Oz Hardwick

Minor Figures in the Big Picture

Oz Hardwick is a European poet, photographer, dabbler in sound, and academic by accident, whose work has been widely published in international journals and anthologies. He has published ‘a dozen or so’ full collections and chapbooks, including Learning to Have Lost (IPSI/Recent Work, 2018) which won the 2019 Rubery International Book Award for poetry, and most recently Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog, 2024). Other awards include the 2024 Charles Simic Poetry Prize and the 2024 Dolors Alberola International Poetry Prize. At time of writing, Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University. www.ozhardwick.co.uk

Nancy Sobanik

I Knew

I was a sinner by seven.

The pool and I both opened

that summer, sparkled like crystal

in my mother’s jewelry box.

I'd sneak into her room,

rope on pearls until one day a string

popped, sending a meteor shower

to ping the floor.

Pool water bubbling through the filter

made me press palms together,

leap when no one was watching.

I knew when the sparrow-wing

of my foot hit and rolled in the shallows

it was just desserts,

my parents too busy on a holiday

of rye highballs to get it checked.

A bony knob grew like the bud of a horn,

purple, the color of my crime,

and I was doubly glad for summertime

and my escape from shoes.

I knew better than to cry, Papa always said

Children are to be seen, but not heard.

I knew when x ray eyes of grown-ups

squinted, a birdlike tilt of the head

held sway until I could

Cross my heart and hope to die

then ferret away,

but deep-down I knew

it was a matter of time before

I'd wrap wrists with forbidden bangles,

sample fire and ice lipstick,

guzzle RC cola straight from the bottle

then put it back in the fridge.

I knew I’d jump again, sometime —

drawn to flash and shine,

recreate the moment I knew

hollow bones of a sparrow-wing

are built for flight.

Nancy Sobanik (her/she) has work curated by MacQueen's Quinterly, Synkroniciti, Anti-Heroin Chic, One Art, Triggerfish Critical Review, Sparks of Calliope, Verse-Virtual, Sheila-Na-Gig, The Ekphrastic Review, and various anthologies. A Best of The Net Nominee 2023 and Pushcart Nominee in 2024, she was awarded second and third place in the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest 2023 and 2024. Her chapbook The Unfolding, a finalist in the Open Chapbook Competition, will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2026. She currently works as a Registered Nurse in Maine. Visit at Nancy Sobanik on Facebook. Bluesky

Miranda Beeson

Tell Me Where I Should Go

Because you know the words & can't get them wrong.

I listened to how his mind split the country into a wound

we could not suture. Not the words—but the silences.

A ball of yarn is attempting to unravel. A bookmark

in memory's eye. The spill of Barolo, tar and roses.

And who among us hasn't been held helpless, before?

I could hardly blame them. Sorry, no more room.

A conflagration of untamed language.

You thought your hunger mattered more than hers.

Whatever tenderness. Wasn't that the point?

Nothing, she says. A stammer of caught breaths.

How the world works, stripping the land of pitiful fruit.

Mornings break against the body I’ve made do with.

We had everything on earth & what did we make?

A cento from the poems of Stefania Gomez, Sasha Pearl, Joshua Bennett, Paisley Rekdal, Paul Tran, Rowan Wilde Riggs, Dan Beachy-Quick, Omotara James, Daniel Halpern, Hermelinda Hernandez-Monjaras, Heidi Williamson

Miranda Beeson is the author of Wildlife (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023), and a recently completed collection of sonnets & This Too. Stay tuned for publication details. She has taught all over including at Poets House in NYC and at Stony Brook University. She also teaches privately, offers editorial services to poets in need, and consults in the IP field. She received her MFA from Stony Brook Southampton, and lives in New York City and the North Fork of Long Island.