This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Honeymoon Shoes by Valyntina Grenier (Cathexis Northwest Press 2023).
Sources
Listed by chapter the principle facts are influenced by human bumblebee David’s life whose probably more than any other open-eyes nature
with the point of view of plants-imagination-rooted-in-fact what amorous amounts of books particularly illuminating a classic agriculture of people wild animals cultivate/ culture/
choose domestication conservation Environmental winter essays by the fire bring into context what constitutes fitness during the Neolithic era, then guns, germs and the fates
Disarm fake history hand botany the long quadrant of Manhattan an excellent precipitant some do not apprise the women’s journey in science and math manages to rise
Of angiosperms during the native seed’s search American agriculture point press-on evolution selects the origin of the selfish press Perilous grace— the meanings of life
how the leopard’s spots ghost the origin house for the red queen penguin city of night To the diversity of the University of the Diversity of Diverse Life
ValyntinaGrenier (she/her) is a multi-genre artist living in Eugene, Oregon. She is the author of four chapbooks and one full length collection. You can find those books at Bottlecap Press, Finishing Line Press, Cathexis Northwest Press and various places where books are sold. Her latest poems and visual art can be found in Beyond Words Magazine, Beyond Queer Words, Cathexis, Querencia and Wild Roof Journal. You can find her, her visual art, and links to her work around the web at valyntinagrenier.com.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Honeymoon Shoes by Valyntina Grenier (Cathexis Northwest Press 2023).
Square Dance
No other over you for the climate fire to end this whorl in wonder desire w/ our life’s great fortune confounded by virus/ police violence Cancel the rockets Spread out the world-weary sheet again over our brains/ banners/ bones Nirvana wins our hearts twin the hypotenuse to a new song on the radio we in wonder will we go with our lucky love north to Portland to the Oregon coast/ sunset sky/ halcyon line/ quiet/ freedom from heat wave of Chaos feast
ValyntinaGrenier (she/her) is a multi-genre artist living in Eugene, Oregon. She is the author of four chapbooks and one full length collection. You can find those books at Bottlecap Press, Finishing Line Press, Cathexis Northwest Press and various places where books are sold. Her latest poems and visual art can be found in Beyond Words Magazine, Beyond Queer Words, Cathexis, Querencia and Wild Roof Journal. You can find her, her visual art, and links to her work around the web at valyntinagrenier.com.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Honeymoon Shoes by Valyntina Grenier (Cathexis Northwest Press 2023).
Deities and the Human Brain
forgotten burgers/ lost theatre tickets our least fortunes last laugh to dis to leap a human genus/ genius wittingly advancing life too devoted to semper fie
equality never never grant it had Diana ocean or pursuit in a hydroponic closet exactly heaven broke free halcyon still like some kind of broccoli party
pushing scientists to garden wildness Consciousness doesn’t take the desire between give-in-and-take-out the dialectical intoxicating survival of plants Plants
can alter consciousness resting our brain in a sense like us leaning our head against the doorway of our love Every plucked petal cast for the plants’ we might
reinvent drives Whatever word-world desire has dance/ revolutionary actors/ all us bees pollinating equality leaning like us between our brain and deities
ValyntinaGrenier (she/her) is a multi-genre artist living in Eugene, Oregon. She is the author of four chapbooks and one full length collection. You can find those books at Bottlecap Press, Finishing Line Press, Cathexis Northwest Press and various places where books are sold. Her latest poems and visual art can be found in Beyond Words Magazine, Beyond Queer Words, Cathexis, Querencia and Wild Roof Journal. You can find her, her visual art, and links to her work around the web at valyntinagrenier.com.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Dressing the Bear by Susan L. Leary (Trio House Press 2024).
Afterglow
There is no more burning, just water just river just light.
Susan L. Leary (she/her) is the author of SENTENCE (Nine Syllables Press, fall 2026), selected by Eugenia Leigh as the winner of the Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest; More Flowers(Trio House Press, February 2026); and Dressing the Bear (Trio House Press, 2024), selected by Kimberly Blaeser as the winner of the Louise Bogan Award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Indiana Review, North American Review, Third Coast, Cream City Review, Smartish Pace, The Arkansas International, and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and lives in Indianapolis, IN.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Dressing the Bear by Susan L. Leary (Trio House Press 2024).
