Archive

2024

Alina Zollfrank, “Coping Skills”
Jen Grace Stewart, “Fashion”
Kristine Langley Mahler, “On the Faint Lines Between Catholic Materialism and New Age Talismans”
Jory Mickelson, “How the Green Shimmies”
Shanan Ballam, “Hot Spring, Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Park”
Annie Marhefka, “I believe in God, and other lies we tell our mothers”
Catherine Rockwood, “A poem for my friends”
Jonathan Frey, “Sara sees the place afar off”
Heidi Seaborn, “When We Lived Like International Spies”
Todd Osborne, “Ode on Wanting Kids”
Gillian Cummings, “Forsythia”
Lily Greenberg, “My Mother’s God”
Rachel Neve-Midbar, “Pierced”

2023

Patty Somlo, “A Long Way Off”
Natalie Marino, “God as Sky”
Shane Chergosky, “[YOU NEVER LET ME FORGET THIS]”
Mitchell Nobis, “How Many Times We Pray”
E.G.N. Lafleur, “The Revelation of Margery Kempe”
Stephen Tuttle, “Some Brothers”
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick, “In This Story, All Appliances are Offline”
Chris Anderson, “Wild Iris”
Jennifer Bullis, “Self-Portrait as the Prophet Isaiah, Yearning”
Kosisochukwu W. Ugwuede, “In the Name of Everything: On Altars, Prayer and Praying”
Alexa Doran, “Biomimicry (Break Up Version)”
Taylor Franson-Thiel, “Miracle No. 1”
Joyce Compton Brown, “Faucet”
Lee Potts, “Angel Triptych”
Amy Bobeda, “It’s Important to Know the Other Side of the Story”
Lynn Finger, “Even the moon’s not up”
Cora Enterline, “Somewhere”
Jory Mickelson, “Chicago”
Elizabeth Pinborough, “Neural Shock-Stitch”
Susan Marie Swanson, “Characteristics of Knitted Fabric”
Jessica Goodfellow, “Relief”
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick, “Damaged Moon”
Jennifer Bullis, “Self-Portrait as Sarah, Confessing to Abraham”
Gail Tyson, “Cloud Spotting”
Melanie McCabe, “When No One Wants To Be Chosen”
Melissa McKinstry, “Fig Tree”
Elizabeth Robinson, “prayer”
Emily Murtagh, “Love Alone”
Lorren Lemmons, “Soft, Wild Things”
Jared Beloff and Laurie Marshall, “Poetry”
Kell Pieper, “you chose to die in your library”
Francine Witte, “Mimi Comes to the Door and No One Can Stop Her”
A. Kim Johnasson, “Trinity”
Rose Segal, “Chalk Paper”
Małgosia Halliop, “Lot’s Daughter, In Flight”
Amorak Huey, “Temptation”
Meghan Sterling, “My Body Holds New York”
Christina Lloyd, “Meditation”
Melissa McKinstry, “Wrestling the Angel”
Barbara Ungar, “Santa Barbara”
Jared Beloff and Laurie Marshall, “What does it mean to be a river?”
Elizabeth Robinson, “end times”
Laura Reece Hogan, “The Elysia Sea Slug”
Caroline Shea, “Birthday”
Lizzy Ke Polishan, “Wading to Pelican Island”
Kathryn Smith, “ink poem 152”
Emily Murtagh’s “autonomy”
Małgosia Halliop, “That Call”
C. Henry Smith, “Collect for the Feast of Saint Francis”
Hilary King, “Petals from a Dying Bouquet”
A. Kim Johansson, “If”
Leslie Grollman, “Bereshis Bara Elohim”

