“On the wall are photos of President Gerald Ford, our family on vacation, and antique pictures of naked ladies.   How many naked ladies do I have to look at before I get something to eat? I ask.   I’ll think about it, she says.” - Bill Ratner (@bilorat.bsky.social)

“Grafted here now, tethered to sap not my own, wrapped in evergreen and borrowed moss— the trees around me teaching what roots can do when the frost comes, how love moves through heartwood without asking permission.” - Tian Sanchez-Ballado voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/o...

“The sky moved without permission. We let the mosquitoes circle and bite our legs bloody until light. Small volumes of ourselves hung in the air around us as we ignored all the ways to start over.” - Cole Pragides voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/n...

“The afternoon of my grandmother’s funeral, / my sisters, mom, nephew, and I / decide to paint with a Bob Ross episode, hoping / to dull our grief with bright colors, to soothe / our broken spirits with his bulbous brown hair, / his velvet voice and reassurances.” - Trystan Popish

“we are as dark inside as the night is, meaning, / we are so beautiful most people choose / not to see us, for fear of overwhelming / themselves” - Ariana Brown (@arianathepoet.bsky.social) voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/m...

“Fine, if you insist, I will go wherever you go, I will try the chicken tikka masala, I will reply to your 'mi amores', I will play your games, I will be the stud who steals you a kiss in public. I will love you the way you want to be loved." - Erick Flores Díaz voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/l...

“Unlike Blockbuster and Redbox, I, too, am here. And I’m watching you rebuild. Even though you can’t rewind, you can make another life worth watching to the credits.” - Jonathan Fletcher (@jmfletcher15.bsky.social) voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/g...

“Taste what the tree roots know, Bend your back at lightning snaps. Submit to the murmurs of rabbit children.” - Oisín Rowe (@orowe.bsky.social) voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/g...

“my boy told me hey / but you’re still a good / dude confession / the devil speaks / to you in your own / voice he’s no / ventriloquist” - Tim Lynch voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/f...

"Like a game of snake / an ouroboros on an old Nokia. Those invincible / bricks, where did they go? Other than swallowed / up deep inside, of course. Bit by micro-bit." - @carmenbarefield.bsky.social voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/d...

“but if this world is not that if heaven is hidden from sight do this as often as you do this in remembrance of...   the warm embrace of another despite the nearness of life without” - Mikey Franz voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/c...

“At the holiday party / my wife’s coworkers ask about my poetry / and I tell them oh, / it’s slice-of-life kind of stuff. / Bird on a wire kind of stuff. They ask / but what are they about?” - Joshua Lillie voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/a...

“There was so much we didn’t see, but it saw us. We shone for it. The past recognizes its imminent relatives.   It warms as it watches you and me becoming  artifacts of love.” - Rose DeMaris voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/a...

we are so beautiful most people choose not to see us, for fear of overwhelming themselves - "Motion, or Teaching My Best Friend My Favorite Songs At the Top of Our Lungs", @arianathepoet.bsky.social

Can I ever be so placid, so sturdy in relationship? In the museum I think, Yes. But back out in the city I’m this purple orchid opening easily in the florist’s hand, humid with tears when the man in the bodega speaks to me sweetly, calls me honey. - "A Tooth of Mary Magdalene", Rose DeMaris

❄️ winter issue's up! ❄️ ft. @carmenbarefield.bsky.social, @arianathepoet.bsky.social, @jmfletcher15.bsky.social, @bilorat.bsky.social, & more! voicemailpoems.org/2026/02/04/w...

“I feed like falling and I fuck like falling, equalizing pressure, meant to shed a wreck of men” - Callie Jennings (@aporianautics.bsky.social) voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/w...

“and I loved before I had the language then it came in a dialect I had to translate for myself” - Muhammad Rabih voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/u...

last call for submissions for our winter issue! ❄️ call & send us a poem by midnight pacific time to be considered ✨

What a thrill to read the kind words about "When I Try to Verify..." in here! Thanks to @voicemailpoems.bsky.social for giving it a home, and everyone in Imani Cezanne's workshop & Boston's T4T Readings for helping to shape it. & tysm to TFR for putting this all together!

