Issue #2, April 2024
photo by David Ward
Congratulations! You made it to Public School Poetry! In our second issue, ten sensational poets share work about moths, bikinis, ancestors from the Dalmatian Coast, medicine, motherhood, beading, and vulture magic with you. And, if that wasn’t enough, they also fearlessly agreed to write a “five paragraph essay” on another contributor’s poems that we, the Public School Poetry Vice Principals, randomly and anonymously assigned them.
Writing an essay for anonymous work that's been handed to you is maybe the poet's version of Spring Break riskiness, like flying into a new space where you're not sure whether you've packed enough sunscreen or can trust new people enough to have fun. And then it happens! This issue includes an essay in the form of a pantoum, an essay offering 'Inexpert Instructions', essays that are intimate, rigorous, and lively--all the superlatives!
Thank you poets, readers, and everyone who supported our annual bake sale to pay for our site. Thank you to Tracy Anderson and Emma Ward who selflessly jumped in to help the Vice Principals with the baking. We love you all!
Contents & Contributors
A wall divided horizontally by a curvy line. The top is flat black; the bottom is glossy black.
The Thing about John Is
Long Distance
Five-Paragraph Essay by Keith Taylor
If I'm on My Knees
An Experience I Have Not Had
All Housing is Temporary
All Desire is the Desire to be Desired
Dryer the Ground, More Dangerous the Flood
Five-Paragraph Essay by Monica Rico
The Instructions for the Vulture Magic
The Poet's Daughter is Missing
Song
Five-Paragraph Essay by Sofia Fall
The Abyss
Vocations
The Doctors
Five-Paragraph Essay by Anthony Madrid
Luna Moths Among the Ferns
Shadow Blue
Anecdotal Evidence
The Biblical Allotment
Five-Paragraph Essay by Melissa Fite Johnson
Elegy for the Restaurant Where We Always Ended Up
Once I Left My Heart Behind This Coffee Shop Window
Just When I Think I know Everything About My Husband
My Student Says She Thinks Her Poems Are OK
Five-Paragraph Essay by Elsbeth Pancrazi
{April 2020}
ALTERNATIVE NAMES FOR MY EPILEPSY MEDS
YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE, MY ONLY
Five-Paragraph Essay by Amorak Huey
THERE WAS A BIKINI
I WAS ALL LEGS AND LIES
VERDE
Five-Paragraph Essay by Amanda Moore
Second Class Relic
Watching You Bead
Ode to Uncertainty
Five-Paragraph Essay by Molly Raynor
Trenčíanský Hrad
"Nothing Fills Me Up At Night"
The Heron
Mirila
Five-Paragraph Essay by Robin Gow