Calling all poets!! Be part of our 2027Issue - submit today! Our submission window closes OCTOBER 1. See our website for guidelines or find us on Submittable. You do NOT have to be Catholic to submit! www.catholicpoetryjournal.com
@presencejournal.bsky.social
"these chickens... / sat on disgraced dead bodies and clucked like Gospel singers, / and when the Holy Ghost moved into them, they didn't funnel back / because they became delicacies of departed kins, sobbing requiems." Sandi K. Johnson "Liberian Chickens" in Presence 2026.
"There should be one word for this that means, 𝘖𝘭𝘥 𝘍𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳. That means, 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢... Because this I know in the measurement of time there must be calculus for mercy." Sean Thomas Dougherty "The Poverty of English" in Presence 2026.
"Blossom and root would never know / each other, if not for that stem, / its vise-like grip on elements / above and below" Maryanne Hannan, "Between Earth and Blossom, A Stem" in Presence 2026.
"The unpruned wisteria creeps closer, closer, / it would cover the house, / send tendrils through the walls, / smother us in its purple honey." Ann Fisher-Wirth, "In Rehab There Were No Open Windows" in Presence 2026
"Imagine you had a spoon, and also thousands / more of you had a spoon, what you could do / when cutting toward the same direction, down / one small shovel of dirt each until a new world / took form out of earth, even if set with stones." Seán Carlson, "Ant Hill" in Presence 2026
"My mother is dying. / By dying I mean / what we all do / 24 hours a day, asleep or awake. // By dying I mean / her memory / got lost / went missing / like a silver earring or a notebook." Jessica de Koninck "Pause, Replay, Fast Forward" in Presence 2026.
Presence 2026 will be mailed out to subscribes and contributors next week! If you haven't ordered one yet, copies are available on our website. www.catholicpoetryjournal.com/current-issue
Join Presence at Table 944 at AWP in Baltimore! We'd love to meet you! Our 2026 issue will be available for sale at a reduced conference rate.
"I remind myself // that food, and washing that bowl, and even repetition's / a kind of love in itself, the wild soul tamed by its own fingertips,..." Susan L. Miller "The Third Week of Ordinary Time" in Presence 2025.
"Remember, if you can, // those early initial cries, // the way the open page could / save and make strange / an hour, a day - // and maybe, you thought, / a life." Richard Pierce "Budding Branch" in Presence 2025.
"Give me the raw of it - / hombre of green, / how stalks test teeth. / Assure me I can eat, / eat all I want." Susanna Rich "To Rescue Me, Brian" in Presence 2025.
"I will stand a moment in silence for all I have / forgotten in the nights and also in the days, / the dreams and presences living / their wondrous, irrepressible lives without me." Andrea Potos "To Do, Morning" in Presence 2025.
"Paws kneading the quilt, / My bare feet on the heating element. / And the small house, quietly, sails / Between seas and land." "Sailing" by Rita Kogan, trans. by Zachary Sholem Berger in Presence 2025.
"I stood in the doorway and waited / And you did not come back. / Then you came back as if / You had not come back. / I stood in the doorway and waited." Diti Ronen trans. by Joanna Chen, "Then There Was a War" in Presence 2025.
"But who doesn't love / the serpentine / tongue, // testing the ice / cream, tracing / the curve // a dog makes / lying down, / who doesn't delight // in the lavish figure, / the constant / shifting // of beauty's shadow?" Eric Potter, "Against Metaphor" in Presence 2025.
"Where everything is wholly / holy, where we have transparent / skin & the liminal is not wedged / between what was & what will be." Sarah Dickenson Snyder, "In Another Dimension" in Presence 2025.
"It takes an oriole -// no idea, but a feathered, double-hearted sun/ carrying its own darkness, this particular// squawkishness to gently condemn whatever/ it is in you that hides the waiting world/ from your better eye." @michaeldechane.bsky.social "When You Must Change Your Life" Presence 2025.
"Who will stop the vengeful ghosts of my sins / from stalking me in my sleep? / Neither love, travel, nor art, / neither books nor consuming cause / could fill the great hole God left behind. / He is bulk; and I make up retail." Sharif S. Elmusa, "Mobil Mosque" in Presence 2025.
"Growing up, I always / hated math, how single-minded it was, / its linear compulsions, and its ruthless / lurching toward the single solve, / the definitive answer..." Kate Daniels, "Resurrections" in Presence 2025.
Announcing our submission to Orison's Best Spiritual Literature Anthology: Kate Daniels "Resurrections," Michael Dechane "When You Must Change...," Eric Potter "Against Metaphor," Marjorie Stelmach "Crimes...," Sharif S. Elmusa "Mobile Mosque," James Davis May "Standing Before the Relic . . ."
"the southern blade of the sickle moon / stabs through the veil of clouds - / a jackknife pouting / melodramatically among the stars: / a little dangerous, crazy for certain." Joseph Bathanti "Coyotes" in Presence 2025.
Congratulations to Margaret Mackinnon whose poem "A Tomb of a Woman at Saqqara" in Presence 2024 was selected for the 2025 volume of Orison Books' Best Spiritual Literature due out in December 2025.
"It takes an oriole - // no idea, but a feathered, double-hearted sun / carrying its own darkness, this particular // squawkishness to gently condemn whatever / it is in you that hides the waiting world / from your better eye." Michael Dechane, "When You Must Change Your Life" in Presence 2025.
"Lint lays atop the book Leaves of pages cheek to cheek / murmur of days A lifetime stacked & piled / means nothing and everything / staring into now" Susan Cowger, "Tipping Points" in Presence 2025.
Calling all poets!! Be part of our 10 Anniversary Issue - submit today! Our submission window closes OCTOBER 1. See our website for details or find us on Submittable. You do NOT have to be Catholic to submit! www.catholicpoetryjournal.com
"Not every evening / descends / and not every old age / creeps up, / some doze like peas / in their green pods / or sprawl with ease / on marshmallow clouds. / Not every angel / terrifies" Age Mishol, "Cabin at the Forest Edge" trans. Joanna Chen in Presence 2025.
"Witness the clown without hands / the horizonless sea // the dervish on fire, / look at the hermit in the rush-hour // crowd, thief among lilies, / killers in the cotton field // and the dead child shattered / in her father's arms." Pablo Medina, "Witness" in Presence 2025.
"Who will stop the vengeful ghosts of my sins / from stalking me in my sleep? / Neither love, travel, nor art, / neither books nor consuming cause / could fill the great hole God left behind. / He is bulk; and I make up retail." Sharif S. Elmusa, "Mobil Mosque" in Presence 2025.