7. Too much praise and you’ll turn irrelevant as a jellyfish, sack of water pulsing in some far-off ocean.
8. Too much scolding and you’ll turn riptide and isn’t the world already a basin of tears?
Read it in Literary Mama
A Quiet Root
We comb through hundreds of literary magazines to bring you one stellar poem or flash fiction piece every weekday.
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“Ten ways of engaging with your teenager” by Dayna Patterson
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“If I Were Gretel, I Would Have Kept the Bread” by Clancy Tripp
& you
only go out in the woods wishing to livedeliberately if you believe the rest of the world
is not the woodsRead it in swamp pink
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“Poem in which I consider mosquito bites after Maureen’s memorial in the arboretum” by Denise Duhamel
Soon I sported red splotches like an ankle monitor telling me stay home and grieve. I scratched through the night, annoyed by death. I used cortisone cream on the outside, my own cortisol pumping inside as I thought of everything I needed to do besides feel sad.
Read it in Only Poems
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“Second-Hand Dinosaur Pyjamas” by Samuel Tongue
It’s bed-time, my tiny Jurassic chaos,
and I scoop you up in your floofy
jimjams, a terrible lizard, dotted
all over with rainbow tyrannosaursRead it in Berlin Lit
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“My Lament, or Notes from Remedial English” by Jeffrey Hermann
Oh, the gods of high school have not been kind to me. I’m no athlete. I’m no scholar. I travel a sea of judgment in a miniature boat I made in shop class.
Read it in Flash Frog
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“Some Nights the Entire Gravel Driveway” by Alice White
Forget all
squeamishness: worse things than stalked eyes and slime
are smeared across the night, waiting for you.Read it in The Greensboro Review
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“Impact Sport” by Jessica Q. Stark
By age 15 I was a hungry, red wolf.
I worked at JoAnn Fabrics one
summer—scowling women forminglines at the back of my hangover and a
terrible crush that kept blooming over
floral-patterned fabric beneath my palms.I scanned coupons and resisted knowing
the definition of a window valance. So
many sighs from women in searchof a texture, a measurement, some small
tool that I could never afford…Read it in Moist Poetry Journal
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“Gaza Aftermath” by Richard Hoffman
Shalt not yeah not kill but come on hella money.
Fires in the street drones in the air a love poem
speared and flapping on a crooked pike of rebar.Read it in Plume Poetry
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“Overwatering” by Eric Rasmussen
The Four Houseplants Kayla Has Already Killed
1. The spider plant from her freshman dorm that she forgot to take home over winter break.
2. The philodendron Jason gave her that, despite impeccable window placement and watering, succumbed to the hatred she harbored for him after he cheated with his ex-girlfriend.
3. The basil plant that turned yellow because she admitted to friends that she was only mostly pro-choice.
4. The ficus that withered because she took her dog to the vet to be euthanized, even though he would likely have lived another year with daily injections.Read it in Jet Fuel Review
A Quiet Root 