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JUST POETRY!!! the National Poetry Quarterly


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easterday poetry award winner 2022-2023




Amensalism

13/12/37


A deployment. Head-cocks, pauses midsentence, battered musket

muffling wooden, gallantry sprayed thin into microphones an ever-brazening.

Bells blurring, father braided my hair in unendurable heat, weaving

the ashened strands into side bun, plaits, twin huns. Each knot a future

unnamed, buried in wavelets fanning out a bloodless landscape.

Hammered light. Steel carcass. Splash of gingko leaves, alight

on our bare feet. Kawasaki Ki-48 tumbling like a password confessed

across a fenced sky. Rendezvous between magnolias

twirling under full-bloom Type 98/25. The first morning

shell shyly sprouting like a secret heard

for the first time. Cryogenic freeze from AC the last gamble

at immortality. City blaring run, run, run. Bā Lù Jūn facedown in a pool

of Sake. A thumb-sized star soaking beside his unstrapped holster. Children

impaled on rocks. A clutch of beheaded

villages, razed into a tatty scored map of Nán Jīng. Ragtag.

Snow shredded naked, slaughter puts the night

on mute. Unpronounceable,

all over me.

Haoyang Liu, CA, The Thacher School







"BEST of ISSUE"



FALL 2022-2023



Stream of Consciousness


The fish is rotten, drizzled in the discrete coating of harmful toxins & Homeless mollusks & the crumbs of the bleached corals it once called home.

I sprinkle plastics on its scales, beckoning the seabirds to swoop

For a fatal taste, their beaks gripped with hunger and spite.


Man colonizes – homologizes – immortalizes the world: An oyster? Or a bomb?

The restaurant is barren, shackled with the furious echo of higher prices &

Hidden motives & the blisters from slipping on the sticky, deadly oil.

I wave a straw in front of the store, luring the turtles with

Lurid contaminants, relishing the remnants of self-sustainability.


Consuming rapaciously – ungraciously – voraciously: Prey? Or poison?

The water is silent, muted by the squalid screams of hopeless prayers &

Half-eaten dollars & the ink that penned the ornamental laws of the sea.

I stick a thermometer into the ocean, observing its red blood

Rise to the heavens, weeping at the waves that are hot to the touch.


A plaguing past – failing future – prevailing present: A gift? Or a curse?


I laugh at the littered littoral. I smile at the scarred shoreline.

Do not compare men to monsters. What would the monsters think?


A polar bear walks into a bar and orders a glass of ice.

Outside, I sell Styrofoam down by the seashore

– There are no more seashells.

Kenneth Su, AZ, Hamilton High School







"EDITOR'S CHOICE"



FALL 2022-2023



Lemon

after Arthur Sze


When the wind trembles through the limbs of ash trees,

when the petal path wears into barren fields, kissed by the bruise of dusk,

when a chill steals your breath and finds its way into your bones,

when the gleam of Christmas lights dims into the tone of sepia,

when you pass the empty stone seat where the boy you had a crush on used to sit,

when the town you were so familiar with recedes into a haze of drizzle,

when syllables fumble to your lips and drown in the roar of the city,

when the smudge of self-denial bites into you and becomes a scar,

when you pull on your mother’s high heels, feet craving for oxygen,

when you strain your cheek muscles to arrange your face into a perfect smile, when your fingertips graze the creased cover of your sketchbook,

when you listen to the solitary songs of a mockingbird on sleepless nights,

when you teeter to find the rhythm of your life,

here is a lemon to squeeze a drop of bitterness—

Allison Xu, MD, Walter Johnson High School






"BEST of ISSUE"



WINTER 2022-2023



Amensalism


13/12/37

A deployment. Head-cocks, pauses midsentence, battered musket

muffling wooden, gallantry sprayed thin into microphones an ever-brazening.

Bells blurring, father braided my hair in unendurable heat, weaving

the ashened strands into side bun, plaits, twin huns. Each knot a future

unnamed, buried in wavelets fanning out a bloodless landscape.

