My new boyfriend said he was gonna fuck up my old boyfriend because he makes me cry and then tricks me into forgiving him, again and again and again. He was kind of sexy when he said it, my new boyfriend, because I’m not used to masc energy like that . . . ~from "Serial" by Jenny Heijun Wills

Serial

My new boyfriend said he was gonna fuck up my old boyfriend because he makes me cry and then tricks me into forgiving him, again and again and again. He was kind of sexy when he said it, my new…

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The façade of the Duomo had been cleaned since my year abroad in Milano, making the veiny, pale pink stone look hauntingly like human skin, not helped by the fact it was cold to the touch. ~from "More Than You Can Run With" by Mariana Villas-Boas AGNI 95

More Than You Can Run With

The cut on my cheek stings and I’m reminded that life is dangerously unpredictable. My son runs circles around me and I stand small in the vast vault of the Milano Centrale train station, with its…

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Each promise I break is toward a definition Of god. Angels decay, the breakwaters return Their low lives to water, the dunes Slip monuments. ~from "The Wait" by Sophie Cabot Black AGNI 27

The Wait

Each promise I break is toward a definition Of god. Angels decay, the breakwaters return Their low lives to water, the dunes Slip monuments. Polite, I tried even Loving a stranger. Into the dark…

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And like Caravaggio, I am my own savior rent by my own hand. ~from "The Head of Goliath" by Phillip B. Williams 🔥 AGNI 103 🔥

The Head of Goliath

David with the Head of Goliath, 1610 x And like Caravaggio, I am my own savior rent by my own hand. Depicted: A younger version of the painter heeds his own benevolence, having made lantern of his…

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I found myself asking how can a sentence, whose function is to convey a finding, suggest so much more than itself? ~from "The Power in Naming and Not Naming: Three Questions with Isaac Yuen" Blog post by agnimag Isaac Yuen’s essay “Utter, Earth” appears in AGNI 94 and won a Pushcart Prize.

The Power in Naming and Not Naming: Three Questions with Isaac Yuen

The piece actually began as an attempt at organization. I had been perusing scientific journals for other works and came across so many interesting extracts I couldn’t help but bookmark for exploring…

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Have you ever noticed that in central Russia the sky is white for the most part, without any breaks? There isn’t even a mix of grey, not to mention blue—a straight path to insanity. ~from "The Fish" by Anzhelina Polonskaya trans. from the Russian by Andrew Wachtel AGNI Online

The Fish 1

There’s nothing more powerful than pre-dawn melancholy. It oozes like a dirty light from the east, filters through the shutters, and everything—the trees, the garden, the birds—seems like the…

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The girl in the birdcage rises with the rest of the city’s street birds. They caw her awake. Squawking seagulls cry. Piping pigeons coo, picking beads of morning dew off their feathers, which shine brown and gray under the wetness. ~from "Florence, now a bird" by Silja Liv Kelleris AGNI 101

Florence, now a bird

The girl in the birdcage rises with the rest of the city’s street birds. They caw her awake. Squawking seagulls cry. Piping pigeons coo, picking beads of morning dew off their feathers, which shine…

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🔥NEW at AGNI Online🔥 My mother’s eyes, my father’s nose and teeth. My father’s curls, his earlobes, my mother’s upper lip. My second-grade face still resides in my 64-year-old face, that expectant smile waiting for something. ~from "Squinting to See the Faces" by Denise Duhamel

Squinting to See the Faces

A literary magazine named after the Vedic fire-god. Transformative. The writer in witness, the imagination in combustion.

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People said hardest. Some said hardest in a hundred years. You thought those people weren’t specific enough. Others said ninety-seven. The man down the hill agreed, he said I was alive then. He said everything died. ~from "Hardest" by Philip James Shaw AGNI Online

Hardest

People said hardest. Some said hardest in a hundred years. You thought those people weren’t specific enough. Others said ninety-seven. The man down the hill agreed, he said I was alive then. He said…

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🔥NEW Reverb at AGNI Online🔥 A year ago, I wrote in the margins of a poem of mine, “IDEA: Could send out as letterpressed cards . . . recipients can begin to (&, eventually,) assemble the poem whole. ~from "Tracing the Going Morning" by Katherine Indermaur