We’ll Take the Riddle, So Long as It Remains Unanswered
Sometimes the blue is so blue it is every shade of blue at once. The first sound, the back & forth of the blue water. A pair of scissors is blue as is the hem of the blue hand that holds them. The first urge, to snip the blue heron from a swath of nocturnal shoreline. Discernment risks injury, so we sleep inside the blueish swirls of our own blueish bodies, mistake the brute flap of a wing for touch, suffering for the brief amnesia of stars. Distant or beloved, a man’s cigar smoke is blue, a vast graffiti of legs stretched into the blue of a borrowed beach chaise, the marooned bones fooled into a comfortable shipwreck, the lungs into ether or sea. A ghost can whet the blade & sit inside the blue of a palm without our knowing. What comes is the world before it’d begun, before the blue was anything other than blue.
Susan L. Leary (she/her) is the author of SENTENCE (Nine Syllables Press, fall 2026), selected by Eugenia Leigh as the winner of the Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest; More Flowers(Trio House Press, February 2026); and Dressing the Bear (Trio House Press, 2024), selected by Kimberly Blaeser as the winner of the Louise Bogan Award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Indiana Review, North American Review, Third Coast, Cream City Review, Smartish Pace, The Arkansas International, and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and lives in Indianapolis, IN.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Dressing the Bear by Susan L. Leary (Trio House Press 2024).
dwelling
again my brother calls in the middle of Property Brothers to tell me he can build a better house. a blue house with a bluer door & a hundred noiseless windows where i can live overlooking the sea.
a writing desk. sheets of sun stacked to the ceiling like paper. miniature rooms hidden inside every doorknob, one with a library the size of my thumb, fleabane vased in barnacles.
i could live there, i say. in the house built in the company of tv static & other troubled men. feces on the walls & pillows soaked in piss, jumpsuit removed & toothpaste spread over one man’s genitals.
yes, even there, my brother thought beauty. even there, resting besides a hemingway novel on the bookshelf, will be an immaculate little dwelling for his urn.
Susan L. Leary (she/her) is the author of SENTENCE (Nine Syllables Press, fall 2026), selected by Eugenia Leigh as the winner of the Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest; More Flowers(Trio House Press, February 2026); and Dressing the Bear (Trio House Press, 2024), selected by Kimberly Blaeser as the winner of the Louise Bogan Award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Indiana Review, North American Review, Third Coast, Cream City Review, Smartish Pace, The Arkansas International, and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and lives in Indianapolis, IN.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Dressing the Bear by Susan L. Leary (Trio House Press 2024).
Were God a Boy or a River Makes No Difference
Every boy is ancient & a river is as much a body as it is a pair of hands. Who holds the blade that fails
against the rush? What within the boy dissolves every trace of violence? The river speaks a name & a soft halo of sun
hovers over steel. The sun is gentle on the boy’s face. Which is preferred? That each dawn be new light or the same
light remerged for centuries. Strange metaphor for a resilient self. Even the wind appears reckless in its bloom-scattering
tantrums yet when a boy drowns, we never think to ask if the river meant to do it. The river is but river stretching
on for miles & the boy returns home a small god walking through fields. Until, there is no more light. Until, the stakes
of the ritual are so high the river can only mourn itself. The brain placed back inside the stomach & a pair of new
hands folded over a corpse. How does the boy come to know himself now? Whose name does he cry out over the wide,
rippling shoulders of the living? Mine, yours, his own, the troubled sun’s—for whom does it even matter?
Susan L. Leary (she/her) is the author of SENTENCE (Nine Syllables Press, fall 2026), selected by Eugenia Leigh as the winner of the Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest; More Flowers(Trio House Press, February 2026); and Dressing the Bear (Trio House Press, 2024), selected by Kimberly Blaeser as the winner of the Louise Bogan Award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Indiana Review, North American Review, Third Coast, Cream City Review, Smartish Pace, The Arkansas International, and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and lives in Indianapolis, IN.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
To be mothered by a poetry book about mothering is a unique experience, gained by reading The Mothers by Erika Eckart (Finishing Line Press 2025). Each section of this book is immersive, tugging at your heart, your soul, your past, and your future. What immediately drew me in was the title alone. Simple yet evocative, The Mothers. With so many connotations, so many interpretive trajectories, a title like this invites you on a journey with an unpredictable outcome, one that is expressive and enticing nonetheless, tugging at your heart, your soul, your past, and your future. What immediately drew me in was the title alone. Simple yet evocative, The Mothers. With so many connotations, so many interpretive trajectories, a title like this invites you on a journey with an unpredictable outcome, one that is expressive and enticing nonetheless..
The beginning of the book focuses on the bond between a child and their mother. This connection is which is formed by birth and the umbilical cord—cut, yet still connected in spirit. Eckart focuses on the processes of becoming; the process of becoming oneself apart from being a mother or a child. In the first poem, “Mycelium” Eckart writes, “I can’t figure out where I end and my children begin.” This reflection sets the tone for the book, inviting everyone to explore their own connections with where they come from, who they are, and who they are becoming.