2022

Katherine Indermaur, “Tonight the Hard Moon”
Erin Greenhalgh, “Treatment for Chronic Pain”
Michelle Bitting, “In my Great Grandmother’s Grave, Channeling Holmes”
Aparna Mitra, “Contemplating the Death of My Infant Son”
Carolyn Oliver, “Prayer for a Haunting”
Ana Pugatch, “House Blessing”
Megan Merchant, “Subjects to Consider for Both Painting & Writing”
Martin Mitchell, “Saint Apollonia”
Christopher Klingbeil, “Hemingway was wrong”
Cynthia R. Wallace, “Metaphysics after Emergency Surgery”
Catherina Barrett, “Edith’s Family Portrait, 1974”
Britt Allen, “What She Remembers”
Deirdre Lockwood, “False Spring, Year of the Tiger”
Jeannie Prinsen, “Portrait of My Grandmother, Not Knitting”
Lauren Camp, “Bladderpod, House Leek, Prickly Thrift, Dragonhead”
Jen Karetnick, “Vision: Myopic”
James Miller, “Citrus February”
Martin Mitchell, “Sunset”
Laurie Klein, “Husband, Wife”
Han VanderHart, “Self-Portrait as a Dreadnought”
Esteban Rodríguez, “Quinceañera”
Katherine Indermaur, “Every Vesper”
Christian Stanzione, “The Dumb Ox”
Daniel Edward Moore, “Romans 7:15”
Aparna Mitra, “Jam”
Carolyn Oliver, “My Father Met an Angel”
Cathy Wittmeyer, “Sisters Twisting Beatitudes”
Mark J. Mitchell, “Jacob’s Stepladder”
Martha Silano, “Poem Written One-Hundred Yards from My Mother’s Grave”
Jennifer Pons, “Locusts”
Kass Morgan, “Abide With Me”
Jennifer Peterson, “West Lake, Lamar County, Mississippi”
Ana Pugatch, “Dear Flor”
Michael Sowder, “ऋ”
Rachel Trousdale, “Optics Lab”
Megan McDermott, “Dear Ruth, Written from a Crossroads Moment”
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, “Late Anthropocene Love Poem With Window Clings”
Heidi Seaborn, “If Only”
Gail Tyson, “Anatomy of Dreams”
Phillip Watts Brown, “The Archangels Assemble IKEA Furniture”
Dana Delibovi, “Walking Back”
Sarah J. Sloat, “the great distance”
Han VanderHart, “The Body is Water and Water Has Origins”
Lauren Camp, “Absorbed”
Christian Stanzione, “Recent Developments in Set Theory”
Tiel Aisha Ansari, “The House of Possible”
Constance Hansen, “Zina”
Alyssa Quinn, “Babel”
Gregory Brooks, “Blessed are the Fugitives of Sermons” and “Getaway”
Rob Merritt, “Hungry Ghost Moon of July”
Kelly Lenox, “Riverine”
Vismai Rao, “In which I discover”
Whitney Rios-Ross, “Covenant”
Kimbol Soques, “the Word of God to the bao shop folk”

2021

Maggie Blake Bailey, “Frogging It”
Lauren Camp, “White Flower”
Lynn Staley, “Compline”
Brett Harrington, “Psalm”
Richard Widerkehr, “Saying Evening Prayers at Our Zoom Services” & “Night Journey”
John Backman, “Ordinary Essay”
Carolyn Oliver, “The Storerooms” & “Seven Offerings for a Sick Friend”
Ken Hines, “All There Is”
Jennifer Dracos-Tice, “After Birth”
Margot Berdeshevsky, “Safe”
Tina Carlson, “Saint Ursula”
Andrea Baumgartel, “Main Street Apartment, Grinnell, Iowa”
Joe Plicka, “Sitting in the Middle Fork of the Payette” & “I Saw a Man Carrying a Cross”
Seay Sandifer, “Owl”
Jeffrey Hermann, “The Rake that’s Leaning Against the Tree in the Yard”
Ruth Goring, “Ávila”
Kemry Farthing, “Emily Observed”
Mary M. Brown, “prayer for improvement”
Linda Parsons, “PORCH VISITATION” & “HAVANA VISITATION”
Romana Iorga, “Listen”
Katherine J. Williams, “Suppose There Were Light”
Richard Oyama, “Elsewhere”
Rachel Rueckert, “When You Fell”
Gale Acuff, “Thou Shalt Not”
Crystal Karlberg, “Another Bleeding Title”
Marilyn McCabe, “Pro Patria”
Carol Hamilton, “Forgetfulness and the Day of Judgment”
David B. Prather, “Journal Entry: Apocalypse”
Donna Spruijt-Metz, “God in Amsterdam” & “And Left it in the sky”
Shaun Anderson, “The Clown”
Rebecca Cook, “onion skin”
Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen, “Diluvium” & “Before My Trans Son Called Himself Noah”
Michael J. Carter, “Paper Birch”
Jennifer L. Freed, “Mirror”
Jennifer Bullis, “First Mother”
Christen Noel Kauffman, “Letter to God”
Jaime Speed, “Stillbirth”
Lisa Bickmore, “O take and seal it”
Rebecca Cook, “speak now forever the endless shout”
Jessica L. Walsh, “Book of Numbers”
Calvin Olsen, “Attempts”
Tyler Chadwick, “Like a Prayer–”
Allan Lake, “Apostate’s Prayer”
Ruth Goring, “Corona Way”
Jack B. Bedell, “Ghost Forest”
CJ Bell, “Polish Horeb”
Sara Judy, “Doubtless Come Again Rejoicing” “By and By the Harvest” & “Going Forth With Weeping”
Claire Scott, “You Won’t Find Him in the Illiad”
Annette Sisson, “Surface Tension”
Marissa Glover, “Fagaceae Quercus Virginiana”
JS Nahani, “A Long Time Coming”
Annie Stenzel, “in the forest, birdsong echoes”

