burns

with injustice, oppression, war.

I weep for the planet,

Her essence assaulted,

decimated by greed,

and insatiable lust

for all that is unholy.

I weep for our non-human kin,

all creatures, great and small

all vegetation, too,

that seeks to live and thrive

under the sunlit sky,

bathed in the moonlit darkness,

moving through the seasons

with grace, grit, and gratitude.

We humans have lost our way.

The path is strewn with

obstacles to peace and prosperity,

the carnage of millennia,

the debris of lost memories

of how it should be,

how it could be

if we joined forces and

reclaimed our roots,

celebrated our ancient origins,

honored our connections

to all that is, and ever will be.

Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry, Motherlines, was published by Pearlsong Press (February 2026). She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014), The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), No Matter What (Spinsters Ink 1993), and Finding Grace (Spinsters Ink 1999), and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior (Spinsters Ink 2001). She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.

LIMERICK TO HELP FORGET THE WAR FOR A MOMENT

by Zumwalt

Cartoon by Kevin KAL Kallaugher

With a face like a serial killer,
He belongs in a cheap horror thriller;
Some call him a bum
Or the worst of the scum,
But to me he's just Stephen Miller.

Zumwalt's poetry feeds on alienation, shifting reality, and forced adaptation. Zumwalt is a proud repeat contributor to The New Verse News.

TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH, I’M NOT SO SURE ABOUT THE VENT

by Eric Oak

A government handout photograph showed weapon remnants displayed on a table near the ruins of the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, where a precision strike reportedly killed 175 people, mostly children, on Feb. 28. The remnants have been identified by The Times as components of a modern, U.S.-made Tomahawk missile. Credit...IRIB, via Telegram

It was not the Israelis, after all,

who triple tapped the school in Minab.

It was US, according to the Times—

our bombs 

that blasted babies into doll parts, 

scattered them among the concrete-

silica dust of their classrooms.

But it was always our bombs, really–

Arab Salim and Jabalia, Biden’s

red line to Rafah. Bombs with

our names on them. Cruz and 

Haley chickenhawked in Sharpie, 

mine and yours scratched san-serif 

onto the shells in bolder relief with 

each paycheck deposited.

I read the article about Minab 

during my planning period, and

it lingers with me now around

this crater-quiet classroom.

The kids are taking a test, but I 

don’t care whether they pass it. 

I just want to talk to them.

I just want to believe that it's 

not too late to talk, that it’s 

not too late to believe.

Something about the way the 

big vent grumbles when 

the air kicks on reminds me:

the surprise lockdown drill

has to be this week or next. 

They’re quiet, like now,

the drills at least. 

The kids are used to them.

Winder and Uvalde, Gaza and Minab.

Maybe bullets stop when bombs do.

I remember now why that vent rattles—  

I took out most the screws that hold

it to the wall, and a few more outside. 

The maintenance guy showed me how

to kick and climb our way out there

in case we ever need to flee, to run

outside, unafraid as we are of a 

brush smoke sky.

Eric Oak is the pseudonym of a teacher of social studies at a middle school near Chattanooga, TN. He sometimes asks people to read the things he writes so that they may exist.

TO 165 EXPENDABLES, SHAJERAH TAYYEBEH GIRLS’ ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, MINAB, IRAN

by Kent Reichert

It’s a shame you had to die
but hey,
that’s war, right?
Leave it to the smoke 
in your father’s eyes to mourn your passing,
let rubble be your obituary
caught up as you were in other's dreams of power
and fear.
They say 
your death is the path to peace. They say
it is going well. They say
all according to plan. They say
their children are safer now.
When their school bells ring,
the screams at recess are joyful abandon.
But your screams rain down upon your
mother's heart
and will for the eternity she lives each
moment
without you.
At least you were not alone at your passing.
Holding your hand 
were your ideas and hopes and wishes and dreams;
your children and grandchildren;
your silly laughter;
your joy;
your love of chickpea cookies;
your bedtime stories;
your heart a flutter when that boy said he liked you
and you couldn’t run fast enough to tell your friends.
They were there, right there with you when
your world evaporated instantly.
They feared you or was it where you were born? Or they feared
your school’s location. Or they feared
who you worshipped. Or they feared 
the words your leaders spoke. Or they feared
what they might do. Or they feared…so…
“I got him before he got me.” 
Nothing personal, just collateral damage.

