Open Journal Poetry 2026
Many thanks to all the poets who continue to submit to Superlative.
Here are the fantastic poems we have selected we have selected for our open journal in 2026.
If you would like us to consider your poetry for publication, please submit here.
Enjoy!
I WANT
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I want to peel back my skin, cuticle to shoulder. I want to apologise to and hear apologies from everyone I’ve ever loved. I want to know if she is better, now, or if she still thinks about that night. I want to know if I will ever get out of that bathtub. I want to forget watching him eating her parent’s cereal through a rung in the upstairs banister. I want to look outside without wondering which bones it’d break first to jump off my third floor balcony. I want to be back there, nameless nights, dancing beneath the beam of a street lamp, getting high with my best friend, finding everything funny. I want to look at bare trees in winter and think about the intricate systems of human veins. I want to compare a finger print to the rings inside an old trunk. I want to hear birdsong in the morning. I want to know my sister will be okay. I want to feel useful. I want to create something beautiful. I want to know how to play the harp. I want to sink my toes into warm sand and smell salt. I want to methodically clean my skin and study the way it gleams. I want to be a plant soaking up nutrients from dense soil. I want everyone to tell me how wonderful I am when I finally bloom. I want to be that bright, colourful thing in the corner of someone’s eye, thriving quietly on the windowsill. I want to express this inexpressible pain inside of me. I want someone to understand. I want someone to take a scalpel, know exactly where to look, and excavate this dark thing like a mass of hardened tumour. I want his hands to have never been inside of me. I want my left rib not to jut beneath my skin like a broken thing. I want to feel it when his fingertips trace the dead nerves down my spine. I want everything in my body to be arranged in the right place. I want to sit in the passenger side of his car with the windows down and the music blasting. I want to feel the wind on my face and in my hair. I want to cry. I want to be back at my bedroom window, asking my uncle in the sky for a snow day. I want to make a snowman with my uncle in that snow. I want to sit on the sofa and watch my cousin play Xbox. I want to taste Pepsi bubbles burst against the roof of my mouth. I want the imaginary worlds inside my mind to feel possible again. I want to believe, not that things get better, but that they simply are in the first place. I want to dissemble the bricks of my brain and find out where the mortar’s wrong. I want to ask my best friend why he doesn’t feel things. I want to ask him if he thinks it’s because I feel enough for the both of us.
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​​By Eleanor Kirkham​
Eleanor Kirkham (she/her) is an aspiring novelist, part-time prose poet and MFA in Creative Writing (with Distinction) graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University. She is currently based in Manchester, pursuing representation by a literary agent for her debut novel, Venus Is Melting.
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Instagram: @el.kirkham
Substack: @goblincreature
Provenance
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I’m from holy water and clenched fists,
from say you’re sorry and stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.
I’m from rain that doesn’t stop for months,
that makes the trees so green they look like they’re lying.
I’m from a town small enough to be a secret
and too small to keep one.
I’m from everybody knows your father,
everybody loves your father,
everybody thinks your father is such a good man.
I’m from rosary beads and Sunday guilt,
from kneeling on hardwood until my knees bruised
and calling it devotion.
I’m from a God who loved me conditionally
and a family who loved me the same way.
I’m from three sisters I didn’t ask for
and would die for,
twenty-seven, twenty-three, twenty-two,
three reasons I’m still breathing.
I’m from learning my own face was wrong at twelve.
I’m from the mirror and the flinch.
I’m from something’s off about that kid
whispered in kitchens I wasn’t supposed to hear from.
I’m from Olympic Peninsula fog,
from logging trucks and reservation roads
and a quiet that crawls inside your chest
and builds a house there.
I’m from a town where everyone knows everyone
and still no one saw a thing.
I’m from moved at four, moved at six,
moved at twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four.
I’m from learning not to hang pictures
because you’ll just have to patch the nail holes.
I’m from go back to Mexico
shouted from a truck window
in a country my family was in first.
