People stood on chairs to breathe. / Children on their swim rings to stay alive.

"The rest is blintz & valley folded into my amygdala, like Brianna’s paper fortune teller, the one that promised a life etched out in shades of colored pencil." Matt Coonan www.broadkillreview.com/post/two-poe...

"Someone has written a sign beside the remaining stumps Be careful where you’re going. And I think they’re right." Ray Carey www.broadkillreview.com/post/fallen-...

"You taste kerosene in the air, faint, but unavoidable, a kiss of sweet, high ozone cuddled by the sharpest of tangs..." Robert Beveridge www.broadkillreview.com/post/the-foo...

"I’M GOING TO BREAK! She imagined his egg-head screaming as he took a tumble. His neck was long enough that maybe his egg-head would stay intact, she thought, watching the wrinkles on his throat expand and contract as he talked to her Baba." Narges Anzali www.broadkillreview.com/post/by-narg...

"When the fruits decay, I must leave you again." Lake Angela www.broadkillreview.com/post/childho...

"if the clock does not make a sound, if the skyline descends and hides again in the river." David M Alper www.broadkillreview.com/post/a-city-...

From Five poems by Jianqing Zheng: "Somewhere a saxophone’s sob gropes through the rivertown of blues cloaked by the fog." www.broadkillreview.com/post/five-po...

"when our bodies are softer especially around the middle, when the little narrow bed is barely big enough" by Unmana www.broadkillreview.com/post/i-want-...

From "Drowning Song" "When I sleep, your song invades my dreams. In my dreams, I see you shake the water, curse the world, and sing—to me." Jason Thornberry www.broadkillreview.com/post/drownin...

"I Only Drink It Black" by Sarah Sorensen "IBeyond the window, broken feathered trash. We are not more than this. I want the teeth to come back so I can gaze at them, crooked, hard, and true. " www.broadkillreview.com/post/two-hyb...

"Climbing stairs to an attic’s musty air, or listening to One Fine Day when brooding alone, the glimmer of firelight on silent afternoons, old school photos, rereading stained letters, all beckon our supposedly irretrievable pasts." Ian C Smith www.broadkillreview.com/post/insiste...

Erasure ekphrasis from Bradley Samore "explosions change direction, ignite tenderness" www.broadkillreview.com/post/by-brad... from the latest TBKR

A lovely visual poem from Nico Santana in the BKR www.broadkillreview.com/post/poem-af...

"in the corner of the living room — Mom trying to flatten the corner into a straight wall. I couldn’t hold what was offered to me — "After the Funeral" by Bhavna Parmar, most definitely the most patient writer we worked with this winter.

From the new issue of TBKR, by Shana Ross

"Some recognitions need to be uttered. Or be recognized as need. " @martin65.bsky.social www.broadkillreview.com/post/by-cath... From the new winter/spring issue of TBKR

"in the corner of the living room — Mom trying to flatten the corner into a straight wall. I couldn’t hold what was offered to me — "After the Funeral" by Bhavna Parmar, most definitely the most patient writer we worked with this winter.

My prose poem, Drowning Song, is in the latest issue (Vol 19.1) of the Broadkill Review... www.broadkillreview.com/post/drownin... Thank you, @thebroadkillreview.bsky.social!

Our latest issue is dropping a wee bit early. We will be pushing out links throughout the winter/spring! We open Jan 1st for submissions: poetry, CNF, micro, short story, translation, one act plays, ten-minute plays Enjoy our newest issue www.broadkillreview.com

Maybe my favorite poem publication of the year in @thebroadkillreview.bsky.social - this is the result of me taking a nature poetry workshop once lol www.broadkillreview.com/post/even-th...

SAVE THE DATE: one week from today... A Winter's Night Chapbook Reading 👉 Sunday, Dec 7, 7pm ET (Zoom) Thrilled to celebrate this season of poetry in fab company💙

As someone who works in the tech industry--absolutely. They are testing the waters. These are top-down orders. The ONLY way to stop it is a visceral negative reaction. Write articles. Post your rage. Email. Post. @. All those things. Only you have the power to kill it.

