Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry Translations The English language is a complicated thing. Especially when his love language is action: he pumps air in the tires of my Prius; he recalls car keys I left by the bathtub so I can exit our front door on time. What I want is words … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry After Anguish Barn stalls gape empty, draped with cobwebs. The time for burrowing soft and deep, quilt to chin, under scraps patched to pattern: cathedral window’s twelve-fold squares. In early dark and deepening chill, trees blacken against the gray, a western tint of light remaining. Here it’s … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry America’s Modern Korean Bride Gait is a tell-tale of origin, so to blend in with Manhattan scrapes: walkstraight like Ma’s back-brace, translate pastrami energy into hare-velocity, clutch Chloé ’s straps straight likeVanderbilt’s railroads over dear Hudson – so maybe you’ll earn a fortunetoo. You’ve always babbled of … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry End of the line I’m not allowed to write about Disconnection’Cos I’m all grown up now and my life is of my own making.At my age I should have it all figured out.But this is not what I thought life would feel like. I’m not there yet … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry To His Mother Alexei Navalny, (June 4, 1976— February 16, 2024) The tidal forces as you enter a black holeand approach the singularity would tear you apart.And also space and time. It is a small thingto be a mother, a heavy, small thing. To be a body, … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry Cause and Effect That’s what happened:his factory was fined for coughing thick smokefrom its stacks, so his boss has him working laterto claw back the shortfall; you stop waiting up for himafter too many nodding nights and roll away in bed;you feel lonelier together and avoid hard … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry Winter 2023 The hirsute man sits in the jeweller’s doorway.The dishevelled dog,a constant by his side.Passers-by avert their eyesexcept oneuniformed stranger.He walks towards themwith concerned dismay,crouches to talk,takes the dog away. Colette Lawlor is a biologist who teaches adults and lives on Morecambe Bay, UK. Since her … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry Rebecca Loggia has been writing stories since childhood, eventually earning a degree in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Her work has been published in the Santa Clara Review, Allegory Ridge, Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose, and elsewhere. Her essay, “How to Rewrite a Medical … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry A thread of birds pulledfrom the shorn field becomesa scarf knit by the wind,intertwining the branches, flowingastride the bare necks of trees then expands to a needlepoint shawlthrown wild within the October aircovering the grey and brown shoulders of low hillsagainst the coming cold then explodes, full as … Read more
Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry No magic roundabout reverie herethe anti ice cream van haunts the suburbssinging scrap iron, any old iron A tannoy trumpets a thin melodya voice singing with a scrape of scrap metalno magic round about here A Bedford van drives slowly down the streeta hawker sings, walking aheadscrap … Read more