Poetry Foundation Magazine, July / August 2026

by Adrian Matejka (Editor)

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

Published June 1, 2026

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

[Ajp · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most memorable lines belong to Elena Croitoru-Reed and Hussein Al-Dahir: Croitoru-Reed for describing a nurse as possessing “the assurance / of someone who’s gutted fish at the market / for years”; and Al-Dahir for listing the contents of a relief box: “Rice…sugar…humiliation…tea…pasta”. (At first I wondered if “resentment” might have been a better choice of word than “humiliation”, and then I realized that you have little say in what you receive when you receive charity. You may not need, or even like, that tin of evaporated milk. So it’s humiliating to have to accept “humiliation”.)

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

January Afternoon by Daniel Durand

To the stranger who stole my bike by Ethan Chua 

My Inescapable Fate by Matthew Zapruder

The Man Who Discovered Uranus by David Kirby 

In the Camp by Aaiún Min

Decolonizing the Self by Irakli Kakabadze

Each Morning I Reassemble My Face by Hussein Al-Dahir