2021 Orison Anthology Nominees
2021 Best of the Net Nominees

2020

Jessie Janeshek, “The Calendar Is Front-Loaded”
Shelia Wellehan, “Marathon Man”
Satya Dash, “Lonesome Shepherd”
Susan Elizabeth Howe, “The Hag of Beara”
Peter Vertacnik, “Sugar Beets”
Pauletta Hansel, “Hunger” & “Reflection”
Issam Zineh, “8 Parables to Keep You Safe, Defy Aging, & Banish Evil”
Lisa Bickmore, “Service Hymn”
Christian Anton Gerard, “Listen,” “Spare and a Jack and Daylight Going Down” & “Devil-May-Care, adj. and n.“
Risa Denenberg, “Elegy on the Mourning of My Death”
Cindy Veach, “Tornado Warning”
Lauren Camp, “Wavelengths”
Martha Silano, “No One Can Move Me the Way that You Do,”
Therese Gleason, “Last Rites”
Faith Paulsen, “Carotenoid”
Donna Vorreyer, “Lessons about Light”
Marjorie Maddox, “The 200 Pagan Students of St. Cassian of Imola”
Linda Parsons, “Believe”
Christen Noel Kauffman, “Sheltering In”
K. Marie Bennett, “Count”
Lisa Rhoades, “Cardinal”
Cynthia Atkins, “Self-Portrait with Elegy”
Sheree La Puma, “The Neighbors”
Millie Tullis, “Ode to my great great grandfather’s five wives”
Laura Donnelly, “Doxology”
Meg Yardley, “Emergence”
Stella Reed, “Magpie Visits Saint Lucy at the Convent for Retired Nuns”
Angela Belcaster, “Every House Has its Church”
Brent House, “The Humid Temptations”
Mary Buchinger, “Theory of Everything”
Forester McClatchey, “After Abel”
Sara Moore Wagner, “Jonah Complex”
Angela Bilger, “On Florida backroads, heaven”
Lauren Camp, “Haitus”
Diane Ash Boland, “Donar’s Oak”
Rena Priest, “The Pandemic Pages (Excerpt)”
J.I. Kleinberg, “feast”
Jeff Hardin, “A World Not Gentle”
Sara Jeanine Smith, “Golgotha”
Susan O’Dell Underwood, “God as Urinary Tract Infection”
Claudia Monpere, “Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Daughter, Rose, Prays the Mysteries of the Rosary”
Andres Rojas, “I Am Prometheus”
Ronda Broatch, “Passion Theory”
Sarah Stockton, “The Color of My Uncle’s Car”
Nathan R. Elliot, “ORAL HISTORY OF THE GODS: So what: on the moral virtues of drinking and talking all night”
Carlos Andrés Gómez, “Father”
Benjamin Cutler, “A Prophecy for the First Horse that Carried Me”
Phillip Watts Brown, “They Call This Flower Lucifer”
Susan L. Leary, “Platonic Love Poem”
Kailey Tedesco, “no. 3 youth”
Jen Karetnick, “Swell”
Leah Stenson, “Resurrection”
Ralph James Savarese, “Belief”

