Episodes

  • On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Good

    On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Good
    Jan 8 2026
    On Learning to Dissect Fetal PigsRenée Nicole Good

    This poem was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize in 2020.

    i want back my rocking chairs,

    solipsist sunsets,
    & coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.
    i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores
    (mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—
    the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):
    remember more the slick rubber smell of high gloss biology textbook pictures; they burned the hairs inside my nostrils,
    & salt & ink that rubbed off on my palms.
    under clippings of the moon at two forty five AM I study&repeat
    ribosome
    endoplasmic—
    lactic acid
    stamen

    at the IHOP on the corner of powers and stetson hills—

    i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to anymore, maybe my gut—
    maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.

    it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead.
    can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom


    now i can’t believe—
    that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”—
    all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:
    life is merely
    to ovum and sperm
    and where those two meet
    and how often and how well
    and what dies there.
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    3 mins
  • Genesis of Her by Kiran Ashraf

    Genesis of Her by Kiran Ashraf
    Jan 8 2026
    Genesis of HerKiran AshrafHer body is like a powerful tidelooming in an ever-flowing motionchewing on her emotions like riceshe aches to read in sheltering armswearing her chaos for a better lifeher skin is a wild thing at its bestmemories in her songs of griefnow trembled and hummed in her boneslike a silent gust of unfinished wreckageor an absent orchestra of musical hellher two eyes wander through the meadowslessons forced on her forgiving shouldersall her exhausting days and unsent textsare winding up in threads of crocheted woolshe exists in this unyielding temporalgrowing stronger among unseen enemies

    More from Kiran Ashraf ↓

    1. @kiran_ashraf on Instagram and @kiranashraf7 on Substack

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    2 mins
  • Transmorphing by Özge Lena

    Transmorphing by Özge Lena
    Jan 7 2026
    Transmorphing Özge Lena

    This Poem was commended for Winged Muse Poetry Competition of Winged Moon Literary Magazine

    After Harpy by Valerie Hammond
    In seven nights she will burstinto nothing. Now all alone in a creamcoloured void, a woundlike creature, a word hunger like no other.Soon you will meet herin the neon gloaming, after the ruby acheof not writing for a long winter,frost flowers in your heart. Her low wingswill be closed, sharp clawspointing down and down, some frozensadness on her pale face.Sunset’s vermilion beams will bleedinto your lungs as you holdher by hair, unfurl the ribbon to tie itaround your neck, to see your freedomknotted in its silk, and breathelife into her mouth. You will watch herunfold her wings wide, talonswill scratch the soft air when she cloaksyou tight until you morph intoa harpy to write a septet poem in red ink.

    More from Özge Lena ↓

    1. @lenaozge on Instagram
    2. You can find her on Substack @lenaozge where she presents her new approach to poetry, Catapoetry. It is a poetic framework about the interwoven and inseparable catastrophes of our age.
    3. You can listen to me read luminous girl lullaby by Özge Lena on Instagram @rembrandts.cure

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    2 mins
  • To Fall Is to Begin by Irina Vérène

    To Fall Is to Begin by Irina Vérène
    Jan 6 2026
    To Fall Is to BeginIrina Vérènei won’t be draggedpast the pearly gates—i’ll leave of my own volition.with these heavenly rulesstifling my breath,i must say,it seems a wise decision.
    amidst the flamesand the curling smoke,i shall rise anew—after all,a fall from heaven,a descent to hell,is a baptism, too.

    More from Irina Vérène ↓

    1. @queen_of_gore on Instagram
    2. They are featured in Haunted Words Press' anthology, Our Dearest Devotions, which contains their flash fiction piece about friendship, fae magic, and gender transition.

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    1 min
  • Becoming Again by Reya

    Becoming Again by Reya
    Jan 5 2026
    Becoming AgainReyaI didn’t rise like fire —I rose like forgiveness.Lost me once, still trying,sky’s the limit, I’m craving the climb.
    Thoughts that once broke menow make me alive again.Words find me, like a heart reborn —one heartbreak broke a million dreams,but that heartbreak built me stronger —heartless enough to fight for them again.

