Ovenbird Poetry

20/03/2022

Ovenbird Nine: The Ovenbird Unfolds the Landscape is live!

One Hundred Online Acres of Raw Song

01/08/2021

Ovenbird will be open for submissions until 10/1!

About Ovenbird:We believe that poetry (read: writing that exists art-first) is the biggest hope and best proof that humans are not simply the most violent ornaments of a perplexing planet. Poetry is how we may exclaim, buttress, and boast of the largess of our spirit, a spirit we trumpet in all of a...

12/07/2021

Submissions for Ovenbird Nine will open on August 1st.

17/06/2021

We are thrilled to announce that Robin Gow will be the guest-editor for Ovenbird Nine.

Robin Gow is a trans poet and young adult author from rural Pennsylvania. They are the author of Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy (Tolsun Books 2020) and the chapbook Honeysuckle (Finishing Line Press 2019). Their first young adult novel, A Million Quiet Revolutions is forthcoming March 2022 with FSG Book for Young Readers and their first essay collection Blueblood is forthcoming 2021 with Nasiona Publishing House. Gow's poetry has recently been published in POETRY, New Delta Review, and Washington Square Review.

06/02/2021

Lately, she’s Woman on a Porch, sitting with her arms
on the arms of the chair, face in fleshy shadow,
bands of color behind her, band of water, sand bar,

from A Picture Does Not Contain Its Own Application by Emily Wolahan in Ovenbird Eight

by Emily Wolahan Lately, she’s Woman on a Porch, sitting with her arms on the arms of the chair, face in fleshy shadow, bands of color behind her, band of water, sand bar, bare sky. She’s a Diebenk…

05/02/2021

Knowing they’re my favorite
he brings
red gerbers to the settlement meeting.

from He Punishes Me With Flowers by Cindy Veach in Ovenbird Eight

by Cindy Veach Knowing they’re my favorite he brings red gerbers to the settlement meeting. Guilt schleps them back to my apartment. Guilt places them in the living room. I can barely look at them …

04/02/2021

Today in the taxi I realized I had been driving the taxi for four years. I looked into my

former life and didn’t know where it was, and I looked ahead and couldn’t see anything.

from Bottomless Vat by Sean Singer in Ovenbird Eight
https://ovenbirdpoetry.com/bottomless-vat/

Sean Singer Today in the taxi I realized I had been driving the taxi for four years. I looked into my former life and didn’t know where it was, and I looked ahead and couldn’t see anything. I picke…

03/02/2021

I head out to my deck, nab the clicking
of a crow’s feet on the railing

before it flies away. When my brother texts no need to panic,

from When My Brother Texts You Guys Have a Weapon by Martha Silano in Ovenbird Eight

Martha Silano I run to the side of the trail, hoard with my eyes the delicate blooms of the bittercress, with my ears the dizzying song of the Pacific Wren. May I be the lucky shopper who snags the…

01/02/2021

At first they seem so different - the man
squatting on two legs, one arm propping his chin,
his gaze askew, wry like the face in the moon,

and the dog, black lab with white blaze,
her look solemn and direct, as if longing
to step out of some grave perplexity

from Portrait of Poet with Dog by Betsy Sholl in Ovenbird Eight

by Betsy Sholl Larry Levis, 1946-1996 At first they seem so different – the man squatting on two legs, one arm propping his chin, his gaze askew, wry like the face in the moon, and the dog, b…

01/02/2021

I could tell the costume designer
was careful to dress the young girls
like old fashioned street hookers
who hid their money
where it belonged

from High School Production of Les Miserables by Connie Post in Ovenbird Eight

by Connie Post Act I Scene 3 “Lovely Ladies” I could tell the costume designer was careful to dress the young girls like old fashioned street hookers who hid their money where it belonged no midrif…

31/01/2021

How easy, driving the White Mountains—
sundown, three beers deep—to hold
the wheel steady and become a tangent,

jump the banked asphalt, rip
through the guardrail’s flimsy demurral,
to give over to gravity, let it drag you

from Lady Soul by Iain Haley Po***ck in Ovenbird Eight

by Iain Haley Po***ck How easy, driving the White Mountains— sundown, three beers deep—to hold the wheel steady and become a tangent, jump the banked asphalt, rip through the guardrail’s flimsy dem…

29/01/2021

& I want to touch the place your feet just touched—
there, on the water-streaked surface impossible
to reach, near your seared shadow—oh!

from To the Pigeon Caught Inside Union Station by Maya Pindyck in Ovenbird Eight

by Maya Pindyck You’ve reclaimed a gods-eye view from the beam that splits this station’s sky in two—and as soon as we spot you, you take off, swoop left, over Gate I, past the blue banner that poi…

