USED BOOKS FOR SALE

by Brydon Caldwell

As developers race to build more powerful AI models, and lawsuits over copyright mount, a cottage industry has sprung up to supply them with millions of physical books that are stripped apart, scanned into training datasets, and discarded. —Yahoo! Finance, July 29, 2026. AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Soft, almost like felt,

worn down by so

many different thumbs.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

A warm smell with

just a hint of must,

memories of comfort.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Words carefully arranged,

adjusted, revised just so,

telling a narrative.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Knowledge, hard won,

meant to be shared,

illustrated clearly.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Cultural threads woven

together to patch  

gaps in society.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Lone voices calling

from the past, trying

to share themselves.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

What cost will we pay

when the future devours

the past?

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. He was recently named the winner of the 2026 Icelandic Festival of Manitoba Short Story Contest.  His writing can be found in The Ekphrastic Review, The Fib Review, and the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, and Still From Somewhere anthologies.

JUDGEMENT

by Judy Salcewicz

Mariano Barbacid, who leads the Experimental Oncology Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), developed a treatment that has successfully and completely eradicated pancreatic tumours in mice, without any major side effects. The discovery was hailed as a potentially significant turning point in the fight against this disease. However, a segment of social media users mocked a birthmark on Barbacid's face and made numerous offensive and superficial comments, rather than recognizing the scientific achievement. —Money Control, January 31, 2026

Is it because we’re reading fewer books

that we forget not to judge them by their covers?

A disparagement, a quick dismissal

and we miss out on adventure, insight,

inspiration, knowledge, heroes to emulate,

and so many things that improve our lives.

Pancreatic cancer is a deadly disease--

with a five-year survival rate is 13%

Dr. Mariano Barbacid,

a Spanish cancer scientist,

and his team found a triple-drug therapy

that eliminates pancreatic tumors in mice.

This remarkable discovery is cause for

celebration and hope that it will lead

to a human cure.

Instead of celebrating, many online disparagers,

focus instead on the Doctor’s birthmark.

Judy Salcewicz is a New Jersey poet and writer who believes in the power of words.

THE WOMEN

by Eileen Ivey Sirota

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

David Marcus of Fox News warned that “organized gangs of wine moms” are using “Antifa tactics to harass and impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.”  —Fox News, January 11, 2026

roving gangs of wine women

terrorize my neighborhood

brandishing corkscrews

and Prosecco

weirdly disrespectful

they have book club paperbacks

under their arms

multi syllabic words 

on their glossy lips

with their illegal varietals 

and their unlicensed vaginas

they imagine they could

turn back regiments

make the world safe

for children

Eileen Ivey Sirota is a psychotherapist, poet, and potter.  Her poems have appeared in Calyx, District Lines, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Voices: Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists, NewVerseNews, Ekphrastic Review, Lighten Up Online and elsewhere.  Her first chapbook, Out of Order, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.   Having been raised in a family of political junkies and activists in the Washington DC area, political and cultural issues infuse her poetry.  She lives in Bethesda, Maryland where she alternates between sputtering outrage and gob smacked wonder. Her latest book Watching from the Bleachers (Finishing Line Press, 2024) unites these two tendencies.

NOW AT THE FOOD CENTER

by Deb Freedman

Our clients are gracious even though all we offer won’t get them through July.

Handicapped stickers hang on their cars’ rearview mirrors;

backseats are strewn with car seats, crumbs, and walkers.

They show us pictures of grandchildren or kittens.

Sometimes, they walk across the bridge.

Sometimes, they tell us they’re hungry.

Two skinny little boys ask if we have any books for them.

When my friend says they can help themselves to as many as they want,

they get so excited, they rock their car.

The older brother tells his little brother to take 4 only books.

The older boy sees one about wolves and growls at me, grinning with a wiggly tooth.

They chorus thank you as their dad drives away.

Anna walks over without her curly, gray-haired dog today.

She says Sadie has a lump on her belly and she’s worried.

The vet will see her sweet baby on the 14^th.

She doesn’t know what she’ll do if it’s serious.

The blonde school bus driver, the size of a 5^th grader, waves

her passport at me.

She takes it everywhere.

Born here, she is afraid to go to the store.

Now is before the “Big Beautiful Bill” passes.

Deb Freedman's poetry has been published in The New Verse News, US I/ DVP Poets Worksheets and most recently, Patterson Literary Review. The Food Center, its clients and volunteers, take up a large shelf in her heart.

AN AUTHOR’S LAMENT

by Lynn Hess

The Destin Log

My wisest friends are letters

with whom I have conferred.

I often like to join them in

small clusters known as words.

And frequently we congregate

to party or to rage

in sentences or paragraphs 

assembling on a page.

 

My dearest friends are letters.

They help transcribe my mind.

It doesn’t matter what I write,

they never are inclined

to call my writing “hazardous

to youth” or “outright lies”  

like novels once revered that now

so many stigmatize.