    More from Reya ↓

    1. @moodmakerperson on Instagram
    2. Her book, Teenage Tide, is available now.

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    1 min
  • Sunday Recap & Crawl Space by Maggie Devers

    Sunday Recap & Crawl Space by Maggie Devers
    Jan 4 2026
    Here’s your recap of this week’s poems plus one new poem to carry us into the week ahead.Dec 29 - Eclipse of the Self by Ruvaani @ruvaani.unclaimed on Instagram. Her book, The Sunken Daffodil, is out now.Dec 30 - Cold Plunging by Kristin Yates @beautefantasy on Instagram. You can find links to her published work on her Linktree.Dec 31 - Of love and hell by Kajal @mermaidspen_ on Instagram and @mermaidspen on Substack.Jan 1 - New Dawn by Benedicta Kyeremaa Addai @Kyere_mah on Instagram. She was published in the anthology, Ancestors, answer me, a compilation of shortlisted poems entered into the 2025 New Voices Poetry Contest Curated by Creative Project Ghana. The New Voices Contest was born from a desire to give poetic voices in Ghana a platform to celebrate the richness of Ghanaian expression, language and imagination. A copy of the anthology can be found at the website of New Voices Poetry Contest or Creative Ghana Project on Instagram.Jan 2 - January Born by JC @theincidentalpoet on Instagram and Substack.Jan 3 - "My heart is a museum of every person I've ever loved" by Megan Phillips @metaphor_megg on Instagram. Her book, Uncomfortably Present, is available now.Jan 4Crawl SpaceMaggie DeversThis was the year of the snakeBut I didn’t realize it until the endNow I feel free from my itchy skin Like emerging from the steam roomPores open, every ounce of old squoze out...
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    7 mins
  • “My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved” by Megan Phillips

    “My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved” by Megan Phillips
    Jan 3 2026
    “My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved” Megan Phillips My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever lovedMy Dad’s birthday is national start over dayYesterday I told the ocean that I would let go of all the victim bullshitI would let the past me be in the rearviewI will be new after washing my feet in the sand
    Venus, I said,I will have more funAnd loveAnd I won’t be bitter and sadAbout what I don’t have
    I will appreciate being 34 and on vacation with my husband aloneI will appreciate the new pet sitter who I know will train my dog I will appreciate the rabbits I saw 3-4 times this weekI will appreciate the small crab on the beach who was walked on but god damn it, he lived
    My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever loved His Mom is Portmeirion plates and ‘Hey there Delilah” Because she thought it reminded her of usWhich made no damn sense but it’s her song now
    My heart is a museum of every person I’ve ever lovedMy grandfather it’s coffee shops and poppiesMy grandmother it’s yellow daffodils cigarettes and knit sweatersMy mom is MAC Red lipstickMy Dad is tanned freckled skinMy husband is blue eyes and big hands

    More from Megan Phillips ↓

    • @metaphor_megg on Instagram
    • Her book, Uncomfortably Present, is available now.

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    2 mins
  • January Born by JC

    January Born by JC
    Jan 2 2026
    January Born JC I was winter’s child,wrapped in borrowed wool,breath small as frost on windowpanes.
The world outside was brittle then,trees bare-boned againsta sky that never learned warmth,roads lined with grit and quiet.
Inside, there was laughter,steam from mugs that foggedthe kitchen glass,a lullaby of radiators clankingas if they toowere proud to keep me alive.
January taught me patience—that buds sleep long before they bloom,that light returns in rationed teaspoons,that beginnings aren’t always bright,but they are strong.
And so when I look back,I see my first days threaded with cold,yet stitched with care,a child born not to fireworks,but to the hush of snow,the steady hands of a yearjust learning how to start again.

    More from JC ↓

    • @theincidentalpoet on Instagram and Substack

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    2 mins