Poetry Foundation Magazine, December 2024

Poetry Foundation Magazine

by Adrian Matejka (Editor)

This volume features works by Ada Limón, Nick Makoha,
Diannely Antigua, Lis Sanchez, Elise Paschen

Contributors

CONTRIBUTORS
Grisel Y. Acosta
Diannely Antigua
Francisco Aragón
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
Richard Blanco
Carmen Calatayud
Megan Denton
Patrick Dundon
Blas Falconer
Gina Franco
Antonio Gamoneda
Edgar Garcia
Carmen Giménez
Rigoberto González
Katherine M. Hedeen
Darrel Alejandro Holnes
L.A. Johnson
Steven Leyva
Ada Limón
Sara Mae
Nick Makoha
Sheila Maldonado
Valerie Martínez
Adrian Matejka
Damien McClendon
Erika Meitner
Jasminne Mendez
Wayne Miller
Justin Rovillos Monson
Yesenia Montilla
Adela Najarro
Michelle Otero
Elise Paschen
Jordan Pérez
Alexandra Lytton Regalado
Luivette Resto
Aleida Rodríguez
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez
Lis Sanchez
Janice Lobo Sapigao
Martha Silano
Lindsay Tigue
Emma Trelles
Natalia Treviño
Dan Vera
Laura Villareal
Roy Wahlberg
Chris Watkins
francine j. harris
heidi andrea restrepo rhodes

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2024

About the author

Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany but grew up in California and Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His first collection of poems, The Devils Garden, won the 2002 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books. His second collection, Mixology, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series and was published by Penguin Books in 2009. Mixology was subsequently nominated for an NAACP Image Award. He is a Cave Canem fellow and is the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry 2010, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, and Prairie Schooner among other journals and anthologies. He teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where he serves as Poetry Editor for Souwester."

Reviews

[Samuel Smith]

Really stellar issue; the best of 2024 for me.

Favorites: "From 'Stretching Time Over the Sky'," "Icarus: A Self-Portrait--1984," "A Girl and Her Fireplace," "Ars Poetica with Invocation," "Histories," "The End of Childhood," "How to Incorporate a Town," "Failing at the Exit Ramp, Icarus Jones Speaks True," "As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game," "Instructions upon Arrival," "While Everything Else Was Falling Apart," "Transcendental Love Song," "Transgender opera for perpetual metamorphosis," "Strategic," "flowers for Robert Waddell: an elegy," "Screaming," "In the Surgical Ward"

[Zachary]

The Moon Is on Wellbutrin

By Diannely Antigua
After Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

Why else would she lift her shirt every night
to show the world her one milky
breast? My sister says Wellbutrin
sparked her slut era. I say, I don’t need
Wellbutrin for that. The moon used to be on
Zoloft, before trying Prozac, before adding
Klonopin to her lunar chemistry. The moon is on
Propranolol. She’s an anxious bitch,
left to borrow light from the brightest
orb around. What she wouldn’t do
to be the sun, allowed to come
out during the day when the humans are awake
and buying things, and she—just a sliver
of existence, the distance of thirty Earths
away from touch. Who could be this cruel
to leave her wanting? The father was
probably an asshole, the mother some
aloof star. She’s been used by too many
singers, painters, and scientists, too
many witches and hipsters who absorb
her essence from bowls of water
left outside overnight. I’ve used the moon
in this poem, metaphor, hunk of rock.
I’m sorry little moon, my moonly
moon. You know, the moon can be
both super and blue. Tonight, let’s take
our moon-shaped pills together. Let me
carry the weight of you.

I took multiple week long gaps with this issue and don’t really remember how strongly I felt about it in November, so no rating this time around. As with every Poetry issue I’ve read, not every poem speaks to be, but there’s always bound to be at least one that I liked.

Favorite Poems:
-Carnivore by Rigoberto González
-What You Need to Survive Vernon, OK by Steven Leyva
-Everpresent Guest by Roy Wahlberg
-Code by Lindsay Tigue

[Alan Zhu]

lots more skips than the last one, I think, but some real killer poems.

favorites: Patrick Dundon's "Gratitude":

> Jonathan asks me to send him a poem about gratitude.
> At first, nothing comes to mind. All poems, I think,
> are about lack: language's inability to capture the real.

Chris Watkins's "The Apostle Paula", Janice Sobo Sapigao's "From 'carrying songs from the sky to crease the ground'", Nick Makoha's "Icarus: A Self-Portrait—1984", Jordan Pérez's "Searching"

Yesenia Montilla's "As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game" and Ada Limón's "While Everything Else Was Falling Apart" are great examples of "tell a simple story but with feeling / deeper meaning"

Darrel Alejandro Holmes's "Transcendental Love Song" and heidi andrea restrepo rhodes's "Transgender opera for perpetual metamorphosis" are very relatable queer experiences

Adela Najarro's "What Poetry Told Me" reminded me of Victoria Chang's Obit

Richard Blanco's "/ FOR / AFTER / JAN BEATTY" probably my favorite of the whole collection, indescribable and accurate

given I listed these favorites in order before writing notes, props to the editor who put the folio together for a great ordering

[Timothy]

Better than most issues in the past 4 years

[Erick Mertz]

Fairly decent issue of poetry magazine, some hits, a few misses.

FAVORITE:
"What You Need To Survive Vernon, OK" by Steven Leyva