humanity

New Chapbook Announcement!

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Digital illustration of the sun setting behind a cornfield, shafts of light bleeding through the stalks, fading to a distant thunderhead and starry night sky beyond.

Conspiring Skyward by Cameren Harper

I’m super pleased and proud to announce that I have a poetry chapbook collection forthcoming with Kelsay Books: We Have Seen the Corn will be entering production in May 2025, and will be available for purchase soon thereafter (Don’t worry, I will keep you updated!). By the way, the gorgeous graphic above is the illustration my immensely talented and generous daughter, Cameren Harper, created expressly for use as the cover of We Have Seen the Corn, for which I’m inexpressibly grateful!

This little collection has been a long time in the making and most of the individual poems have been previously published (including the title poem, below*), but what I’m most thrilled about is this opportunity to amass and share with you all these words of grief, growth, joy, and celebration into one beautiful entity dedicated to my husband, inspiration, love of my life, brilliant poet, and most extraordinary (and freaking adorable!) of human beings, the one and only, inimitable Robert Okaji (idk, you may’ve heard of him…).

I’ve been sitting on this news for quite a while, but I’ve decided that there couldn’t be a better time to make such an announcement than during our revered National Poetry Month, so the cat is officially clawing her way out of the bag!

Thank you so much for sharing this poetic moment with me! And stay tuned for more info as it comes available!

*We Have Seen the Corn

with twelve-hundred miles
of fields in our wake

I am aching
to slip among those stalks & touch

their silk-topped ears all conspiring
skyward now

to beguile the birds’ cries from the brim
of that thundercloud

burgeoning
over the Nebraska plain

let’s pull off the interstate     so we can
stretch our legs for a bit

Indiana will wait

split those crows’ itinerant
congregation     there     & park

right alongside the unending green
I want to enter

its late-sun-streams sifting the sky motes
crimson-gold     & stirring

the cicadas’ whirrs & earwigs’ scuttles in the loam
to a viscous chorus

& with my hand clasped in yours     press
another lush measure

into our song’s sweet & sultry folds

~STEPHANIE L. HARPER

Poem Live in The Calendula Review

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I’m pleased to share with you another of my In-titled Poems, “Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria,” which has been published in issue 3 (Inhale/Exhale) of The Calendula Review, a boldly heartening journal of “creative narrative medicine.” I’m grateful to the editors for including my work.

Poem Live at Formidable Woman Sanctuary

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Astrophotography: Andromeda Galaxy.

Andromeda Galaxy by Matthew Harper – September 24, 2022

Please join me in extending my heartfelt thanks to Editor D. Ellis Phelps for including my poem “Glory Be…” in the Fall 2024: solace vol. 1 no. 1 issue of the lovely online journal, formidable woman sanctuary (scroll down). Who knew this little ode of mine would find such an absolutely perfect home?

Note on the above accompanying photograph: Matthew was immersed in the awesome enterprise of backyard astrophotography in approximately the same timeframe during which I first drafted this poem, which may explain some things…

Also, please consider submitting work that uplifts, comforts, and consoles for the current issue of fws: solace HERE. Works are being published in the issue as they are accepted. Submissions for the fws: solace issue will remain open until March 2025.

Poem Live at Rat’s Ass Review!

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Two watermelon carvings, mirrored images, side-by-side, hollowed as "monster mouth" baskets filled with fruit and concerned-looking eyes made of pineapple chunks and blueberries... Representative of large, middle-aged boobs.

My poem, “Of These One and All (after Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself 15),” is now live in the Fall/Winter 2024 issue of Rat’s Ass Review! Poems appear in the order of their poets’ last names; please enjoy some terrific writing as you scroll to, and beyond, Harper :D).

As a long-time admirer of (as well as previous contributor to) this top-notch web-journal, I’m truly grateful to editor Roderick Bates for his passion and integrity in steadfastly promoting poets and the poetry community, and especially for selecting my little ditty for publication in this fantastic issue!

Two Poems Published in The Iowa Review!

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Yes, my friends, this is a thing that’s happening IRL!

Please join me in expressing my heartfelt thanks to The Iowa Review editors Lynne Nugent and Jen Frantz for selecting my poems, “Pelvic Organ Prolapse” (photo included below) and “The Shape of Unsayable,” for publication in TIR’s issue 54.1 (spring 2024). I’ll post an update when the link to order copies of this issue is available.

Poem Live at Panoply

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Another In-titled Poem has found its perfect home in cyberspace! Thanks to lovely editors Andrea, Clara, and Jeff of Panoply, my poem, “Writer’s Block is a Bitch,” which also happens to be a Petrarchan sonnet (because I’m just like that…), is now published in issue 27. I’m especially proud and pleased that my poem appears alongside my husband, Robert Okaji’s awesome excursion into feline metaphysics, and a host of other luminous poetry and short prose.

Two Poems in Salamander Magazine!

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I’m honored and excited to share the news that my poems, “Neurodivergent” (see below) and “Presentiment (*cento),” appear in the gorgeous literary review published out of Suffolk University, Salamander Magazine #57, Fall / Winter 2023-2024. Please do visit the link provided for information on accessing individual copies of the issue and/or becoming an online or print version subscriber. 

I’d like to express my heartfelt appreciation to EIC Dr. José Angel Araguz for selecting my poems for inclusion in this luminous issue, and for facilitating an all-around rewarding publishing experience!

Poems Live at Samjoko Magazine!

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I’m pleased and proud to share that three of my poems—“Spotted Orb Weaver,” “Sestina for a Queen: Northern Cardinal,” and “Requiem”—have been published in the Winter III issue of Samjoko Magazine, a beautiful online literary journal based in South Korea. I’m grateful to Todd Sullivan and the Samjoko poetry editors for selecting my work. 

Please view on a full/computer screen, if possible. Thanks so much for reading!

Poem Published in Caesura!

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The 2023 issue of Caesura: objects in the mirror is a print publication of Poetry Center San Jose.

Thank you all for reading!  

The Hole

twinge
above your right brow

in a mirror     that dusky spot

the hole
acute     scalene     deep
about an inch in height
just above your right eyeball
loosened from its socket
oozing blood
from cracks around your lids

a clear view
to the back of your skull—
the bone is floodlit like a surgical theater

accentuating the osseous fabric’s
orderly interweaving of dark
green lettuce leaves
with your head’s sealed fissures

it makes no sense
but to accept it—

your neighbor     who constantly drops by
unannounced     needs you     again
to watch her kids tomorrow afternoon
“for just a few hours”

sure     not a problem

she’ll be inviting you to her wedding this summer
“third time’s the charm”

how nice

a flash
on the porcelain screen
(where your brain should be)
previews the upcoming afternoon—

gazebo with picnic tables
at the breezy confluence
of the Columbia & Willamette rivers

 daylight encasing you in the naked
mole-rat’s skin you’d mistaken
for a modest-pink sundress

siphoning the cash bar’s cut-rate Riesling
as you try to make small-talk without thinking

about the cool tingle of exposed bone
above your right brow
flora     slick in plasma     creeping out— 

which puts extra strain on the wobbly eyeball…

STEPHANIE L. HARPER