GNASHERS

"Poetry is Language at it's most distilled and most powerful" - Rita Dove

Gnashers have been ground down, these are your poems that have been through the gauntlet, forged in the fires of your google drive and tinkered on by wordsmiths until every nook and cranny has been nitpicked and you are sure its sharpest edges have been honed to perfection.

The First Firearm

Jonathan Fletcher (he/him/his)

Dunhuang, China, mid-tenth century
Bamboo for a barrel,
gunpowder packed with pottery shards,
A long spear attached,
shaft cradled, grip firm.

Forget Los Alamos.
Forget Oppenheimer.
Forget Fat Man and Little Boy.
Forget white blooms that replace cities.

This is where porcelain flew,
horses quaked, armies retreated.
This is where world ignited,
turned from sphere to bullet.

Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which his debut chapbook, This is My Body, was published in 2025. Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Going Loco

Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his)

so i go loco when i drink the hard stuff
Dad did too // that’s Shostakovich streaming
from my speaker solo keyboard pieces
pensive tense // intensity i got
from Mom & Democratic tenderheart
from Dad heredity that helps & haunts
// oh how long since i’ve felt that kind of love
where i can’t keep my hands off that sworn object
of affection culture tells me object
is the problem // grabass on the porch
two car wheels in a country ditch bikini
lined ecstatic softness striped by moonlit
ash trees // by the time we kill the fifth
my breathing corpse is dreaming far downriver

Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his) teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review https://thebigwindowsreview.com/ at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in Cold Signal, TrashLight Press, and Trouvaille Review. His latest poetry book is My Night to Cook (Cyberwit, 2024). Website: https:/thomaszimmerman.wordpress.com

PC: Halee H.

The River That Remembered me

Baskin Cooper (he/him/his)

I come back after decades to a river with a different name its surface calm as glass sunlight stippled through sycamores families picnic on the far bank children wade knee-deep, laughing I kneel to drink the current coils around my hand like an old friend testing my pulse something stirs beneath a slick breath rising from gravel and I remember I almost drowned here once small lungs filling mud and silt closing like fists the river speaks in ripples I was the lesson your father could not give you I wanted you wary I made you strong its voice moves under my skin like water under ice it tells me no bridge is safe no bank is steady even calm water has teeth across the current a boy splashes his sister and she shrieks with delight their laughter skims the surface but never sinks I back away as the river stretches itself taller in my reflection an old god rising grinning with weed-green teeth you came back to thank me you came back to drink what I left inside you "Baskin Cooper is a poet, visual artist, and multidisciplinary creator based in Chatham County, North Carolina. His work spans poetry, songwriting, sculpture, screenwriting, and voice acting, weaving together visual, narrative, and musical elements. He holds a PhD in psychology and previously lived in Cork, Ireland, experiences that often shape his explorations of folklore, lyricism, and personal history. His poems have appeared in Rattle, The Avocet, and Ink & Oak, with work forthcoming in ONE ART and Verse-Virtual. His debut collection, The Space Between Branches, is currently seeking publication. "

AYN RAND IN HEAVEN, LOOKING FOR LOVE

Jefferson Carter (he/him)

Once they knew my name, the Young Souls banned me from all heavenly orgies. The Old Souls, those who died of natural causes, keep moaning “O, O, O, love bone back in the day, all-terrain cane now.” Self-pity, such a turn-off. Even my heroes, the Robber Barons, won’t snuggle, obsessed as they are with the bottom line: bigger wings & childish comfort. Jefferson Carter’s work has appeared in journals like Barrow Street and Rattle. Chax Press (Tucson) published his ninth collection, Get Serious: New and Selected Poems, a Southwest Best Book of 2013. Free Hugs, his thirteenth collection, is now available from Coyote Arts (NM). For more information, visit jeffersoncarterverse.com Carter has lived in Tucson, AZ, since 1953 and taught composition and poetry writing full-time for 30 years at Pima Community College.