I’m from the God I found in the dirt,
in the river, in the bark of cedar trees
that never asked me to kneel.
I’m from the internet’s open mouth,
from slurs in my inbox at fourteen,
from strangers who described how they’d kill me
with the specificity of a recipe.
I’m from a friend who talked me off the edge
and then walked off her own.
I’m from funerals I was too young for.
I’m from funerals I’m still too young for.
I’m from the friend, and then another friend,
and then another,
until I stopped counting the dead
and started counting the living
because it was a shorter list.
I’m from hands that held me down
and a mouth that learned
to go somewhere else.
I’m from don’t tell anyone,
and I didn’t for years,
and when I finally did
they asked what I was wearing.
I’m from a father who could convince you
the bruise was your fault,
who could make a whole room love him
and make you wonder
if you were the only one seeing him clearly
or the only one seeing him wrong.
I’m from the Columbia River gorge,
from desert highways,
from Douglas fir and sagebrush
and the exact stretch of 101
where the ocean appears without warning.
I’m from coming back
to the same small town,
older now, and trans, and tired,
walking the same streets
with a different name
and the same rain
that doesn’t stop for months.
I’m from girls who become women
who become the reason other women survive.
I’m from I wasn’t supposed to make it this far.
I’m from I keep making it anyway,
not gracefully,
not gratefully,
but stubbornly,
the way blackberries grow through chain link—
not because they were planted,
but because no one could stop them.
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By Jade Aldana​
Jade Aldana is an event coordinator and writer from the Olympic Peninsula. Her work explores family, survival, faith, and identity.
Persephone in Winter
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Hades wasn’t even in the yard when Hermes came for her—
he was working away trying to scratch together cash
money to make sure she would stay.
Persephone had grown used to the dark
of the prairie winter. Used to how her breath hung
in the air like a question mark
promising answers to problems she had posed
but would need to
ask again in spring.
Nobody expected her to grow old here
imported orchid from another planet.
Yet still she stood, arms full of wood for the stove
feet slipped quickly into his boots
the toddler (black-haired and forged from her father’s fire)
barricaded behind the couch to stop her
finding the hot stove or giant snowbank
or shelter under the old ’62 Chevrolet
again.
Another ouch. Poor baby.
Persephone could navigate the yard by smell now
by touch by sound half-blind in the early morning dark
didn’t need her eyes at all.
She felt steady on her feet
at last. She had things in hand.
She was surprised then to find
the shiny wood-panelled Mercury station wagon
rear door open and her boy tucked inside
when she rounded the corner
with her load.
Hermes. She hadn’t heard him drive up.
Her mother’s errand boy. A messenger from home.
His eyes taking stock his fingers running numbers
to bring back to the boss.
They’ll never make a go of it.
I heard the last crop
was a total loss.
She sees her older girl, hair lit like sunbeams in the dark
drift slowly to the car so her brother wouldn’t get very far
without her.
Hermes swung the rear door shut on their faces
then turned with a smile
ready to tell Persephone she was saved
from this snow-clogged iced-over landscape
that he would drive them all away
today
but she was gone
for a moment
onto the porch where she grabbed the Winchester 3030
and with a click and a clack
that landed like its own warning shot
she chambered a round.
He stepped away from the car
at that, hands in the air
not making a sound.
She didn’t need to tell him, then,
the crocuses were already pushing their purple heads
through the snowbank
or that the three children were not their only crop
as the snow was almost ready to melt into the fields
and the fall rye would be greening up
or that being with someone you chose
instead of acting out your mother’s dreams
was the sweetest kind of free.
She didn’t have to tell him. He could see.
She waited until the traces of his taillights disappeared,
just sparks for a fire that would never take hold
then grabbed the older two by their icy hands
rubbed them between hers to warm
and saved them, for the moment, from the cold.
