JUST POETRY!!!


the National Poetry Quarterly


JUST POETRY!!! the National Poetry Quarterly



best of issue





SPRING 2025-2026




fresh bones

my nextdoor neighbor just had her knee replaced – she’s on crutches
now, see? her body broken, wracked and ruined, but her mind eclipsed…

eyes alight, butterfly-blue specks flittering across admirable admiral
plains moonlit mind – but pry open my soul, and what would you find?
well, claspèd gold adorns pearly whites, silver chains decorate limbs like

armor, and the legs swallowed by braided overgrowth are at least adorned
by a big wooden box and treasures adrift from my chest.
little girl, fresh sockets only guard deadened marbles.

Jove– these bones are to be toyed with, to be trashed and to toil
I cannot deprive this body of Freedom

and fatigue, for a sun-parched soul parallels dust. At least Icarus tried,
wings unfurled, mind not to be left bereft of solace in the skies, while I
whittle at the wood of the clock – TICK, TOCK – and harmonize with age

-old lullabies. drownèd by sands of time, I trust my treasure to keep me
afloat mouth OPEN, I watch hazy Phaëthons dream and sip oceans from their

gauzy wine glasses. Only for so long can I insist that my sapphires
are cerulean: holding matter over mind – in, out, in, out, in, OUT– of
this cage bony torches unfurled, I cannot become ash without having

burned. So help me, God, I’ll find myself a sailor’s grave

before the candle goes.

Madeleine Wynholds, CA, Harvard-Westlake School


EDITOR'S CHOICE





SPRING 2025-2026




broken sound(e)scape


strange wave interference. deja vu dissonances carry across the house

clashing with familiar harmonies emanating near my ears.

verbal violence wins the battle of decibels peace of mind loses the war.


off white comfort. the dappled ceiling speaks of silent contemplation,

my soul sister in this place of tireless meaningless joyless noise.

silence is an alabaster flag tossed in loose dirt, shriveled in the wind.


fluttering dark dissociation. willful ignorance is the illusion of bliss:

eyelids shutter shut, mind blinks blank, while ears hear here.

conflict, a supermassive black hole, spins at the center of this galaxy.


crystalline agony spill. cracks in the dam built of personal erasure

give way to escaping saline water running uncomfortably down my face.

let it go but pain is a boomerang I was forced to throw.


quantum superpositioned hope. seeing the good in humanity with glasses on.

my bare eyes faulty, my judgment weak, my heart optimistic.

I say to myself one last time but my brain knows it lied.


electronic edited hugs. speakers emit a euphony of love lost and found.

mellifluous warmth vibrates against my eardrums I am enveloped in harmony.

melodies carry me out of the ordinary into the golden daylight.


bluetooth padded fortress. discordant reality bomb.


inescapable implosion, concealed.


Joy Liang, NC, Haw River Christian Academy



ALL OTHER CERTIFIED National winners
sPRING 2025-2026



Dear Bystander - Keri O'Malley, FL, Florida Connections Academy

to whom it no longer concerns - Connie Vo, TX, Kempner High School

unsaid - Ananya Aiyer, VA, Thomas Jefferson High School

Fluent Failure - Mohammad Syed, TX, Wylie High School

Rousseau in Singapore - Paul Potts, OK, Dale High School

The Mariner - Jonah Oldre, CA, Geffen Academy at UCLA

Ribfire - Suhani Goyal, CA, Dougherty Valley High School

Kept in the Dark - Seoyoung Choi, CA, Bishop Montgomery High School

Special K - Connor R. Erlenbeck, MI, Millington High School

010525 - Windsor Holman, OHY, School for Creative & Performing Arts

we set the air between us on fire - Tiffany Cho, NJ, Dwight Morrow Academies

There is Never One without the Other - Madeleine Mae Beckham, TX, Early College HS

flight crew - Mateen Javid Bamizai, MD, Centennial High School

alphabet song - Kaylee Da, MD, Newton South High School

Any Second Now - Keren He, LA, Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies

weather-blind-stone - Lidya Tadesse, MN, Rosemount High School

Lovers' Black Heart - Kanupriya Goyal, CA, Mission San Jose High School

Ode to yijing - Ella Brown, NY, Fox Lane High School

And For the Fear of Their Fear... - Jenna Smith, AL, Thompson High School

though the lotus flowers wither... - Emily Finkel, NJ, The Frisch School

Spring bike rides - Joshua Gil, OH, Tree of DREAMS Homeschool

Blackberry Picking - Harmony Belle Devoe, VT, Harwood Union High School

The Flowers We hand Down - Johanna Marx, CA, Temecula High School



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