Hammered light. Steel carcass. Splash of gingko leaves, alight

on our bare feet. Kawasaki Ki-48 tumbling like a password confessed

across a fenced sky. Rendezvous between magnolias

twirling under full-bloom Type 98/25. The first morning

shell shyly sprouting like a secret heard

for the first time. Cryogenic freeze from AC the last gamble

at immortality. City blaring run, run, run. Bā Lù Jūn facedown in a pool

of Sake. A thumb-sized star soaking beside his unstrapped holster. Children impaled on rocks. A clutch of beheaded

villages, razed into a tatty scored map of Nán Jīng. Ragtag.

Snow shredded naked, slaughter puts the night

on mute. Unpronounceable,

all over me.

Haoyang Liu, CA, The Thacher School






"EDITOR'S CHOICE"



WINTER 2022-2023



mo(u)ring song


It is not enough to want out.

I catch the sun like a pearl in my hands and kiss it goodbye, pledging

allegiance to dawn’s itching mouth, lighting a sweetgrass cigar to see

the smoke wave me off. Anyway, I’m not worried about the cricket I left

behind the honeysuckle bush. He promised me that he would tell me a secret,

press his umber-lips to my ears and score bone-buds in my cartilage.

Still, I imagine him oxidizing under the yolk of the sun, shrugging

off his exoskeleton, and learning to dance. In my mind,

he knows how to live forever.


I’m worried about her, little girl enveloped by viscous amber in the mouth

of an unforgetting shadow. She writes me letters sometimes, tells me

how she hasn’t drowned yet, how the dusk shoves sunlight back into her

lungs, how her leaves sprout flesh. She sends me her pruned fingertips,

soft moss shoved underneath the fingernails. She says it’s getting hard

to sleep. She says the trees still beg for a body. Even now, after my

marrow’s quiet divorce from the oaks. Even now,


my foot still encaged, cemented in the quicksand foliage. I mistake the

crackling branches for snapping limbs, the fluttering sunspots for blinking eyes. Somewhere I am still pulling myself up, watching

my roots lift until I can no longer feel them praying for soil.

Alisha Tan, GA, Johns Creek High School







"BEST of ISSUE"



SPRING 2022-2023
&
Out Like a Lamb



one of us


Everything is made of fans. Hair spilling over plastic silk, rejecting this

fanmade history & the lonesome bathroom stall light panning down

as Ayi folds language into my mellow skin. The white sleeves of the Hanfu

billow like fans, ink splattering from wrists wrung dry, and Ayi

wonders if she should pin the sleeves up, wrapped like scrolls and tied in

Western cuffs. Instead, I tell her to raise the red flag from the ground,
a dress bleeding from her separation from Motherland. Everything is made of
fans. A fantastic crowd gathers in the stadium as the dao flutters us
toward the fanfared parade. Hundreds of other children are dressed like me.

We spread outwards, webbed like a fan. Stitched together into the grace of

an exotic dancer before the emperor, bejeweling his concubines in a lull

of femininity and fanning hair, free of the rigored braids and fancy updos

under black crowns. My body is a monture of the Han I wonder how many

wars I carried on my back. How many lives? How many eulogies?

Everything is made of fans. In the early light of dawn, thousands of years

ago, we kept our tongue on the handle and bled battles on the fan leaves,

only visible when I am spread thin into the skeleton of Asia, a tapestry of bloodlines in thread veins. Breathe in fresh air walking with the masses & I imagine myself on a cliff over a battle of a million faces I could see today,

and I learn to make fans once more, body snapping at the explosion of wings. Stella Wu, CA, Taipei American School

luminary


i am wanting & i am wanting & i want the audience to sing my praises

as if my tendons are circuits of brilliance, my teeth crowned

in gold. tell me my ambition is fruitless & i will reap a fleur-de-lis

from eden. no, no, it is not short sight i approximate myself

as a crimson star transducing prominence, i am not blinded

by the spotlight (on an axis & tilted nine thousand degrees fahrenheit).