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​​By Christine Harapiak​
Christine Harapiak is a poet, playwright and retired judge obsessed with digging up the mythic echoes from the landscapes of the Canadian prairies. She has or will be published in various journals including Mantis, Miracle Monocle and The Letter Review. Harapiak is cofounder of Wormhole Microtheatre Company, a troupe dedicated to developing local plays and staging them in unexpected places.
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Instagram: @wormholemicrotheatreco
Monologue
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She is perfectly content with the square centimeter of sky
between the fringe of the frayed pinstripe curtains.
(At least, that’s what she keeps telling herself.)
This morning in practice for
the man with his eyes on The Prize
(she ties a blue ribbon in her hair)
she made her bed,
four times, no more no less.
(It takes a long time to smooth out the rumples.)
She packs him snacks and chapstick, her man with his silences and long arms.
He cuts his nails to the quick while
she cuts to the chase,
cuts her anger into lemon squares and 5/4 measures.
(She does not pull the curtains back.)
she does watercolor
And writes poems
and reads Daisy Jones and the Six
and gets coffee with miso in it for 5.95
and sends emails
and doesn’t ever pull back the damn curtains to see the sky
(she doesn’t know if the sky is still there)
still as blue as
(she is)
the ribbon in her hair.
(It takes a long time to smooth out the rumples.)
(At least, that’s what she keeps telling herself.)
She is perfectly content with the square centimeter of sky
between the fringe of the frayed pinstripe curtains.
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By Halyna Chapman​
Halyna Chapman is a young writer and self taught poet from Barrington, Rhode Island. She sometimes writes to convince herself of something and proves the opposite. This poem is one of those times.
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Instagram: @halynasea
K.A. Vallere is a Polish writer working in English across poetry, hybrid forms, literary criticism, and the essay. She is completing the Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Los Angeles Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Canyon Voices, and elsewhere. In 2026, she completed an internship with Tupelo Press and attended the Tupelo Manuscript Conference as a scholar. She has been selected for residencies at Château d’Orquevaux and Hôtel Sainte Valière and is a member of the UK Society of Authors.
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Website: www.kavallere.com
Night Note
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Suppose, as dusk dismantles day,
fatigue is a brass string tensioned
down the vertebrae, it is possible
for the body to become its own violin,
bowing its lonely key. Under quilts
and starlight, a mother of two
daughters, after they are sound
asleep, stops pretending to watch
a soap opera to marvel at her older
daughter’s poetry strewn in balled
legal paper up and down the stairs.
Hunched on the landing with a mug
of mint leaves and lung cancer, blue
eyes brushing her daughter’s words,
sweeping, cleaning the stairwells
as darkness litters the sky. Out the window
are swooning stars up there to notice.
Her kitchen baked body can answer
with its lonely key, its bowing, repeated,
like lines in her daughter’s villanelles.
Out there, the peach trees are composing
almost identical breaks from their humble
cradle soil, to the lonely key
of their gold ripening flesh.
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​​By Grace Lynn​
Grace Lynn is an emerging painter who lives with a chronic illness. Her work explores the intersections between faith, the natural world, art and the body. In her spare time, Grace enjoys listening to Bob Dylan, reading suspense novels and investigating absurd angles of art history.​
On Edward Hopper's Nighthawks
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The city holds its breath.
Glass glows like a held thought,
a pane of light stitched
into the dark.
Inside, coffee never cools.
Words never quite arrive.
A man turns his back to the world,
wearing silence like a coat.
A woman cups loneliness
between red-painted lips.
Her companion stares past her,
past the counter,
past whatever hope walked in earlier
and left no tip.
The waiter waits—
forever mid-gesture
forever almost asking
how they are doing
and already knowing the answer.
No door opens.
The street offers nothing
but empty angles
and the promise of morning
that no one mentions.
I stand outside the frame,
face pressed to the invisible glass,
recognizing the hour
when thoughts grow loud
and company feels optional.
Some nights we choose the light
without choosing each other.
