National Poetry Month

Apr 24

Written By Holly Mason

In honor of National Poetry Month, our staff put together a list of 12 poems, stunning, mighty, & nourishing.

Camille Rankine, “Aubade” in The Academy of American Poets

Franny Choi, “Introduction to Quantum Theory” in The Adroit Journal

Meg Day, “Hymn to a Landlocked God” in Drunken Boat

Christopher Soto (Loma), “All The Dead Boys Look Like Me” in Literary Hub

Zeina Hashem Beck, “Naming Things” in The Rialto

Natalie Diaz, “The Facts of Art” at Poetry Foundation

Travis Lau, “Fuinjutsu,” “Imago,” & “Arisen” in The Deaf Poets Society

Saeed Jones, “Boy In Stolen Evening Gown” in The Academy of American Poets

Aracelis Girmay, “from prayer & letter to the dead” & “from to the sea” in Poets & Writers

Oliver Baez Bendorf, “I Promised Her My Hands Wouldn’t Get Any Larger” from Ninth Letter

Lisa Summe, “Elegy” in Waxwing Literary Journal

Dana Levin, “Banana Palace” in Poetry Magazine

Holly Mason

Holly Mason Badra is a queer, Kurdish American writer living in Northern Virginia. She is the curatorial editor of Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (The University of Arkansas Press). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Mizna, The Markaz Review, Everything is Political, Poet Lore, Manoa, Rowayat, Meridian, Asymptote, The Arkansas International, The Northern Virginia Review, The Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, SWWIM Everyday, Circumference Magazine, CALYX, and elsewhere. She is the associate director of Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. She reads for Poetry Daily and serves as the board vice-president of Henar Press.

National Poetry Month

Review of Sandra Lim’s The Wilderness

Review of J.K. Daniels’ Wedding Pulls