
ISSUE 7 | OCTOBER 2023
Winners of the ASP Bulletin's First Annual Poetry Contest
selected by judges Teri Ellen Cross Davis and Saida Agostini
"These works are rich with searing meditations, stunning lines, and compelling endings that lived with us long after the first reading. The poets below have a keen sense of what truly matters in this form: a willingness to root in a subject until it becomes another home that their words offer a portal into. Visit with these poems and come away carrying not just lines, but a new world."
—Saida Agostini & Teri Ellen Cross Davis
FIRST PLACE: anticlea [ante-clee-ah] n. queen of ithaca and mother to odysseus | Michele Evans
i told him too much of anything is almost always... Continue reading→
SECOND PLACE: Emerald Echocardiogram | Adrian Dallas Frandle
If the chance comes I’ll take one fewer vice in... Continue reading→
THIRD PLACE: The Trees in Dealey Plaza Seemed Distressed | Sarah Carey
so county arborists trim live oaks on the knoll where... Continue reading→
HONORABLE MENTION: Mad Libs Sonnet: Portrait of my Father | Tanya Sangpun Thamkruphat
Tanya Sangpun Thamkruphat is a Thai-Vietnamese American poet and essayist.... Continue reading→
Shortlisted Poetry
Contextualizing a Forest Fire Continually Burning | Jared Beloff
after Erika Meitner's "Outside the Frame" Outside the frame a... Continue reading→
Alecto | Megan Alpert
I. I wanted the wolves to let me stay where... Continue reading→
the immigrant dream | Ishanee Chanda
you and me, together, in a house that is just... Continue reading→
Selfie | Jennifer Keith
The starlet’s facial features do the dance demanded by the... Continue reading→
Invisible Man (Two Views) | MEH
I. I am not a spook, nor ectoplasm. I am... Continue reading→
Abandon | Katherine Gekker
Katherine Gekker is the author of In Search of... Continue reading→
Featured Interview
In Good Company: A conversation with debut author Shannon Sanders
Hannah Grieco, editor-in-chief of the ASP Bulletin, interviews author Shannon Sanders about her exciting new short story collection Company, from Graywolf Press Hannah Grieco: Tell us about Company! Shannon Sanders: Company is a collection of thirteen linked short stories, most of them centered on the members of one multigenerational Black family. The stories tackle... Continue reading→
Featured Story: "How to Fly Away" from Already Gone: 40 Stories of Running Away
FEATURED STORY: How to Fly Away | Caroljean Gavin
Wake up just before dawn. Check your phone the night before to see what time the sun is scheduled to rise. Don’t set your alarm. You don’t want your husband to wake up at the chimes. Think to yourself “Wake up at five, wake up at five, wake up at five…” until you fall asleep... Continue reading→
Prose
Echo | Anna Vangala Jones
Before she was a girl, she’d been an elephant. She... Continue reading→
Role Model & Can I Take Your Order? | Avitus B. Carle
After she signs the divorce papers, and after he moves... Continue reading→
Designated Rememberer | Camille U. Adams
I am fourteen. In Grenada. Up in St. Patrick County.... Continue reading→
A Body of Water | Rachel Paris Wimer
For a long time, I thought about Ruth every time... Continue reading→
Bologna in the Sun | Suzy Eynon
Peanut butter on whole wheat, no jelly When I stay... Continue reading→
Buttons | Melissa Llanes Brownlee
“Can you see it?” She asks me, her hand caressing... Continue reading→
The Night the Chickens Died | B. C. Brewer
The night the chickens died, Lacie couldn’t hear a thing.... Continue reading→
The Photo | Ayshe Dengtash
She thought back to all the wonderful memories she’d had... Continue reading→