Editor’s Note: This is the final collection in Boston Review’s series of poetry reading lists for National Poetry Month. You can read the others on belonging, empathy, and womanhood.
Since Boston Review’s Arts in Society feature launched in 2019, the magazine has proudly published the voices of award-winning poets who have used verse to speak to the deep injustices of our time. Their unique visions have been recognized with numerous awards, from presses, journals, and the National Book Foundation.
In November, Boston Review contributor Don Mee Choi won the National Book Award for her collection DMZ Colony, and in December, recent contributor Destiny O. Birdsong’s debut, Negotiations: Poems was longlisted for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. We are honored to celebrate emerging and established talent alike and are always on the hunt for new and bold voices.
And don’t forget that our 2021 contests close soon. If you need some creative inspiration, settle down with the award-winning poets featured below, who differ in their subject matter but unite in their masterful play with language and imagination.
—Meghana Mysore
Excerpted from “The Apparatus," from the forthcoming DMZ Colony.
At Icicle Creek, I find the fox dead and gray.
I see a woman standing over his corpse.
Her tail whips behind her, stirring air.
I pray to be harmless.
