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Ruth Awad Poetry Picks


It is not my aim to name the spark that makes a poem a poem, but I can show you what is wild and wandering and wondering. I hope when you read these poems, your curiosity ignites. I hope they make you look up at the world around you and seek out its tenderness. I hope they fill you with a righteous rage or become the salve you needed on a hard day. I chose these poems for their breadth and spellwork. Let them transform you, even briefly.

“Honey” by Allison Adair
“An Accommodation” by Sandra Beasley
“God Letter” by CM Burroughs
“Marigolds of Fire” by Ama Codjoe
“Buying Back-to-School Supplies” by Matthew Guenette
“Professor Marva Stewart’s Funeral Service at Gilbert-Lambuth Chapel, Paine College” by Kamilah Aisha Moon
“Gather” by Jess Smith
“The Most Important Word in This Language” by Analicia Sotelo

Contributing editor Ruth Awad is an award-winning Lebanese-American poet whose debut poetry collection Set to Music a Wildfire (SIR Press 2017) won the 2016 Michael Waters Poetry Prize and the 2018 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of a 2016 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRYPoem-a-DayThe New RepublicPleiadesThe RumpusThe Missouri Review Poem of the WeekSixth FinchCrab Orchard ReviewCALYXDiodeThe Adroit JournalVinyl PoetryEpiphanyBOAAT Journal, and elsewhere.