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Poetry Archive

Two poems by Emily Vizzo

Emily Vizzo

riversound (detail) / credit: de

Toward Openness Bound in red fir, the fragrant breath of a Central Valley As they say breadbasket, an open data, Bound in headwaters, the Mokelumne, the San Joaquin. The bottomlands. Eggs … [Read more...]

Three poems by Bailey Grey

Bailey Grey

Long Beach WA watercolor / credit: de

reflections by naming an ocean / we shrink it / it gains sharp edges and an orientation / (who decided that north means up?) we are like reflections in spoons / (cotton balls and lighters) … [Read more...]

Four poems by Allan Graubard: For Steve Dalachinsky, Ira Cohen, and Ronnie Burk

Allan Graubard

recall / credit: em

I am reading Lundkvist's dreams       when he was in               a … [Read more...]

Three poems by Constance Bacchus

Constance Bacchus

Riverside Columbia / credit: de

helen imagines she is cailleach on a snowed in Thursday wears a wig of stiff twigs glasses, holding the sun hat, a lot of makeup or none she has a feather brown flying coat rainbowed scarf, … [Read more...]

Two poems by Lynne Schmidt

Lynne Schmidt

curve / credit: de

When My Sister Calls My sister calls to ask me “Why would my dog be bleeding from his mouth?” She asks me because I am a dog person. She asks me because I have a degree in medical biology … [Read more...]

Poems by Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles, translated by Kristine Ong Muslim

Kristine Ong Muslim and Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles

two-thirty / credit: em

Reptile He had been visited by countless frogs and snakes were nesting in his room. Although he was always trapped between trepidation and awe, he relished each encounter as … [Read more...]

Three poems by María C. Domínguez

María C. Domínguez

helix iii / credit: de

A house with two cats I have come here thinking it was a home, a release even if rented and the landlord is loud and flirts too much. I took two aeroplanes, two red buses, climbed a mountain … [Read more...]

Two poems by Candice Kelsey

Candice Kelsey

in the garden / credit: de

like a collapsed lung A poem walks into a pandemic and starts tearing up its lines to make medical grade masks tossing its punctuation tiny prayers darkening the emptiness between its … [Read more...]

Two poems by German Dario

German Dario

fragrance / credit: em

food the border is not a lava vein the wind will tell you that a pencil line insults crisp white paper when used to divide the border is a butterfly's torso a wave's dance as it … [Read more...]

Two poems from Stilled Somewhere Possible by Cheryl Pallant

Cheryl Pallant

roller / credit: de

English Refrains Pine, ginko, and chestnut complement the land     Talk, discussion and argument volunteer time     Ask to establish … [Read more...]

Three poems by Zach Linge

Zach Linge

in back ii / credit: de

First Week Without You Vintage and rented books stacked beside my pillow, boxers knotted around my calves, asphyxiated by my sweater midday, I’m sorry: I have found without you the bed … [Read more...]

Three poems by Erin Russell

Erin Russell

image credit: em

Harlingen Dis(a)sembled i. the way their mother said values— and blond kids scowled, they were suspicious behind thatched thighs: our kiss on the pier travelling north of Amsterdam, out … [Read more...]

Three poems by Elizabeth Threadgill

Elizabeth Threadgill

Addisonia / 1902

You Plucked Bees from My Hair like vibrating seeds each tells a secret the trees are singing the rabbits are drumming the squirrels are screaming while the mower runs in circles your … [Read more...]

Two poems by Robyn Pickens

Robyn Pickens

Ida / Ajna My grandmother is a psychic channel / is an aquatic plant / is a lotus flower / is Padma / is the purple luminescence of the moon / is the seed syllable OM / is the supreme sound of the … [Read more...]

Three poems by Tasha Cotter

Tasha Cotter

on the borderline / credit: de

Incarnadine The word a color of flesh— a tongue, Rough skin, the inside of your cheek. We’ve all dreamed in those shades Of red and pain. Wake up – you were Calling out in your sleep. The soft … [Read more...]

Two Collaborative Poems by Danielle Rose and Bailey Grey

Danielle Rose and Bailey Grey

ten / credit: de

bootcfg /rebuild i have to believe i am pulses counting to one / & so i imagine the damage a pair of wire-cutters could inflict / because i have been told the mind is a processor / & so i … [Read more...]

Two poems by Alexus Erin

Alexus Erin

six

And So I missed autumn: it ran past me. The leaves and feathers, elms and erins built themselves an island coastline of useless request: asking the people we love to account for their … [Read more...]

Two poems by Alan Chazaro

Alan Chazaro

credit: Romain Gille

On Being Evicted from Earth I’m not convinced I should be leaving, but I’ve already left. Between moons I’ve become displaced, the dance of lost tectonics. Maybe that’s why I move silently beneath … [Read more...]

Notes on Three Lost Poems by Gregory Corso

Gregory Stephenson

Photo by Robert Wilson. Used by permission.

In a life of wide and restless travels, Gregory Corso produced six collections of poetry, together with a handful of plays and a novel, but left trailing in the wake of his urgent journeys an unknown … [Read more...]

Two poems by Carson Faust

Carson Faust

the Douglas Fir at 850 years

[As described by settlers in the early 70s]: [My parents and grandparents were not from this area.] Call me home. However many mothers ago. It only hurt when they unstitched the skin, right? … [Read more...]