Tracing the Going Morning

A year ago, I wrote in the margins of a poem of mine, “IDEA: Could send out as letterpressed cards . . . recipients can begin to (&, eventually,) assemble the poem whole.” It was winter and Jenny…

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Just published 🔥 “The Voices Great Within Us in the Twin Cities” by David Mura and "In Minneapolis" by Michael Bassett are the latest additions to our Minneapolis 2026 scroll, “The Border Moves Through Us.” Read David's new essay and Michael Bazzett's post on Reverb at AGNI Online!👇

“The Border Moves Through Us”: From Minneapolis, 2026

To plan a route to pick up my child from school, I check iceout.org for a map of recent ICE sightings. They’ve multiplied in recent days, with the Federal occupation surging to 3,000 agents in…

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I thought she was married to the other woman Pearl her voice boomed like her brother’s he lived next door and her name was really Mary like in the Bible none of this made sense ~from "Aunt Peter" by Jody Gladding AGNI 45

Aunt Peter

I thought she was married to the other woman Pearl her voice boomed like her brother’s he lived next door and her name was really Mary like in the Bible none of this made sense still it was true Aunt…

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He was gorgeous, looking down at me. Very handsome. Both eyes red-rimmed but different: the left, all ecru milkiness, and the right, a swollen lump of sclera protruding like the bud of a new flower. ~from "Goodbye" by Maurine Ogonnaya Ogbaa AGNI 91

Goodbye

He was gorgeous, looking down at me. Very handsome. Both eyes red-rimmed but different: the left, all ecru milkiness, and the right, a swollen lump of sclera protruding like the bud of a new flower.…

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You makke mee With soot & stolen Peaces of silke. You are noe fool— You wish For some thing Oulder than angel. ~from "from The Tituba Letters: The Witch Poppet" by Donia Elizabeth Allen AGNI 63

from The Tituba Letters: The Witch Poppet

You makke mee With soot & stolen Peaces of silke. You are noe fool— You wish For some thing Oulder than angel. I am noe green Witch, I know sweat & strong water, How to leave Frayd edges Under the…

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Dear Janine: You think I don’t listen, but it’s not true. Tonight I listened. I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I put my ear to the wall. He felt me listening. ~from "The Beast" by Anne-E. Wood AGNI Online

The Beast

Dear Janine: You think I don’t listen, but it’s not true. Tonight I listened. I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I put my ear to the wall. He felt me listening. I listened to him feel me…

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I was tired of wanting, tired of morning, tired of the way the ocean waits for the sun to set. ~from "Perennial" by Bruce Willard AGNI Online

Perennial

I was tired of wanting, tired of morning, tired of the way the ocean waits for the sun to set. I was tired of thawing, tired of spring. Tired of hoping bulbs would rise. And when they did, I was…

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Did you hear it by chance, or were you aware of a verb often heard by us here below The verb to love? ~from “Poet-pig who knows me . . .” by Hilda Hilst Trans. from the Portuguese by Justin Greene 🔥 AGNI 103 🔥

“Poet-pig who knows me . . .”

Poet-pig who knows me, in the blindness, in the bog Waiting for Your Hunger, allow me to ask you Lord of pigs and men: Did you hear it by chance, or were you aware of a verb often heard by us here…

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In the late summer evening, the two boys and the father came to a meadow. One boy had the eyes of his father and a similar walk; the other boy was a friend. ~from "Doberman" by Joseph Hurka AGNI Online

Doberman

In the late summer evening, the two boys and the father came to a meadow. One boy had the eyes of his father and a similar walk; the other boy was a friend. They had been walking around the pond…

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The dogs that Singleton’s characters cherish are good ole down home dogs, loyal and trusting, former strays, as mongrel as an AKC toy poodle is pure. ~from "Saving Our Dogs to Save Ourselves" by David Holub AGNI Online

Saving Our Dogs to Save Ourselves

Stray Decorum by George Singleton. 220 pgs. Dzanc Books, 2012. $15.95. Bring the lights up on the silhouetted dogs sitting on the cover of George Singleton’s latest collection, Stray Decorum, and…

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🔥NEW at AGNI Online🔥 Three years after my mother’s death, I broke my left wrist in a fall. My right wrist was sprained, my dominant hand barely working. ~from "I Think of My Mother, I Think of Maureen" by Denise Duhamel