Towards the middle, Eckart pulls towards motherhood being expressed as hungry. With titles such as “Teeth” and “Gluttony” Eckart makes it known how motherhood can feel, and how it can be experienced. In “Teeth” particularly, the lines, “you are reminded how your babies leeched your bones to make theirs, how they hollowed you out” are chilling. The choice of words “leeched” and “hollowed” shift focus to the effect of being a mother, what becomes of her through this life-creating and life-changing process—a perspective that is often left out. The choice of a more haunting metaphor evokes a sense of fear, yet also a realization, that can come from motherhood. Utilizing such language helps express these feelings and experiences to those unfamiliar with them, as everyone, in some way or another, has encountered fear. In “Natural Causes” Eckart focuses not only on the effect of motherhood, but also accurately focuses on the parts one has to give up. She uses the figure of a mother octopus, prioritizing how she will never eat again in order to breed and guard their eggs. This, once again, is a shift in focus that caught my attention. A representation of another side or feeling of motherhood that is often normalized or romanticized, rather than critically examined.
In the last section, Eckart includes the narrator’s reflection on her own motherhood. What struck me the most was the short fiction section, “Adaptation.” Eckart tackles the burden of genes, the passing down of traits and suffering. She suggests that these elements cannot be stripped from one’s DNA. This sense of inheritance leaves one “bruised at the edges” and implies that, if one chooses to have children, these burdens will inevitably be passed on. She follows this up, saying, “Your genes take these secret messages about the past to your future,” which, to me, is a beautiful way of linking those who came before you with those who will come after. The Mothers is an experience that is almost impossible to put into words. It pulls you to think about the past, the future, and how you use the present. Eckart offers up a different perspective on motherhood without shame, inviting mothers to express their frustrations and concerns.
Brianna “Bree” Eaton (she/her) is sophomore studying English with a concentration in Publishing and Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee, where she also serves on the Phoenix Magazine Staff. Born and raised in East Tennessee, she enjoys all things neo-applachian, cryptic, and feminist. When she isn’t doing school work, editing, writing, or running circles around campus, she can be found reading, re-watching episodes of the X-Files, or planning last minute trips to new (or familiar) cities.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Dressing the Bear by Susan L. Leary (Trio House Press 2024).
The Professor Asks Me to Write a Joyful Poem
One without drugs or sadness or mention of your death. One in which you don’t beat your fists bloody against a palm. I am disobedient as is joy as is you, as is the better version of the truth that lives inside the defense. Is it more profound to say walking towards or walking away? Somehow, with me, you’re always doing both: forgetting the air mattress & your Greyhound ticket, then forgetting to breathe. Is forgetfulness a form of joy or of disobedience? The day I forgot the plunger at Ace Hardware was the day you forgot to put my car in park. You were fifteen, so my fault, but as the car rolled nearer the storefront, we laughed through the panic because joy is you is disobedience is me, is the weather we last looked upon your face. A shit storm, you’d have said, as we ran out to the parking lot, pelted by the sky’s sadness & with nothing for a shield, while I was thinking how nice it would have been to spend a day with you in the rain.
Susan L. Leary (she/her) is the author of SENTENCE (Nine Syllables Press, fall 2026), selected by Eugenia Leigh as the winner of the Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest; More Flowers(Trio House Press, February 2026); and Dressing the Bear (Trio House Press, 2024), selected by Kimberly Blaeser as the winner of the Louise Bogan Award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Indiana Review, North American Review, Third Coast, Cream City Review, Smartish Pace, The Arkansas International, and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and lives in Indianapolis, IN.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is an excerpt from Apostasies by Holli Carrell (Perugia Press 2025).
Content Warning: domestic violence or child abuse
EXHIBIT
Waking to a hand around my neck, I wasn’t surprised. Violence seemed a certain inevitability. Mundane
as a mother’s command, her hands
twisting and plaiting my hair. Was I even in my body? I try to examine that moment
from here, like a picture in a museum:
myself, barely past girl, so estranged from my body. A little broken in the mind, too, some plate inside shattered.
(It didn’t even seem like my choice to make.)
How I just laid there, and was lucky as his hand released, slipped off, nothing worse—a bird lifting off a window ledge.
Holli Carrell (she/they) was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah and now lives in the Midwest, where she recently completed her PhD in Creative Writing with a Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. A 2024-2025 Taft Research Center Dissertation Fellow, her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, The North American Review, 32 Poems, Poetry Northwest, Ninth Letter, The Journal, Bennington Review, and Salt Hill, among other journals.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