28/01/2021

Transformative -frittered-ladyfingered

loud machinery, Industry, more than fingers

snap, culled, jammed, a cloud less thing

like spiritualism, peeled-back skin in the two fires of this world

from The Mictecacihuatl, Walled by Cinquain of the Confederacion de Uniones Obreras Mexicanas by Jonathan Andrew Pérez, Esq. in Ovenbird Eight

Jonathan Andrew Pérez, Esq. In honor of Luis N. Morones Orphic day laborers’ trees – I.C.E. – border-state guards struck the lot, tangerines dropped into the rucksack of the underwo…

27/01/2021

If this must be a story I repeat, let me forget

from When You Don't Need Me by Alison Palmer in Ovenbird Eight

by Alison Palmer If I have to be a house, I want to be warm and cavernous, your final days. If this must be a story I repeat, let me forget when you did what you told me never to do; let go. In the…

26/01/2021

The president wants a military
parade. I’ve begun to carry my heart

in my toes. Enlightenment was never
meant to be a medal pinned over the sins

of our forebears. I’d like to find a story
so old it starts with cave-dwelling ancestors

from We Are Commanded Forty-Seven Times to Be Kind to Strangers by Becka Mara McKay in Ovenbird Eight

by Becka Mara McKay The president wants a military parade. I’ve begun to carry my heart in my toes. Enlightenment was never meant to be a medal pinned over the sins of our forebears. I’d like to fi…

25/01/2021

Every day we go out to the driveway and shoot hoops.
We go out and smell the moon and feed the stars.
Every day we watch the new cardinal land on the fence
and each day we give it a new name.

from She Loves the Earth Without Curse Words by Matthew Lippman in Ovenbird Eight

by Matthew Lippman Natalie says, “Dad, quarantine’s good for you.” I say, “Why?” She says, “You only said the F-word twice last week.” F**k. I’m losing my shwing, I think. Then she steals the Spald…

24/01/2021

Like pinecones in a fire
burst, reviving earth,

scarred seeds burrow
& wait for water.

My name
means flight

which is what I know.

from After the Party (Ma Absent) by Ellen Kombiyll in Ovenbird Eight

by Ellen Kombiyll Ma absent in her three-day trance. The garden didn’t burn she says then all day stares at the television. Perhaps the game show host repeats the cue: Name something specific that …

23/01/2021

The music box was made of bullets
in a defy-laws-of-physical way.
Whenever I heard a gunshot
my dad would say, “oh that’s just your sister
playing her music box.” I don’t have a sister

from Music Box Genisis by Robin Gow in Ovenbird Eight

by Robin Gow The music box was made of bullets in a defy-laws-of-physical way. Whenever I heard a gunshot my dad would say, “oh that’s just your sister playing her music box.” I don’t have a sister…

22/01/2021

Sorry for sometimes consuming too much—
the cheese in its gentle rind, the chewing candies
that mimicked real raspberries in the dead of winter.

from Apology to My Body by Emily Franklin in Ovenbird Eight

by Emily Franklin Sorry for waxing hairs between my legs, pulling so hard the skin bled, tiny beading red as though each follicle expressed its grief. Sorry for sometimes consuming too much— the ch…

21/01/2021

For thirty years my mother owned a horse,
a horse I didn’t know existed until it died.
Rich people own horses, of course.
How could she? I was going to college. She hadn’t cried.

A horse I didn’t know existed until it died—

from -30- by Dante Fuoco in Ovenbird Eight

by Dante Fuoco For thirty years my mother owned a horse, a horse I didn’t know existed until it died. Rich people own horses, of course. How could she? I was going to college. She hadn’t cried. A h…

20/01/2021

"Duff, ramets of ailanthus,
a feast of ants, frass
for aphids to follow into doom.
The marcescent ones
have choked their petioles
to wither. They are the color
of paper bags or else"

from Some Trees by the Creek in April by Cal Freeman in Ovenbird Eight

by Cal Freeman Duff, ramets of ailanthus, a feast of ants, frass for aphids to follow into doom. The marcescent ones have choked their petioles to wither. They are the color of paper bags or else t…

15/01/2021

"Already, we raced
through frequencies
of night

the woods unraveling
her wet metallics
back into us."

from Mica by Cynthia Cruz in Ovenbird Eight

by Cynthia Cruz Already, we raced through frequencies of night the woods unraveling her wet metallics back into us. Diamond of light and the inaudible murmur of animals. A humming like the hour whe…

14/01/2021

"Grass, that beaten child,
looks upward into blue."

from Unanswered Prayers by Robert Carr in Ovenbird Eight

by Robert Carr A deerfly whispers in my eye. Clouds have stopped speaking and move in silent folds. Grass, that beaten child, looks upward into blue. Tomorrow I will mow, raise my chin, curse the c…