I Think of My Mother, I Think of Maureen

Three years after my mother’s death, I broke my left wrist in a fall. My right wrist was sprained, my dominant hand barely working. I couldn’t drive or open jars. I couldn’t wash my hair. I couldn’t…

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And when the truth about the emperor’s clothes was revealed the crowd convulsing with laughter at his flaccid gullibility you noticed a young man easing the battered patty of a wallet from a bald man’s back pocket. ~from "Mumblety Peg" by Leslie McGrath AGNI Online

Mumblety Peg

And when the truth about the emperor’s clothes was revealed the crowd convulsing with laughter at his flaccid gullibility you noticed a young man easing the battered patty of a wallet from a bald…

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Here’s what Jordie said: “To forgive, that’s human. To err, now that’s really divine. There’s nothing more beautiful than a big old-fashioned fuck-up.” ~from "Jordie" by Wendy Button @wendybutton.bsky.social AGNI 55

Jordie

Here’s what Jordie said: “To forgive, that’s human. To err, now that’s really divine. There’s nothing more beautiful than a big old-fashioned fuck-up.” Then, he shut the car door and walked down the…

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There are guards anywhere that people, money, or information cross over from one realm to another: tourist to native, city to country, conversation to dissent, official economy to black market. ~from "Havana City Limits" by Joel Brouwer AGNI 64

Havana City Limits

There is only one entrance to the lush grounds of the historic Hotel Nacional de Cuba, in Havana’s Vedado district, and a uniformed guard is posted there at all times. Which is not surprising, since…

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I’m reading Anne Carson again. I didn’t know what else to do; a former lover recently took his life, in a way that my mind keeps replaying, on a secluded beach in Hawaii. ~from '“Immortality on Their Faces”: The Persistence of Autobiography of Red' by Greg Wrenn AGNI Online

“Immortality on Their Faces”: The Persistence of Autobiography of Red

An artist’s life is an unconventional life….It appears to rebel but in reality it is an inspired way of life. —Agnes Martin, “Advice to Young Artists” I’m reading Anne Carson again. I didn’t know…

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Saint Leonard of Noblac, d. 559, With your codex skin And shark-meat ass, you are here Floating in the cold air like blood ~from "Annunciation, Part III" by Talin Tahajian 🔥 AGNI 103 🔥

Annunciation, Part III

Saint Leonard of Noblac, d. 559, With your codex skin And shark-meat ass, you are here Floating in the cold air like blood, you are Trapped in the nib of my pen, In the most elaborate teapot In the…

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By the time middle schools finally resumed classes, three years of complete freedom had turned my cohort—who’d last sat in a fourth-grade classroom—into a herd of wild things. ~from "In Which No Sex Takes Place" by Xujun Eberlein AGNI 88

In Which No Sex Takes Place

1. By the time middle schools finally resumed classes, three years of complete freedom had turned my cohort—who’d last sat in a fourth-grade classroom—into a herd of wild things. There was never a…

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🔥NEW at AGNI Online🔥 Two cannibals are eating a clown; one turns to the other and asks— “Does this taste funny to you?” ~from "Explaining the Joke" By Campbell McGrath

Explaining the Joke

Two cannibals are eating a clown; one turns to the other and asks— “Does this taste funny to you?” 1. When I told the clown joke to Nelson, he said, “The scary part is, how do they know he’s a clown,…

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🔥NEW at AGNI Online🔥 no, we’re not ready for this kind of thing, are we? Artificial diamonds, fine. A meat made of vegetables? Preach. But soon our conversations will end with “Call me old-fashioned, but . . . ~from "The Rapture is Happening Slowly, One at a Time, to Everyone" by Jeff Whitney

The Rapture is Happening Slowly, One at a Time, to Everyone

A literary magazine named after the Vedic fire-god. Transformative. The writer in witness, the imagination in combustion.

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In the beginning there must have been a word, though what it was I can’t recall. An introduction. Some pleasantry, banal. ~from "If Knowledge Is a Splintering" by Mairead Small Staid 🔥 AGNI 103 🔥

If Knowledge Is a Splintering

In the beginning there must have been a word, though what it was I can’t recall. An introduction. Some pleasantry, banal. In the beginning was a word—and then another, and another. We talked and…

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Submit to AGNI

We look for writing that catches experience before the crusts of habit form—poetry and prose that resist ideas about what a certain kind of writing “should do.” We seek out writers who tell their…

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