what do you mean tantalus never spits the nectarine pits

from his lips? lie to me. say it again—this time tantalus will consume,

& so will i. this time, i will transform the stellar core into

the parabola’s focus: no limit as x approaches infinity, no asymptote to stifle
my trajectory, asymptomatic for failure. what? am i satisfied now?
at the point of no return, do the spectators extol me? this is a confession:
the false notion of some stars never burning out is one i pray to be true,
so i lyse the faults & keep wanting. let me explain—i arrange my heart

into arrays & my tongue into binary notation to feign nothing hurts.

how long does it take a heavenly body from nebula to protostar

to prime glory? how long does it take to fall from grace? no matter.

i am taking a bow now—& my pulse echoes applause, but

apoptosis awaits. my dreams are supernovas programmed to die.

Claire He, IN, Carmel High School






"EDITOR'S CHOICE"



SPRING 2022-2023
&
Out Like a Lamb



Watermelon Seed

the executioner thrusts a crumpled child under the guillotine,
fastens the lunette, and releases the blade. the crowd gasps
as his skull splits against the tile and his blood splashes my dress.
it's the pink one, mother, do you remember? the same color as
watermelon flesh.

my fingers caress the pulp that has tinted the fabric. you used to visit
the town square, wearing nothing but a plastic smile and a scarlet dress.
you would steal young watermelons, sweet and sun-kissed, from the market.
we would carve their craniums and bathe their eyes in brine-water jars,
planting the seeds beneath the floorboards. i wonder if they will survive
if they will breathe without lamp-light and lullabies and love if the jars
fell off the shelf as the men spat on your grave and dragged me away.
i imagine my severed head crisscrossing intimate alleyways, bouncing
on broken glass, tumbling towards the weeping willow where i buried you.
i could be your tombstone, your Watermelon Seed.

he locks me up next, facing the green sky, dress fluttering in the wind,
teenage moths jostling to see the watermelon seed bloom.
if i had the chance, i would sit on the cobblestone and watch it grow.
if i had the chance, mother, i would name it
after you.
Kenneth Su, AZ, Hamilton High School in Chandler

pantomime


paper wad crashes, microphone ashes, handwritten slashes

pens break when lives shape the cracking fate of fiction

courtroom heads shaking, raconteurs fading, pioneers waiting

ink dies as veiled crimes of modern signs strip diction


silent is the obsolescence in the mind of storytellers

dwellers rush their trite endeavors with a sense of looming Never


storm-perfect timing, cartridges drying, arguments flying

page turn to fresh words as children learn the standards

flip ahead lessons, handling blessings, diverging questions

path take for whose sake when we all make same patterns


mimic claims the observations of a splintered person’s lifetime

life is just the imitation of an art form in the meantime


screens swallow focus, books go unnoticed, cremated opus

submerge vintage verses and enter the currents

juxtaposed phases, archaic phrases, modernized places

no one fears if tongues go blindly undetermined

Max Lee, GA, Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology






"BEST of ISSUE"



SUMMER 2022-2023



Archival


Cheeks rubbed raw with salt:


A girl—

not much older than me withers in fetal position at a crosswalk,

as if her bones woke up today and decided to betray her by thawing liquid. A cardboard un-comforter is the only thing keeping her from

dissipating into the porous asphalt, into a mound of unnameable despair.

I feel her tears evaporate as my own

crystalline cubes of sodium ions,

just like the desiccated remnants of saltwater

I gargle to purge the parasite in my throat that is you.


Annual check-up:


I ask my pediatrician how long it takes for someone to unlove their mom. But I don’t wait for an answer.

Instead, I leave to sit in the waiting room

only to choke on its stale air

As if the oxygen they pump into patients is poached from this room.

This town is a honeycomb of diseases.


Because everything that opens is a mouth—   

—and every mouth will cause a ruckus.