The Painter and the Poet Talk Politics

Emma Johnson-Rivard (She/her)

Last time we spoke, it came out that I’d written another poem, an account of love and social collapse, a breakdown in the tradition of millennial lesbians everywhere. A cursory glance reveals something of artist and self in every line. This is not memoir in the way that everything, in the end, is memoir. You turn your eye to the sketchpad, pen tucked behind an ear. You’re painting sex and apocalypse. We are well suited this way. The world tilts again. Mostly, I’ve been happy. The soul begs word and paint, a line to break between understanding and the need to sleep. One day, maybe, I’ll write poems about cats again. "Emma Johnson-Rivard is a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Coffin Bell, Red Flag Poetry, and others. She can be found at Bluesky at @blackcattales and at emmajohnson-rivard.com. "

an asterism***

Stephanie JT Russel (she-her / they-them)

This poem's formatting is integral to the work, please expand to read.

Stephanie JT Russell is a prolific interdisciplinary artist, author, and cultural worker. Read her full bio here

Knuckledusters

Emma Johnson-Rivard (She/her)

It's a common belief that bone, once broken, grows back stronger. This is only true for smallest breaks. A boxer will take microfractures on the knuckles, and come back hardened. But a broken arm, once snapped, will always be susceptible to repetition. The lesson now: break, my love, but only just. "Emma Johnson-Rivard is a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Coffin Bell, Red Flag Poetry, and others. She can be found at Bluesky at @blackcattales and at emmajohnson-rivard.com. "

Red Alert

Lynn White (she/her)

It’s not enough to take to the streets one million two million it still needs more. It’s not enough to sign your name three million four million it still needs more. It’s not enough to cast your vote nine million ten million think of a number million it still needs more. It’s never enough the clowns still will have more. First published in New Verse News, December 14 2019 Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award.

Embraced By An Alien From The Purple Planet, I Almost Touched Infinity

Heather D Haigh (she/her)

His body iridescent in the glow of Earth’s lonely satellite, keratin stroking flesh, invoking shivers, lest his scales catch my wrinkles and I tatter. Instead we glide, cool and smooth, him slyssing silver locks, while age-spotted hands reach for gleaming faunal buds and, reverentially, he bites off, chunks of my hair and chews, bites and chews and swallows, then whispers, Earth men say you bad? I stroke a bony nub and shake my head. They say nothing. Nothing at all. Soon, he left me for a hirsute octogenarian. I stroke my stubble, and hope.

No Need for Concern

Kate Lewington (she/they)

i had been picked up from school and was sat in the back of the car when you told me we had an appointment with the doctor to attend that afternoon i was getting into trouble at school all i wanted to ask was if i would have to roll up my sleeves because if you wasn't aware and i couldn't articulate the doctor could write it off as adolescence if i kept hidden under clothes that i am tearing my flesh apart then there is no need for concern, it will pass. From the South of England, Kate is a writer/poet and blogger. Their writing is largely based on the themes of belonging, loss, and wonder. They have been recently published by Roi Fainéant Press, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, World Insane and TrashLight Press. https://katelouisepoetry.wordpress.com/

Trigger Warning - Self Harm

F-Bomb Alert!

Jefferson Carter (He/Him)

Every fuckin’ morning I see his fuckin’ picture in the fuckin’ paper. My mother told me over-using the F-word weakens its impact. So why does telling a lie over & over enhance its power? Raising my fork, I look through the tines at his face, visualizing him behind bars & his future fucking. Jefferson Carter’s work has appeared in journals like Barrow Street and Rattle. Chax Press (Tucson) published his ninth collection, Get Serious: New and Selected Poems, a Southwest Best Book of 2013. Free Hugs, his thirteenth collection, is now available from Coyote Arts (NM). For more information, visit jeffersoncarterverse.com Carter has lived in Tucson, AZ, since 1953 and taught composition and poetry writing full-time for 30 years at Pima Community College.