Like a precious vintage watch

worn by someone of wealth 

who knows it needs attentive care

   —it can’t mark time itself—

my words need winding in your mind

for you to understand 

their timeliness and that of all 

the books entitled Banned!

               

Lynn Hess is a retired middle-school teacher who, for thirty years, simultaneously conducted weekly poetry-writing workshops for students in grades K through 8. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals, including The Spoon River Quarterly, Aeolian-Harp, Discretionary Love, The Monterey Poetry Review, The Red Eft Review, The MockingOwl Roost, and others. Where Tigers Roar in Silence, a book of her poetry for children, was published by Lime Rock Press. Although Lynn writes mostly in free verse, she also cherishes the musicality of poems composed with rhyme and meter. As an educator, Lynn is especially saddened to see so many of the thought-provoking novels that evoked class discussion removed from library shelves.

THE RECKONING

by Julia Griffin

But for the young, I might not care too much.

I’ll go on reading in my little hutch

And typing quirky poems, as before;

I don’t in fact expect a civil war:

This outcome leaves small danger of a putsch.

Books, dogs, Prosecco—I intend to clutch

My pleasures, drifting further out of touch.

I’d be content just to enjoy them more

But for the young.

Here’s four more years of vicious double dutch,

The crumbling earth denied a vital crutch,

More guns, bent laws, less safety for the poor,

Billionaires’ bribes—all this I might ignore;

It’s not for me my misery is such,

But for the young.

Julia Griffin lives in south-east Georgia.  She did what she could.

NO WORDS FOR ESCAMBIA COUNTY

by Richard Fireman

It has come to this: Escambia County, Florida, schools have banned the dictionary. Five dictionaries are on the district’s list of more than 1,600 books banned pending investigation in December 2023, along with eight different encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not—all due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning materials with “sexual conduct” from schools. —PEN America, January 9, 2024

If thine eye offend thee pluck it out
says the Bible, and we know 
the Florida governor is a righteous man, with principles
and not much thought. His laws
just made one county remove the dictionary
from library bookshelves. Now 
where do the children find their answers
except in the abundancy of misinformation?
Plenty of that to go around, no worry. 
You say the kids can ask their parents what the truth is
but they’re the ones who voted the fool into office 
so not much help there. It seems 
they’ll have to wait till they can vote 
if they can figure out how to do that
if there even is a vote by then
if there even is a world. 
But meantime they’ll just have to remain
in their literally meaningless limbo
and we have to wonder if it’s a coincidence
that the state’s initial is the grade its education deserves.

Richard Fireman, writing for over fifty years, has given readings at several libraries and Barnes & Noble, and has published over a hundred poems. In 2009 he contributed a chapter to the bibliotherapy book Writing Away the Demons. In September 2022 ten of his poems (five of which had previously been published) were featured in The Thursday Poets' Anthology: Dreams and Realities, along with those of eight of his fellow online writing circle members. His first poetry collection Constellations was published by Prolific Pulse Press in December 2022.

THE ENGLISH TEACHER PENS A LETTER TO TECH CEOS

by Alejandro Escudé

An afternoon grading on the internet, I walk out

To the November skies of Los Angeles, warm,

A day moon more orb-like than usual in the east.

The sun a shining lake behind fair weather clouds.

I’m thinking of you. How you stalked us in our 

Classrooms for years, removing first our books.

Taking our grades and popping them on screens

That would never time out, even on vacations.

It’s you I blame whenever I can’t direct students

To a specific page, numbers eliminated long ago,

The corners, dog-eared, the scanning of the hand

Across print to mark a quote, to seize an argument.

But I’m a gnat on a remote beach of the economic

Planet to you staring at a sea of adolescents with 

Endless passwords tattooed on their brains. Strolling,

I spot a Yellow-rumped Warbler shadowing me along 

The side of the road. An intelligence, a god, birthed

Of the moon and sun. Buffering, my human hopes.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

A POEM IN THE STYLE OF…

by Samantha Pious

ChatGPT, I’m running out of time—

at 5 PM submissions will be due.

I need an adverb to fill out the line

and so, reluctantly, I turn to you.

 

ChatGPT, this stanza doesn’t rhyme.

I need your help! What ends in -angeroo?

Hmm. Nothing else? I’m really in a bind—

maybe you could write this next one too?

 

ChatGPT, there’s so much on my mind

and writing’s hard. So give me just a few

new poems for this manuscript of mine.

If somebody—lol, who?—decides to sue,

 

I’ll say it’s a conceptual design.

Brilliant, eh? Five books, and twenty-two

thousand copies sold on Nook and Prime!

Life is good. There’s so much left to do.

 

ChatGPT, I’m running out of time.

Samantha Pious is a poet, translator, editor, and medievalist with a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. Her translations of Renée Vivien are available as A Crown of Violets (Headmistress Press, 2017); her translation of Christine de Pizan's One Hundred Ballades of a Lover and His Lady is forthcoming.