2020 Orison Anthology Nominees
2020 Best of the Net Nominees
2020 Pushcart Nominees
2020 Best New Poets Nominees

2019

Mary Biddinger, “God’s Plan”
Amy E. Casey, “The Right Sky”
Brenda Miller, “Star of David”
Elizabeth Vignali, “Our Lady of the Silverfish”
Marjorie Maddox, “Your Godmother, Almost Blind,”
Ray Ball, “30 November”
Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo, “Household Gods”
Natalie Young, “This Rainbow”
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, “Ghazal with Wonder”
Iris Graville, “How to Quilt Memories: Instructions For My Mother”
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick, “If Loving You Was a Condition Where I Needed to Hunt Pain”
Kevin Murphy, “On the Varieties of Religious Experience”
Sara Moore Wagner, “As Christ in the Wilderness”
Angela Bilger, “Sunken Cathedral”
Michael Hicks, “On Paul’s Letter to the Romans”
Susan O’Dell Underwood, “God as Uterus”
Claudia Monpere, “Blessing for Cows”
Mary Biddinger, “Odd Mysteries”
Andres Rojas, “Flying Wallendas”
Kelli Russell Agodon, “After the Affair, We Clean House”
Phillip Watts Brown, “Beehive State”
Carol Grametbauer, “Something That Spoke”
Sally Rosen Kindred, “Breakfast in the Early Universe”
Ace Boggess, “Life-Changing Magic”
Nathan R. Elliot, “ORAL HISTORY OF THE GODS: An interlude on the unbearable cynicism of institutions”
Angelique Zobitz, “Preach OR My Mama’s got her GED & Gifted Me Existentialism & Human Emotion at Sixteen”
Jennifer Martelli, “St. Cocaine of Lines, St. Anisette, St. Marijuana, St. Horse”
Twila Newey, “Parable of Ruminants”
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, “Elegy for the Lost Carry-On”
Joyce Compton Brown, “Heat Storm”
Marilyn Bushman-Carlton, “Hair Narratives”
Lauren Camp, “What a Wave Is”
Laura E. Hilton, “Doubter’s Psalm”
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, “Ever Laboring”
Luther Allen, “religion”
Andrea Potos, “Renoir’s Yarn”
Devon Miller-Duggan, “Mary Looks at Northern Renaissance Madonnas”
Kathryn Knight Sonntag, “Labor”
Carol Berg, “Against Blessings”
Nathan R. Elliot, “Creating Sacred Space in Labrador: Conversation 5”
David Beaumier, “Good Friday”
Megan McDermott, “Christ-Dreams: Labor”
Amy Small-McKinney, “Poem Beginning with Lines from Rumi”
Carol Grametbauer, “What She’ll Do”
Michael Hicks, “Symptoms and Pathology of Swallowing a Foreign Object: A Symposium”
Kelly Fordon, “Flu”
Jennifer Martelli, “Waiting for My Son at Midnight by the Church at the Edge of the Small Woods Where the Kids Get Stoned”
Twila Newey, “Snow and Sand”
John Sibley Williams, “As It Is on Earth”
Nathan R. Elliot, “When It’s Time to Leave: Conversation 4”
Troy Varvel, “A Prayer for After the Funeral” “The Way Buttons Work” & “Her First Attempt”
Linda Conroy, “Blueprint” & “New Prayer”
EJ Shu, “Meridional overturning”
Julie Trimingham, “Ain’t No Man”
Lee Nash, “The murmur” & “Requisition”
Nathan R. Elliot, “Shut Up and Listen: Conversation 3”
Angie Crea O’Neal, “The Milky Way” & “The Anniversary”

2019 Orison Anthology Nominees
2019 Best of the Net Nominees
2019 Pushcart Nominees
2019 Best New Poets Nominees

2018

Susan O’Dell Underwood, “Song”
James Owens, “The Prodigal Son Makes Notes for a Eulogy and Never Mentions the Fatted Calf”
Ace Boggess, “‘How Do We Sense the Sensational?'”
Laurie Klein, “Roaming Charges”
Gail Tyson, “Illuminatus” & “Galway Cathedral”
J.I. Kleinberg, “So much is yet unnamed–“
John Sibley Williams, “The Candescence” & “Wide as a Heaven Hemmed in by Hills”
Devon Balwit, “I’ve Counted Wild Branches for the Dead”
Nathan R. Elliot, “An Oral History of the Gods in North America: Leave the Shit Behind”
Lana Bella, “Augury” & “Bipolar Brings with It”
Rick Hartwell, “Lost Dream at 72”
Michael Grubb, “The Arc”
Susan O’Dell Underwood, “Love”
L.J. McCray, “I want to die at sunrise:” & “Hurts you, doesn’t it?”
Emily Shearer, “Words for Levitation”
Mary Peelen, “Proof” & “Sunday Morning”
James Wyshynski, “Where I’m Heading”
James Owens, “At Summer’s Decline”
C. Ann Kodra, “‘You Are My Sunshine'”
Maggie Blake Bailey, “Horses”
Kelly Cressio-Moeller, “a hand squeezing” & “Men are out for blood”
Kathryn Knight Sonntag, “Nüshu*”
Susan O’Dell Underwood, “Confession”
Richard Manly Heiman, “Nebuchadnezzar II Unchained”
Jane Simpson, “Psalm 55” & “Psalm 119”
Christine Butterworth-McDermott, “After the Vineyard is Lost”
Jory Mickelson, “Church of the Map: The Jordan River”
Brenda Miller, “Row”
Barbara Daniels, “No Door”
Lauren Jeter, “BB Clarke”
Jim Milstead, “Labyrinth”
Devon Balwit, “And Yet” & “Even in the Lord’s House”
Lauren Jeter, “Elephant March”
Linda Parsons, “As I Meditate”
Elizabeth Cranford Garcia, “Resurrection Body”
Maggie Blake Bailey, “Mary Listens” & “Nativity”
David W. Landrum, “Ariadne’s Thread”
Laurie Klein, “Out of Egypt”
D.G. Geis, “Psalm 152 (A Song of Ascent)”
Kami Westhoff, “Q&A”
Linda Parsons, “After Easter”
M. Brett Gaffney, “Stations of the Cross”
Jory Mickelson, “Spring, Orcas Island”
Laurie Klein, “News from the Underground: Volcano Aftermath”
Sheila Wellehan, “Safer”
Roy Beckemeyer, “Angel Ordering Exiles from Paradise”
Linda Parsons, “O Forgiveness”
Stellasue Lee, “Admission”
Catherine Rockwood, “A Prayer to Charlotte, in February”
Katherine Riegel, “WE HAD TO LEAVE”
Barbara Daniels, “The Moth”
Linda Parsons, “Grounding”
Melody Newey Johnson, “How Long the Call”
Devon Miller-Duggan, “How to Parse God”

