lyrical prose

Poetry·Arabella Aab — Dawn in winter Asheville: a solitary observer watches snow fall, trees dance in wind, and contemplates ancestors' fear before the household wakes.

Poetry·Mara Occhuizzo — Morning light and wind become a meditation on listening to silence — mountains, birds, voices, and things unheard speak through a bedroom window.

Poetry·Oola Breen-Ryan — A meditation on poetry's elusive nature through metaphors of spiderwebs in sunlight, chaos on paper, and the universe writing, ending with deliberate uncertainty.

Poetry·Emma Catherine Hoff — A woman falls through collapsing stairs, her body fragmenting into surreal objects—banjo, Picasso painting, brooms—while she prays not to be seen or painted.

Poetry·Hazel Grace — A stone travels through the world, shrinking from road to boot to child's hand, until it becomes a skipping stone dancing across water.

Poetry·Gemma Crimmins — A rhythmic poem cycles through the seasons, from winter's wind to spring's hum to summer's speed, ending where it began with winter returning.

Poetry·Beatrice Milasan — A train passenger watches the ocean transform from violent turquoise waves to peaceful sunset, remembering childhood drawings and contemplating permanence amid change.

Poetry·Clark Liu, age 9 — A child captures autumn's arrival through sound patterns, describing wool sweaters, breezy sneezes, chattering trees, and red leaves flooding streets like a stream.

Poetry·Pauline McAndrew — In early morning solitude, a teenager reflects from her blue chair, treasuring this pause before the world returns to normal and her sanctuary becomes ordinary again.

Poetry·Mary Gomes — A child's meditation on the beauty of the name Paulina spirals into wonder about meaning, naming, and the limits of knowledge.