Alice Zhang, MA, Deerfield Academy








"EDITOR'S CHOICE"



SUMMER 2022-2023



the 0 in home

i disassemble the vertebrae and roll the rice grains between my fingers.

your hair scowls and my breath stands on end. the moth-filled lamp

casts a muted gradient against the dirt floor. a drunken sow pads

the concrete oasis, the vroom of the city, the silence of the sky.

you point to the decomposing tilapia and i swallow the maggots inside.


you say dis-CUSS but it comes out as dis-GUST.

i don’t correct you.


the train rides into the capital. cement statues emit static howls and i

avert my eyes. what separates me from the sidewalk and the suffering?

nothing more than a neon scroll. it reads 11:34… red line. one-way,

because you say there is nothing to come back for anyways.


we could come back for the beggars, i say.

you sigh.


the metro is a closed loop, a sleeping dragon:

a thin line between effort and desperation.

a shrill, cursing whistle: the train lurches from the safety of exile.

bones will not burn if left to the flame – that i learned the hard way.

tongues rot but lips make no sound – that i learned the hard way, too.


you scold me with your kiss on my cheek.

i grab my ticket tightly with my good hand.

Kenneth Su, AZ, Hamilton High School in Chandler







all other
"Certified National Winners"



FALL 2022-2023



Peels - Vivian Zhu, IL, Adalai Stevenson High School

Shepherd's Pie - Riley (Matthew) Bejar, FL, Booker High School

Yet Another Perception of Manipulation - Murphy Hastings, NJ, Maple Shade High School

danse macabre - Sage Lai, MA, Algoniquin Regional High School

flesh & perspiration - Lauren Lim, NJ, Ridgewood High School

The Marigold Reformation - Caitlin Garrett, TX, Vandegrift HS

Stolen Life - Jasmine Fesh, CO, Jeffco Remote Learning Program

Merciless Epiphany - Michelle Wang, FL, Young Women's Preparatory Academy

am folium - Savita Deonarain, NY, Bard High School Manhattan

the origin of pastries - Janice Lin, CA, Monta Vista High School

Elementary School Picture Day-Faith Chukwudinma, NJ, Union HS

prophetic perfect tense - Erin Graeve, IA, Knoxville High School

Watchtower - Ellery Ibo, NY, Herricks High School

The Frozen City of Dreams - Aiden Shiu, CA, Lowell High School

Ailments - Wyatt Devine, AL, James Clemens High School

my house on fire - Anna Cohen, CA, Crossroads School for

Arts and Science

heartstring menagerie - Rachel Xu, Fl, Eastside High School














all other
"Certified National Winners"



Winter 2022-2023



Cassandra, Calpurnia, Clytemnestra - Lauren Alagna, NJ, Howell HS

(Multiple Choice) - Kenneth Su, AZ, Hamilton High School

a thousand revolutions - Janice Lin, CA, Monta Vista High School

Lessons: - Megan Lawson, VA, Colgan High School
Midnight Elegy - Cara Wreen, WI, Bay Port High School

Out of the Subway - Evan Wang, PA, Upper Merion High School

Dreams Across the Oregon River - Susanna Danielyan, CA, Saugus

On Unloving - Karen Zhao, CA, Northwood High School

i am rotting in the coffin of my body - Vicki Lin, FL, Bell HS

a hateful house, home no more - Christopher Do, MA, Boston Latin

Toil - Samuel Hoppe, OK, Edmond High School

Feverdream - Scarlett Durisek, TX, The John Cooper School

Escape - Selena Xiang, CA, Canyon Crest Academy

Unless Christmas is - Haelang (Nicole) Kim, WA, Bellevue HS

little glass dolls - Benji Fernandez, CA, Polytechnic School

Depedansea - Ava Edelman, IL, Highland Park HS

Purr Withal - Sandra Lin, FL, Bell High School

Calling All Gods - Jessica Bakar, CA, Foothill High School

dear mary - Holt Daniels, NC, Charlotte Latin School

Rebirth - Matthew Gu, FL, Trinty Preparatory School

​








all other
"Certified National Winners"