Some nights we sit together
and practice being alone.
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By Ridley Longsworth​
Ridley Longsworth attends Radnor High School in Wayne, Pennsylvania, USA, where she plays on the tennis team and is a member of the Asian Culture Club. Her writing has appeared in The Radish, and her short story “The Rusty Hubcap” has been accepted for publication in the June 2026 issue of Blue Marble Review. She is the recipient of an American Voices Award, a Scholastic Gold Medal Writing Award, and a Scholastic Gold Key Writing Award.
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Instagram: @ridley.the.writer​
What We Breathe
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You’re leaving soon, I say, the July heat
burley-leaf yellow, humus char rising
in waves above the gravel drive, half-beat
staccato whirr of locusts surprising
only the silence. Yes, you nod and trace
a fingertip down the side of the glass,
then stand and walk inside, that hint of grace
I’ve seen a hundred times before. And last
night, bare shoulders shadowed in moon’s blue
light, you turned and told me, Breathe. Breathe
deep. For nothing in this wide world can smooth
the furrowed brow like the breath of love—ease
into the dream where words turn flesh to proof
of shared tomorrows. And now, the scented
air reminds me of every time we’ve ended.
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By Tony Morris
Along with his debut novel, Deep River Blues, and four books of poetry, including his latest, 'Pulling at a Thread', Tony Morris's work has also been widely published in anthologies and journals. His poems have been awarded the Louisiana Literature Prize, and the Tennessee Writers Alliance Poetry Award along with multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife, four children, two cats, and a dog in a farmhouse nestled in the Southeast. He’s the associate editor of Southern Poetry Review, and director of the Ossabaw Island Writers’ Retreat.
In Another Room
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They say—
(and I’m no physicist, you know that)—
that if the universe refuses to end,
if it keeps spilling outward,
and the pieces that build it are finite,
then sooner or later everything that can happen will happen,
must happen—
again and again,
until there are no new songs left to sing.
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The same faces,
the same hands reaching across the same tables,
only the chairs a little different,
the laughter a beat earlier,
the yes instead of the almost.
And somewhere in all that sprawling symmetry,
there’s another me.
Another you.
Another room like this one—
only brighter.
Maybe he is better with you than I was.
Maybe the hurt never finds its teeth.
Maybe you both wake on a Sunday,
and the only ache between you
is from laughing too hard the night before.
And maybe he says it—
on time, in time—
so cleanly it never frays.
Maybe he never knows how close it came to breaking,
because it never does.
And if he does—
Goddamnit, if he does—
I would not take that from him.
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Even if I could.
Even if I could unstring myself,
tear through every stubborn particle,
thread my body through the eye of whatever needle
holds the universe together,
I would not knock at his door.
Because someone always loses.
In the thousands,
and thousands,
and thousands of rooms,
someone was always going to stand alone in the quiet.
Someone had to carry the weight of almost.
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When the quarks tumbled,
when the dice were cast,
when the strings stitched the cosmos
into you and me,
and not-you and not-me,
it was always going to be someone.
This time, it’s me.
And that’s all right.
Because in a thousand other rooms,
maybe I never even found you.
Maybe I never even knew your name.
Maybe I lived and died,
and the sky never bent low enough
to let me hear you laugh.
But here—
at least—
I loved you.
I lost you.
But I loved you first.
And that is more than most universes
would ever dare to promise.
I am no physicist.
I don’t know how the stars stumble back
into their old mistakes,
how matter folds itself into near-perfect echoes,
how the same dust can spell a thousand poems
and still call them all love.
I only know:
somewhere, in another room,
you are laughing.
Somewhere, in another room,
I am holding your hand.
Somewhere, in another room,
the sun rises just for us.
And that is enough for me.
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By Erik Bodien
Erik Bodien is a student of social anthropology at the London School of Economics. His poems explore intimacy, loss, and the quiet absurdity of being alive.
IG: @u.vers