Hello, friends! We're Monarch Queer Literary Awards, a project of @fifthwheelpress.bsky.social. Monarch is a new anthology recognizing the best new queer writing and art published by literary magazines and independent presses. 🦋 Submissions open September 1. Until then, get to know us: monarch.gay

Oh, for an edit button! It was published in @thebroadkillreview.bsky.social Summer 2015, not Gargoyle. (Though I do have poems published there, as well.) My sincerest apologies to Broadkill Review! Please, give them a follow!

We're staffed by volunteers who work as public servants and health care professionals, if you are interested in being a volunteer reader or if you are a book reviewer, reach out! We do publish reviews, and the lit community desperately needs more reviewers! We don't do socials as much as we used to.

1/ 5 Congratulations to our nominees for this year's small press awards Best Spiritual Literature "Taking Liberties Out" by David Kozinski "Worm Moon" by Jessica Purdy

This whole @wired.com package is insane

Got a short poem about this (and other things) forthcoming from @thebroadkillreview.bsky.social in early 2026. 🦊💚

Thank you for all the wonderful submissions. We will be reading and discussing your work over the next few weeks! Subs will reopen in Jan. Thank you to our volunteer readers and staff for their time and care.

Over 40 publications re-opened today, including @asufferersdigest.bsky.social @splitlipthemag.bsky.social‬ @winningwriters.com @ratbaglit.bsky.social @thebroadkillreview.bsky.social @frozenseapoetry.bsky.social @doesithavepockets.bsky.social https://duotrope.com...

We're open for another month! We'll start reading your subs soon. Keep sending your weirdo hybrids, your doubled sonnets, your nonce forms, your visual poems...Work in our pages has gone on to win Best of the Net, been included in anthologies, and been broadcast on NPR stations.

Everything happening now was obvious by March 2021. That's why I wrote about it *then*. This matters because this is a planned autocracy. Feigned surprise at horrors is meant to rewrite history and present our plight as if it wasn't a plan obvious four years ago and countenanced by both parties.

"Rows of naked faces—no one sees me now— absorbed before the actors, titillated by tragedy, while I’m safe in Row 25, you in Row 24, another single ticket holder I noticed in the lobby. "

"Our lines stretch and waver; pieces of DNA from an ancient spool reach out tentative to touch parallel lives, wanting to envelop, entwine, but hesitant to ford the river’s swift moving currents."

"Her story’s naked but her city is clothed. It wears fog like ermine—soft white, with spots that hide old truths but let her new sins show. "

"We’d rag on bad TV with a cartooned violence the separation between past present future is parody isn’t it ironic? How the act of looking back contorts the memory? Don’t the jokes we used to laugh at seem cruel now?"

"Naugahyde face-making with a swivel chair expert sacramental ashtray flicking"

"The tree is topless, all trunk. Its body cuts open to the sky, slit running up most its length like a dress designed to surprise "

"It doesn’t take any particular talent to get laid Mr. Sayfer proclaims in his unannounced presentation to the 8th grade where we sit frozen in metal chairs in the airless auditorium. "

"surely this is someone’s mother the book says or at least strongly implies she needs drinks fixed and a pair of vegan leather pumps"

YOUR BODY: I have a tree growing from my back. [OR] No, not in a while. [OR] Yes, I’ve heard the groundhog did not see its shadow. [OR] Yes–I got a haircut a few months back. ANOTHER BODY: You should probably see a doctor for all that...

"The desert sky refused to give me its stars, so, I sent a black picture to the boy I loved, clutching my breaking body together in a hotel bathtub. "

"Carve me a mouth where no tongue dares venture— pale lines trembling in the marrow of dusk, call it desire: this map"

Shreds of what was once a suit hang tattered from his thin shoulders. Looking like he has walked a thousand miles, he leans against the doorbell for an elementary school. "

"I've mapped your face a thousand times collecting our dirt. I should know better then to roam around our home"

"He’s a bit of a bombast, that man of mine. His dark hair shines – as if oil is creeping out of his skull. It slickens his joints, jaw, hips, the wide length of his palm " www.broadkillreview.com/post/an-effo...