Those in power far away
hugged power above all else. They smiled in their safety
and their children and grand children’s safety, for…

They say it is going well. They say
all according to plan. They say
the world is safer now.
After all it was them or you, wasn’t it?
That's what they said and 
It’s a shame you had to die
But hey
that’s war, right?


Kent Reichert spends autumn beside Becky’s Creek on the Intracoastal Waterway across from North Carolina's Topsail Island. He passes the time walking his dogs, practicing digital photography and writing. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies.

AGAINST PURIM

by Barbara Ungar

ID 67399384 © Olga Kuevda | Dreamstime.com

Parading as Queen Esther in kindergarten

at my first carnival, in her long blue dress, 

I tripped and tumbled off the low stage.

Yet I teach my son the fairy tale:

Queen Esther was a secret Jew, raised 

by cousin Mordecai, who refuses 

to bow down to Haman, who’s convinced the king 

to kill all the Jews, so Esther risks her life 

to reveal herself and plead. The king relents, 

asks what to do to Haman. Mordecai says, 

whatever Haman says to do to me. Haman says 

hang Mordecai, so the king hangs Haman instead. 

We rejoice: They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat 

hamantaschen, tarts shaped like Haman’s hat.

Bored at my son’s Purim carnival 

while his class intones Hebrew verses 

no one understands, and the teachers mug 

their way through the tale in drag, I read 

the whole Megilla, realize this was Persia

(Iran), Esther was in a harem, and Haman

wasn’t hanged, but impaled on a fifty-foot stake.

As the kids trip, one by one, to the front

to chant if they can, or just read the Hebrew

with no vowels, or blush and break down

in tears, I read, yes, Haman did plan

to impale Mordecai (so it’s a grisly take 

on the golden rule), but then they impale 

all ten of Haman’s sons. At every mention 

of Haman, everyone goes wild, twirling their noise-

making groggers and shrieking with laughter.

The besotted king gives Mordecai power so, 

the text crows, our hero slaughters 75,000 

of his foes in the city, and who knows

how many more in the countryside? This

we are enjoined to celebrate as Purim.

Party on. A vendetta thousands of years old.

Today, on Purim, I see photos of rows 

and rows of graves dug side by side for  

160 schoolgirls, and a video of an Iranian 

man in tears, holding the hand of a six- or 

seven-year-old girl, just the hand, all that’s left

of her. Of course we’ll pay in kind.

While the US vows vengeance for its seven 

(so far) dead, Jew-hatred blooms across the world-

wide web, and for every murdered child, 

how many will avenge? 

Barbara Ungar is the author of six books, most recently After Naming the Animals. Honors include the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, Gival Poetry Prize, and being named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Books of 2015 and 2019. She has published poems in Scientific American, Rattle, Southern Indiana Review, and many other journals. 

DOES THE SUN RISE (FOR ME)?

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Does the Sun rise 

for me? Or if not 

for me, does it rise

for my brother,  

for my sister?

What about

the sun rising

over Tehran

or Gaza,

London,

or Doha?.

Does the sun

rise for me?

Who is 

my brother?

Who is 

my sister,

the mother

wailing beside

the rubble

of the school,

her girls

bombed

to bits?

Does the Sun 

rise anyway

over killing fields?

Does it rise

over our bodies

thrashing 

in the dark?

Does it rise

exposing

the open 

grave?

Does it rise

helping plants 

to bloom?

Does it rise

whether

we live 

or die?

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.