Spring 2022-2023
&
Out Like a Lamb



Sunflower - Mike Whelan, GA, Lambert High School

Hunger - Sandra Lin, FL, Bell High School

Held - Emerson Keen, GA, Decatur High School

aubade to origins - Emily Pedroza, CA, Lynnbrook High School

hourglass - Jessica Wang, VA, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

on mistaking one stage of grief for another - Rachel Xu, FL,

Eastside High School

Do Ghosts Cry - Mia Pruitt, OH, Maumee High School

iowa planes - Michael Liu, IL, Naperville Central High School

Doe - Liliana Graves, MT, Ronan High School

the cycle of tomorrow - Sydney Phillips, VA, Glen Allen HS

Persona - Lexia Lukose, IL, Maine East High School

Car Rules Car Rules - Seoyon Kim, RI, The Wheeler School

classical conditioning - Claire He, IN, Carmel High School

for alan who hears what no one remembers - Sophia Overstreet,

TN, Houston High School

Exam Season - Naomi Ling, MD, River Hill High School

and still I drown - Shannon Huang, NJ, Biotechnology HS

She isn't a mother but - Maggie Wang, WA, Newport High School

Ambiguous Patriot - Venya Sharda, CA, Washington High School


Out Like a Lamb

Disorder for E - Stella Wu, CA, Taipei American School

a creation, a bird, a malfunction - Poppy Bradshaw, UT, Syracuse HS

on raspberries and solitude - Sayli Limaye, NJ, South Brunswick HS

Compass - Eden Hen, NY, SAR High School

sizzling donuts - Elizabeth Gao, CA, Portola High School

menisci in march, except i miss you - Emily Wang, NY, Horace Mann School

Creature of the Forlorn Night - Chloe Hanousck, NY, West Genesee Senior High School

Fire, They Said. It Cannot Be - Brooke Hunter, UT, Maple Mountain

Forgive Me (Not) - Amy Lilman, NY, University Heights HS

The Death of a Poet - Sunshine Holstead, SC, Academic Magnet HS

the preservation of tainted blood - Alexi Washington, VA, Appomattox Regional Governor's School

funeral rites - Hazel Thekkekara, GA, Alpharetta High School

Reunion - AJ Almeda, WA, Bellarmine Preparatory School

She Will Bind Us Into Sinew - Skylar Christensen, CA, Orange County School of the Arts

Fee - Devyn Stokdyk, CA, Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences

Matches in a Row - Sophia Jimenez, AZ, Shadow Mountain HS

A Ghazal for Genesis - Chloe Wang, CA, Taipei American School

Wintry - Lavina Lei, CA, Monta Vista High School

In these empty hands, I held your head - Alexandra Arnoldi Nanis, VA, West Potomac High School

[Scrape Cycle] - Courtney Kinken, NC, Rocky River High School

Bird in a Kitchen - Vivian Huang, CA, University HS (Irvine)





all other
"Certified National Winners"



Summer 2022-2023



TO BE DETERMINED


At the Gate - Grace Thomas, IN, Valparaiso High School

birdwatching - Sitara Mitragotri, MA, Lexington High School

The Glorius Mind - Christopher Morini, NC, Collaborative College for Technology and Leadership

citrus boy - Lydia Wang, TX, Carroll Senior High School

Warbler at war - Megan Cox, MD, John F. Kennedy High School

To Unravel - AnaGracia Brunette, OH, Grandview Heights High School

A Shinigami's Requiem - Kat Crawford, MO, Kirkwood High School

we lived together on maple street - Nisha Shenoy, CA, Mountain View HS

His hands molding me - Poppy Bradshaw, UT, Syracuse High School

The Five Senses of Grief - Taylor Raney, AZ, Mountain Ridge High School

the space between the tongue and mouth is called loss - Jessica Bakar, CA, Foothill High School

Enoch - Joanna Liu, MA, Lexington High School

method acting - Sophie Lin, IL, Neuqua Valley High School

December - Naomi Ling, MD, River Hill High School

mazel tov - Leela Hensler, CA, Albany High School

Silvia Gama Rios - NC, Lee County High School

Eutrophic - Erinn Huang, CA, Cupertino High School

When Fish Fly - Sofia Gonzalez, TX, Great Hearts Monte Vista (North)

Baking...Myself? - Nathan Hammerschmitt Le Gal, MA, Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School

conversations for the sake of coercion - Georgios Bofiles, WI, University Lake School High School






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