November 2024

POETRY Magazine - November 2024, Volume 225, Number 2

Overall issue rating: 5/5

Comment: There were quite a few weak poems, but I thought the overall presentation of the issue was delightful. There was also a wide range of topics and poem formats, which POETRY sometimes struggles to achieve. The back pages challenged me to push the limits of my worldview. The Editor’s Note by Adrian Matejka was my favorite note of the year.

Best poem of the issue: Adedayo Agarau - the abduction

Adrian Matejka

• Editor’s Note (Rating 5/5)

“Our lives should be lived in interrogatives rather than imperatives. It’s more magnanimous to move through the world with wonder than with unearned certainty. Certainty is for football coaches and mathematicians, not poets.”

Jane Hirshfield

• I am asked a question. (Rating 3/5)

• I Was Not, Among My Kind, Distinctive (Rating 2.5/5)

Rüştü Onur

• Kahkaha – Laughter (Rating 1/5)

• Yolculuk - The Journey (Rating 1.5/5)

• Bulutlar – Clouds (Rating 1/5)

Adam Wolfond

• Between (Rating 1.5/5)

Molly Fisk

• Farmers’ Market (Rating 5/5)

Mag Gabbert

• Pentimento (Rating 3/5)

“Here is a problem with love that is also a problem with poems: how often they
Wish to speak plainly, yet don’t”

• Deus ex Machina: A Ghazal (Rating 5/5)

“In school I just wanted a boyfriend – would’ve given that boy my face to wear locked on his chain. Would’ve promised to save myself for him.”

Annette C. Boehm

• Von der Tierseele - Of the Animal Soul (Rating 3/5)

• Trotzdem – Nevertheless (Rating 1/5)

Othuke Umukoro

• The Year My Father Died (Rating 2.5/5)

• Mass (Rating 4/5)

Josh English

• On form (Rating: 2.5/5)

Darius Atefat-Peckham

• The Orphanage (Rating 3.5/5)

Triin Paja

• Dearest (Rating 1/5)

• The Kiss (Rating 2/5)

• Negligence (Rating 2/5)

Noelani Piters

• When My Beloved Proenza Schouler Tries to Sell Lei for $1,500 (Rating 1/5)

Lara Mimosa Montes

• The Cairn (Rating 4/5)

Adedayo Agarau

• the abduction (Rating 5/5)

“i think their mothers were in the kitchen & their fathers drinking at beer parlors where younger women were rubbing their chests, telling them stories of other men dipping their fingers into their bowels & calling forth water”

• Prelude, Christmas (Rating 5/5)

Rose Ausländer

• Ein Tag im Exil - A Day in Exile (Rating 3/5)

• Aber – However (Rating 3/5)

• Fremde – Strangers (Rating 3/5)

Mairead Small Staid

• An Improvement in Stairs (Rating 4/5)

Anders Carlson-Wee

• Lay It Bare (Rating 5/5)

“Making more each year. Spending more. The pride of how little time you have to spare. I know I embarrass you, still livin on expired food I find, dented tuna I squirrel away, spending at a pace slower than a pulse. Slow, that’s what I have. I’m not happy either.”

Harryette Mullen

• What Draws Us Together (Rating 3/5)

• Inclement Weather (Rating 3.5/5)

JAYNE CORTEZ: I IMITATE NO ONE

Sapphire

• Firespitter: On Jayne Cortez (Rating 4/5)

Jayne Cortez

• Ornette (Rating 2.5/5)

• Dinah’s Back in Town (Rating: 1/5)

• Hungry Love (Rating 4/5)

• Untitled (Rating 1/5)

• How Long Has Trane Been Gone (Rating 3/5)

• Collage for Romare Bearden (Rating 3/5)

• I Am New York City (Rating 4/5)

• Saturdays (Rating 4/5)

• Libations (Rating 2/5)

• I Remember (Rating 4/5)

HARD FEELINGS

Randall Mann

• On Contempt: I Want to Be Liked (Rating 5/5)

“But I hate poetry because I love it so much—and because maybe I feel like I’m not doing enough, or others aren’t taking things seriously enough.”

Andrea Cohen

• On Pettiness: About Those Flying Buttresses (Rating 4/5)

• Graham Foust (Rating 4/5)

• On Irritation: Itching, Scratching, Swelling (Rating 3/5)