Three poems by Mickee Cheung

Mickee Cheung

east of here / credit: de

Ode to growing tomatoes These days, it seems all I do is tend to this garden and feed this dog they’ve left me and made me walk and pick shit up after and dote on. The children, they don’t … [Read more...]

Two poems from Transparency by Maria Borio, translated by Julia Anastasia Pelosi-Thorpe

Julia Anastasia Pelosi-Thorpe and Maria Borio

the walk / credit: de

Miniatures 2 You’re asleep and breathe nearby something of me that dissolves the air. Heel to brow at your side unmoving in the idea that above us something – it can be called Something – … [Read more...]

Three poems by Taylor Byas

Taylor Byas

trailing / credit: de

Disciplinarian I. In the closet, racked in line for picking, belts molder and shed in leather scabs; in hand, they crack like reins. On their legs and backs, the brand of a coachman shows … [Read more...]

from Borderline Fortune: Three poems by Teresa K. Miller

Teresa K. Miller

semiahmoo / credit: em

I lift the ban—if you are gone, you will speak your own language. You broke my mother and so you broke me, lost in the thicket of your misfortune. Sharp brittle branches sticky with bird … [Read more...]

Three poems by Matt Mitchell

Matt Mitchell

way / credit: em

An Ocean of Shaking Hands Each time I bayonet a needle into my gut, I am digging up another dead boy buried in the dark corners of whatever apocalypse hides there. I carry the burden of every … [Read more...]

Four poems by Katherine Fallon

Katherine Fallon

open / credit: de

My Light Form Cacophonous ghost tribe of a love, the moment we met was a reckoning. That night, I got hungry again, and sickly so. I swelled, breathed sheer will into the drab golem of … [Read more...]

Four cow poems by Orchid Tierney

Orchid Tierney

by the river / credit: de

From blue doors The epistolemology of the field History refuses a settlement. The field is a category for knowledge. A cow is a period and more likely syntaxis. Cover of grass is blue, … [Read more...]

Two poems by Amy Gong Liu

Amy Gong Liu

Chuckanut rain / credit: de

On my Mother, or Observing Two Deer in the Road with Death Wishes I don’t share the same sentiment, but my brakes are faulty. Say, didn’t you enjoy the sun today? I’ve hurt the people most … [Read more...]

Three poems by Jose Hernandez Diaz

Jose Hernandez Diaz

possibilities / credit: de

Mrs. Weir Thank you to my high school English teacher, Mrs. Weir, For introducing me to literature. I remember reading The Catcher in the Rye during junior year of high school, And hearing … [Read more...]

Two poems by Lauren Saxon

Lauren Saxon

YOU in trees

even now, even still I remain unsettled by the lengths we go to      disguise our own loneliness my focus not on the arrows – red roses … [Read more...]

Three poems by Jennifer Vaknine

Jennifer Vaknine

cloudune / credit: de

saving schrödinger’s cat I read an article on my phone on the train about changing truth at the quantum level about making the quarks choose sides & I thought about the time in the … [Read more...]

Two poems by Risa Denenberg

Risa Denenberg

fossil view / credit: de

On Becoming a Geode I left high school pregnant, tiny pebble in the chaotic boot of the sixties. Banished for smallminded things— skipping class, protesting war, French kissing in the … [Read more...]

a tribute to creeley — Steve Dalachinsky

Steve Dalachinsky

boulevard ii / credit: de

1. moments in slow motion withdrawn like light life & their eventuality i can see clear rain thru this bitch day believe in still, a voidless piece … [Read more...]

Three poems by Georges Rose, translated by Bryan F. Flavin

Brian F. Flavin and Georges Rose

banks september / credit: em

Mer cousue ligne de fer nappe ornée d’oiseaux ciels crevés de soies où s’affalent des lumières imprévisibles par endroit le revêtement de chair avec ses maisons plus lourdes brassards … [Read more...]

Three poems by Helen McClory

Helen McClory

between / credit: de

Thirty-Five All I want now myself only is to Wear kimonos with velvet Bralets, high-waisted velvet knickers The colour, close enough, of my skin Sit by windows, smoke cigarettes On long … [Read more...]

Two poems by Alex Gallo-Brown

Alex Gallo Brown

crabpots

The Normal Ways In the morning her mom is gone and it is just me watching her tip an empty espresso cup to her lips or fuss with a bottle of the spiciest hot sauce on Beacon Hill. There … [Read more...]

Three poems by Denzel Scott

Denzel Scott

overlay / credit: de

A Train and a Funeral I had to hop a train to bury my most recent dead. His body laid in the funeral home at the other side of the tracks. I parked my car in the liquor … [Read more...]

Two poems by Adenle Iyanuoluwa Deborah

Adenle Iyanuoluwa Deborah

portal / credit: de

It’s never enough but it’s plenty: it bore other names, one title different from the next, i can't hold on to the shadows. so, i spelt it as mother. As yeshua. … [Read more...]

Four poems by Robert Hogg

Robert Hogg

perspective / credit: de

Manhattan Daimon (for Nadia and her daughter As moon is to earth and earth about sun turns so I dance at the tree root till woodpecker sing and footfall free Ge from slumber … [Read more...]

Two poems by Amy Watkins

Amy Watkins

the way back / credit: de

  We Help a Friend Move in with Her New Lover She says that she feels safe with him. She says she falls asleep when he drives, like a child who will be carried in to bed. She says this … [Read more...]

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R.I.P. Michael McClure 1932-2020

Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

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