13/01/2021

"year of the cloud of pollen that chased me to my car across the supermarket parking lot year I was overpowered by flowering magnolia petals in a windstorm while walking home"

from Year of the Murder Hornet by Tina Can in Ovenbird Eight

by Tina Cane year of the cloud of pollen that chased me to my car across the supermarket parking lot year I was overpowered by flowering magnolia petals in a windstorm while walki…

12/01/2021

"Because empty is a sort of confession,
weeks candle and hum, and I kite
my feet in the little stream."

from "Middle Doorway" by Lauren Camp in Ovenbird Eight

by Lauren Camp Because empty is a sort of confession, weeks candle and hum, and I kite my feet in the little stream. Some afternoons I trail to the underside of grasses with my own viscous hunger t…

11/01/2021

woman behind the reference desk with her gas mask on. to have all the trappings of a quiet, contemplative space where you can obtain a deeper knowledge and understanding of yourself and the world around you.

from unit_11 by makalani bandele in Ovenbird Eight

by makalani bandele          woman behind the reference desk with her gas mask on. to have allthe trappings of a quiet, contemplative space where you ca…

10/01/2021

Ovenbird Eight: This Ringing Chant (guest-edited by Jennifer Franklin) is now live!

One Hundred Online Acres of Raw Song

01/06/2020

Ovenbird Poetry is now open for submissions!

Ovenbird Poetry Submission Manager Powered By Submittable - Accept and Curate Digital Content

11/05/2020

The submission window for Ovenbird #8 (guest-edited by Jennifer Franklin) will be from June 1 - October 1 this year.

Ovenbird Poetry Submission Manager Powered By Submittable - Accept and Curate Digital Content

07/05/2020

We are thrilled to announce that Jennifer Franklin will be the guest editor for Ovenbird #8.

Jennifer Franklin (AB Brown University, MFA Columbia University School of the Arts) was born in Ithaca, NY. She is the author of two full-length collections, most recently No Small Gift (Four Way Books, 2018). Recent work has been published or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Blackbird, Boston Review, Gettysburg Review, Guernica, JAMA, Los Angeles Review, Love’s Executive Order, The Nation, New England Review, Paris Review, Plume, “poem-a-day” on poets.org, and Prairie Schooner. She currently teaches in Manhattanville's MFA program. For the past seven years, she has taught manuscript revision at the Hudson Valley Writers Center where she serves as Program Director and co-edits Slapering Hol Press. She lives in New York City.

News on our submissions window will be released soon.

28/04/2020

"Mooneyes swivel from field to sky,
an antenna taking in and broadcasting
this gleaming new idea: that one thing
reveals itself as another. That truths scatter"

from "Trawl" by Hannah Stephenson in Ovenbird #7

by Hannah Stephenson What is mine. What belongs to me. Leaf-stem and leaf, are these property of the tree, or is the tree the leaves’ story, their memories. My son’s experiences are whose. His and …

22/04/2020

"I swallowed a firestorm
walking through Hell. I’d spent
so much time
wandering the flames
my skull’s sharp lines
protruded."

from "A Whirling Worked In" by Dustin Pearson in Ovenbird #7

by Dustin Pearson I swallowed a firestorm walking through Hell. I’d spent so much time wandering the flames my skull’s sharp lines protruded. My jaw dislodged itself, made an oval at a slant for th…

06/04/2020

"Collapsed along the shore of Lake Michigan.
Wave and sand arriving

within each other and the sound of negotiation."

from Rehabilitation of the Self, A Process by Nathan Lipps in Ovenbird #7

by Nathan Lipps Collapsed along the shore of Lake Michigan. Wave and sand arriving within each other and the sound of negotiation. Blades of grass deciding upon nothing. Wind because of wind. Learn…

23/03/2020

"But first blame the sun for how I worry time,
polishing it like a rabbit’s foot, or a saint’s thumb."

from "Blame the Night" by Cameron Lawrence from Ovenbird #7

by Cameron Lawrence But first blame the sun for how I worry time, polishing it like a rabbit’s foot, or a saint’s thumb. Blame every minute I pour out as liquor from a flask, 
small enough to sip, …

17/03/2020

"It follows a phone number you attempt to dial
but never finish dialing. It follows a venn diagram
you draw of everyone you’ve ever loved, everyone
you’ve ever lived for, & everyone you’ve ever lost"

from "After Loss" by Devin Kelly in Ovenbird #7

by Devin Kelly after Jason Bredle It follows the first inhalation you need to muster in order to live in the moments after. It follows the wind that moves through the open space of your room & …