“and why             this want for permanence surround   sound my life with             backups sound out my name and   it’s almost a library” - Fiona Martinez voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/u...

two weeks left to submit ⏳ send us a poem!

“Gravity is repression, you think and try to not. You know how you will feel when you awaken. You can already feel the cold sweat coming.” - JeFF Stumpo voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/t...

“do not be afraid of your own heart beating” - Charlotte Alexander voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/t...

“What bloomed from grief / came instinct, / came wrath.” - c. rivera voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/s...

“I want to write about eternity too just like the cats probing at their breakfasts   or your two week old hands Isadora brushing my beard like sleepwalking windshield wipers” - Dylan Emmons voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/p...

we are currently accepting submissions for our WINTER 2026 issue, & we'd love to hear from you! ✨ 💛 voicemailpoems.org/submit 💛 deadline january 1st

Have you seen/heard this one by Jenna Cardinale? That ending!

Oh hey, it's meeeee. Thanks @voicemailpoems.bsky.social for giving "potato" new life! ❤️

“it’s where most of us find ourselves after a relationship sharing space with those silver skins not fitting any better than the aluminum did her and her meal prep her and her insistence others should hide what she plans to devour” - @c-late.bsky.social voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/p...

“As a recluse / I really went / all out" - @jennacardinale.bsky.social voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/n...

“When I called desire by name, the fog lifted from our past.” - Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/n...

“I wanted heaven But space spat me out. I heard earth girls are easy. I’m so easy I only learned how to fight Back last week. I didn’t win. But I cured my depression By making the bed!” - Jamie Hood (@veryhotmomm.bsky.social) voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/m...

so honored to be cooking in your rotisserie, Ann 🪱🔪💜

Proof that poets are prophets: this poem is now extra poignant with the last Old Farmer's Almanac dropping in 2026 :/

“Why, even when / I am so quiet, and so good, can I not catch a fish? Why did you die, when / you knew every psalm by heart and every benefit of witch hazel? / Do you ever feel like July has forgotten your name?" - Lauren Mills voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/l...

“Solidarity is pissing / in adjacent stalls. / A godly marriage / is a throuple with / Christ.” - Alexa Vallejo voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/l...

More of the Fall issue awesomeyamazingyness over at Voice Mail Poems. Hearing this poem by Juniper Danger is chef's kiss and visceral.

“My thoughts have value even if no one reflects on them. / These mountains scrape the sky even after the sun dips behind them, / the gardens keep growing in darkness even after the dykes who dressed up for the art have / wandered out.” - Juniper Danger voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/t...

“I’m wondering how best to preserve / this day when I find myself summoned / outside into the warming light” - John Muro voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/b...

“the loss we talk about / it doesn’t heal” - Chiara Crisafulli, “4-tongue poem” voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/4...

Catch my 🪱🪱🪱 pantoum just a page over from Jamie Hood @veryhotmomm.bsky.social !!!

Thanks to @voicemailpoems.bsky.social for including a poem of mine in this issue. Listen up!

🍁 fall issue's up! 🍁 ft. @veryhotmomm.bsky.social, @jennacardinale.bsky.social, @aporianautics.bsky.social, @c-late.bsky.social, & more! voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/f...

last call for submissions for our fall issue! ⌛️ call & send in a poem by midnight pacific time to be considered ✨

one week left to submit! ⌛️ send us a poem 👻

“I dreamed of a canoe, and of the two of us” - Devan Murphy voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/t...

The Urge is open for poetry and art! Deadline: Sept 22nd! engineidling.net

Extension alert! We added a couple more days to our Poetry Contest! Send your poetry for our judge, Cecily Parks by this Friday; the winner will receive $250 and publication. Find details in the nest and on Submittable: pigeonpagesnyc.submittable.com/submit

“But dawn, Because you hid behind the horizon torches blazed, blinding, breaking sleep and families as parents were taken from screaming kids to be jailed then charged then sent back to the islands   Dawn, because you were silent, because all murmurings were silenced.” - @kakapowhakatoi.bsky.social