Nancy Holochwost

Home Is the Place

From the Archive

In her essay “The Good End of Pleasant Street,” which appears in our June issue, Heather Lanier and her family move into an apartment that’s part dream, part unfortunate reality. Their new place is in a beautiful Vermont town and has affordable rent. However, it’s also got lead paint, loud neighbors, and proximity to the town’s heroin crisis. All of this leaves the author continually wondering whether she’s living at what local residents call the “good end” or the “bad end” of Pleasant Street.

The Ties That Bind

Poetry in Our May Issue

Our relationships with family members are often crucial to who we are, for better or worse, and the poems in our May issue explore two sides of that dynamic. In “Boxer’s Fracture,” by Jackleen Holton, a mother’s death brings up strong emotions from the speaker’s painful childhood. In Meghan Daniels’s “Separation” the stresses and challenges of parenting, while exhausting, also form a solid center in the speaker’s life during an uncertain time.

A Study In Contrasts

Poetry in Our March Issue

The poems in this month’s issue are a study in contrasts. Kenneth Hart’s “Indecision” is a metaphorical reflection on what is “probably the least attractive quality in a man,” as the author says. “Los Vecinos” tells the story of Alison Luterman’s immigrant neighbor, a wise and generous woman, against the backdrop of nearby ICE patrols. What the poems do have in common is that they’re both absorbing and skillful pieces of writing.

Bonds of Love

Poetry in Our February Issue

February often brings relationships to mind, and the poems in this month’s issue offer views of three different kinds of love. Joseph Bathanti’s “Lasciare Stare” is a beautifully written memory of a tender interaction between the author’s parents. In “Love Language,” a striking poem by Madelyn Chen, the speaker cares for an unnamed man by bringing him flowers. Bob Hicok’s “The Eulogy I Didn’t Give (V)” describes the impossible task of eulogizing a relationship that has no end, even after death.

Poems of Realization

Poetry in Our January Issue

The two poems in our January issue describe unexpected moments of clarity. In Claire McQuerry’s “I Always Wanted a Wife,” the speaker has a gradual epiphany about her true feelings about her marriage. And in Rachael Petersen’s “Tassajara,” the lessons she learns at a Zen retreat come not from the monks or meditation sessions, but from a boisterous dog.

Places of Meaning

Poetry in Our December Issue

The two poems in our December issue take us to places where the unexpected happens. In James Davis May’s “The Patron Saint of Suburban Foxes,” it’s to a quiet neighborhood where early risers catch a glimpse of a rare visitor. Gary Jackson’s “Pinkie Masters” takes us barhopping in Savannah with the author’s wife and mother-in-law, who pulls a prank for the ages. Both are gorgeous poems that offer not just rich settings, but a more expansive sense of the meaning that hides all around us.

Four Captivating Poems

Poetry in Our November Issue

The trio of poems by Sybil Smith in our November issue are full of surprising elements. They take place against the backdrop of an Alaskan salmon run, when the fish famously swim upstream to spawn. One poem includes a fertility spell, and one ends with a lullaby that reads like a prayer for the future. Sybil’s writing mixes the hard facts of biology with lyricism and a sense that, maybe, our pleas in the dark don’t go unheard. John Hodgen’s “The Lonesomest Sound in the World” casts its own spell as it artfully tells the story of a grim act of childhood cruelty. With his precise, unsettlingly beautiful writing, the author has captured a truth you can’t look away from, in a poem you won’t forget anytime soon.

The Essentials: Poetry in Our October Issue

Poetry in Our October Issue

“I know nothing much,” Leath Tonino says in his poem “Skill Set.” While he notes a lack of practical abilities, like fixing a car or using a chainsaw, it turns out he does have some less-utilitarian but maybe more-important skills: He notices beauty everywhere and can carry a tune. Rebecca Baggett wishes for just such a Tonino-esque gift in one of her two poems in our October issue; she wants to listen to the rain without being distracted by her own thoughts. This month’s poetry offers meditations on essential things, asking us to consider what we value about ourselves and our experience of the world.

Here and Gone

Poetry in Our July Issue

“When he dies, my father turns into a small stone on the bed,” begins Michael Torres’s beautiful poem “Levi Strauss & Co.” All three poems in our July issue deal with figures who, like Torres’s father, have departed in some way, but whose presence remains. Yehoshua November’s “Exile for the Sake of Redemption” considers the movements of a God who sometimes feels out of reach. In “Parting Advice,” James Davis May recalls a friend’s enigmatic words, which have stayed with him since the friend’s passing.

Memory and Music

Poetry in Our June Issue

At first glance the two poems in our June issue couldn’t seem more different. “My memory of you is a knife,” begins Jarod K. Anderson’s “Tending the Wound,” a short study of longing that’s as sharp as the image in its first line. Jared Harél’s playful “Ode to Middle School Band” captures an audience’s mix of trepidation and pride at a school concert. (Anyone who’s watched a group of kids perform will know the feeling.) Though the poems’ tones are quite different, at the heart of both are emotions many of us will recognize.