JUST POETRY!!!


the National Poetry Quarterly


JUST POETRY!!! the National Poetry Quarterly



best of issue





Spring 2023 - 2024




Tiger Cubs and Juvenile Wolves


i. my first sights were charred, i was born blind

with brittle anatomy, over-feeling curse

clasped in teeth cages, helicoptered place to place

or clipped onto mother’s shin, lungs bubbling with fur or skin

donning striated cell-bar coat (overburdened with security)

bodypainting crosswalk stripes (please apply pressure here)

cinching waist with sashes (family flaunted through ribbons)

control comes from fear

out here in the wild

II. My mother labels me ungrateful, and I begin to recognize it as my name. I was born in the Year of the Dog, but she tends to confuse me with wolves. Look in the mirror, she says. You have the marble eyes of wolf statues.

In Chinese, the thankless son is the white-eyed wolf.

No one pities the blind canines, she says.

They gulp the poison from their mouths.

Dogs like me can do nothing but listen.

I swallow my spit and spite and promise to learn from the sun.

My silver eyes char themselves until a coat of ash paints over the defect.

It seems that a veneer is enough to be fed

out here in the wild.

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




EDITOR'S CHOICE





Spring 2023-2024




south bay manifesto
in wintertime, the stars latch themselves to better
& brighter burning things. the moon faltering in midnight
air – nitrogen & oxygen mixing to fill my lungs with peninsula
rot. I remember you best in parts, and this was the last season
I wanted you. your face pressed against the dash of your father’s
minivan as we made the drive upstate, cheekbones flushed with
color and bruising with every speed bump. the ski shop at the base
of the white hill the way you held on the ice hockey club and refused
to let go. we were ten years old at the time, our ears reddening from
the cold. maybe if I had known my own tongue better I could have
called out to you, told you to wait for me before you took that sled
down the slope. before you broke your arm on the jagged rock below, before your skin split to blood & bone, and your mouth opened in a soundless wail. what I remember most is how your blood splattered
against the white ice, how the clouds circled above the scene in conquest. and how you looked at me, as if I could take this pain away.

but we were only children. I screamed with you until your father found us, until wintertime had melted away while you slept in your hospital bed, &
I could not remember you at all.
Chloe Chou, CA, Westmoor High School


ALL OTHER CERTIFIED National winners
Spring 2023 - 2024




Resurrection - Hannah Liu, VA, Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology

Sai Castor - CA, West Ranch High School

why, as a fish, i sleep with my eyes open - Matt Berkery, NJ, Cherry Hill HS East

romanticizing my hamartia - Jessica Baltaxe, CA, Angelo Rodriguez High School

Holy Wars - Pranavi Vedula, NH, Phillips Exeter Academy

honeysuckle - Gracie Gicakara, TN, Notre Dame High School

To suffering (in Silence) - Claire Guo, CA, Lynnbrook High School

Some-mer - Hana Tsai, NY, Spence School

Moonflower - Francie Tran, CA, Huntington Beach High School

morning routine - Michelle Bi, CA, Oak Park High School

i watch america weaving - Aleena Alam, WA, Olympia High School

orange juice - Avery Mak, NY, Hunter College High School

Summer 2016 - Hallie Dong, PA, Sewickley Academy

Unreturnable - Chelsea Zhu, MD, Richard Montgomery High School

peeling pomegranates - Olivia Cao, PA, Central Bucks HS South

and the record plays on - Aleria Holmes, MS, Mississippi School of the Arts

Eulogy for Eurydice as a Mother - Lily Scheckner, MD, Montgomery Blair HS

bruises and nicks - Meenakshi Tuppera, TX, Ridge Point High School

Nana Catches a Cold Swimming in the River - Anna Mohanty, VA, Washington-Liberty

Swoop - Emma Bender, TX, Midlothian High School

Love Letter to my Baby Brother - Olive Greene, TX, McCallum High School

Saudade - Ella Tobin, WA, Lincoln High School

Skyline - Sakai Wiggins, TX, James E. Taylor High School

Monsieur Lawrence - Kelsey Lind, TX, L.C. Anderson High School

Primal Signals - Conlan Heiser-Cerrato, MD, Loyola Blakefield





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