Unlikely Companions

Trish Hopkinson (she/her)

It’s hard to say how it arrived, a remnant of what it once was, incongruent in this place where sodium and potash lap at white sands; where seagull carcasses scatter in assorted states of decay, ghostlike bones and feathers mixed into the beach like a slurry. Some still fly here, awaiting demise, scavenging for scraps, mingling with the millions, loitering as the shores broaden. This forsaken lake abides by its keepers, watched over by a single, empty armchair, leaning slightly on a sunken foot, as if to say, I, too, am broken. I, too, must abide to those who abandon me. Overhead, geese contemplate migration, turkey vultures circle; their great wings stretched wide intimidate the few sparse clouds collecting, but promising no drizzle. The armchair looks toward the clouds and beckons, scowls at the vultures, prays for rain. SLC CWC Iron Pen Winner, 2024 Trish Hopkinson is a poet and advocate for the literary arts. You can find her online at SelfishPoet.com. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines and journals; and her most recent book A Godless Ascends was published by Lithic Press in March 2024. Hopkinson happily answers to labels such as atheist, feminist, and empty nester; and enjoys traveling, live music, and craft beer.

Call me Issac,

Holton Lee (any/all)

Call me prophet. Call me doom. Family. A strange and suckled beast of slaughter, and what a beast of bloody mouth, of saintly hemorrhage on sacrificial altar. How obedient, how righteous, it is to bring its own kindling, its own pyre. Feel the buckle of my knees, taste the churl of my bile, smell the sparking of this flame, hear the angelic hymnal choir, see the callous of the blade within my palm. What a beast of bloody mouth. What a beast of bloody mouth. What a beast of bloody mouth. Holton Lee (Any/All) is an emerging poet based in Salt Lake City, and occasionally in your dreams (yes that was them, you’re welcome). Their work centers around queerness, identity, and whatever comes to mind. You can find them in cat cafes, co-running Salt Cured Collective, and talking to the local crows. They hope you enjoy their poems.

Beautiful in Spite of You

Andrew Earley (he/him)

I found my solace in crowded basements filled with disregarded souls. our hearts full and our hopes dashed, Let down by everyone, except for each other. We screamed. We struggled, fighting to feel real, with broken knuckles Bloodstains, bruises, and ringing ears. We faced our fears. Hearts on fire. We sang like we were seeds, and danced until we dripped with sweat, irrigating our hopes for revolution. We were alight with lives lousy with ideals, questions for everything, and living as our only answer. I wrote about my sleepless nights in empty buildings, back alleyways, and rooftops chasing away the sunrise, refusing to let the stars rest. Notebooks of night skies screamed that if we never sleep, our days will become home for our dreams, that living is the way to feel alive, and what an awful shame to sleep on that. The city whispers its secrets at 4 am, and the hotter they are the higher they climb, until rooftops bellow life-stories so many miles above those lives that it feels like omnipotence soaring over city streets, standing on the top of the world. When i finally slept i made my bed in a house nobody owned. I guess in the heart of a city no one needed shelter like their land lord needed rent checks when 1983 drowned downtown. Like a good Utah boy the landlord buried his shame so nobody would talk about it, threw up plywood prophylactics to protect from undesirables, and then let the weeds come in. I hope whoever used to fill the halls of my bedroom got their shit out safely. Our home fit us basement souls perfectly. It was a home we made so beautiful they demanded we give it back. But we framed it up with two by fours and necessity. Insulated it with fiberglass dreams in the face of unsheltered nightmares. Carefully arranged fuck you band flyers and fuck you graffiti over freshly hung drywall some construction site misplaced. Said, “if you want it so bad come and take it. Watch, these empty bones crumble without us.” You forgot about us and we’re in love with making your apathy incomprehensibly beautiful. Punks have the most beautiful dreams. I still believe in punk rock things, I believe in dreams deemed Too idealistic I still believe It’s worth the fight That bloodied and broken Or not sleeping at night “Sometimes” means “shelter” for the disregarded souls, lost and alone, with beautiful dreams and hearts on fire. Ready to give everything to the ideals of fuck you walls, roofs, and floors made so beautiful we could never let them take them. Sometimes those rooftops and back alleyways still sing for me. Feed oxygen to my smoldering embers, kept safe and warm by the legacy of a life lived, not looked at. Despite my anxious head, swearing I’m nothing if not disregarded… Bike house, one of the longest running squats in the country, was the first successful case of adverse possession in Utah since something like the 1960s. Elsewhere,the city is still inscribed with a fading legacy of loving fuck you’s From punks, in love with making it beautiful.