2018 Best of the Net Nominees
2018 Pushcart Nominees

2017

Elizabeth Vignali, “Hera Takes Down the Christmas Tree”
Elizabeth Cranford Garcia, “The Holy Ghost in Erato’s Closet,” “The Holy Ghost in Euterpe’s Closet” and “The Holy Ghost in Calliope’s Closet”
James Hannon, “Go Along to Get Along”
Geoff Martin, “Walking on Water”
Barbara Daniels, “Moving to Sunlight”
Jeff Newberry, “Epistle: A Sea-Dweller Speaks to the Mountain Men”
Jeff Burt, “Grand Tetons”
Rachel Mehl, “All Morning the Morning Has Been Blackening”
Seth Jani, “The Blue Hour”
D.G. Geis, “On this date in the year 410, Rome was sacked by the Visigoths”
David Romtvedt, “Spiritual Mathematics”
Marilyn McCabe, “Orchard Psalm: I have twisted”
Sarah Law, “Two Poems for St. Therese of Lisieux”
Amy C. Casey, “Eveningtime”
John Grey, “Prevailing Conditions”
Shawn P. Bailey, “Infinite Particular”
Gershon Ben-Avraham, “Modeh”
Jeremy Michael Reed, “muein”
Maggie Blake Bailey, “A Body Made of Bees”
Tyler Chadwick, “You Cherubim”
Nathan Elliott, “Notes on Sin”
Natalie Crick, “Swan”
Devon Balwit, “What I Do Is Me”
Javen Tanner, “Excerpt from ‘This Dreamer Cometh'”
Jim Milstead, “woodland”
Sergio Ortiz, “A Hail Mary”
Sarah Stockton, “12 Steps to the Basement”
Sarah Russell, “A Gospel of Birds”
Alex Spears, “Gone Fishing”
Robin Turner, “sundays I would go missing”
David Appelbaum, “Caedmon Miller”
Elizabeth Vignali, “The Valkyries Clear the Table”
Tyler Chadwick, “Uncertain Repast”
Mike Oliphant, “A Verified Truth is not a Final Terminus”
Devon Balwit, “First Mover”
Alan Harris, “The Whisper”
Tyler Chadwick, “A Thing like Death”
Elizabeth Vignali, “Something Shining Up”
Sergio Ortiz, “The Square Root of Love”
Nathan Elliot, “CREDO: Confessions of a Devout Agnostic in Two Verb Tenses and Three Acts”
S.E. Page, “Green and Godward Things”
James Diaz, “I Don’t Disappear Like That Anymore”
Adam Braker, “Air Gun”
Devon Balwit, “Me Cago en Dios”
Sheila Wellehan, “Stigmata”
Tyler Chadwick, “When You Kiss Me”
Katie Manning, “The Book of Sex” “The Book of Mean” “The Book of Jam”
Nina Belen Robins, “Creativity”
Susan Elizabeth Howe, “Crooked-Finger Woman”
James Diaz, “When All Else Fails”
Alex Spears, “Cumulus”
Tyler Chadwick, “No Botticelli, This–”

2017 Pushcart Nominees

2016

Deja Earley “To the Mormon Newlyweds Who Thought the Bellybutton Was Somehow Involved”