Featuring a folio on Home & Hiraeth from Guest Editor Chet’la Sebree
From the Guest Editor’s Note: When I think of home, I’m reminded of a quote by poet Elaine Kahn: “When my mom left her first (of 3) husbands, she melted down her wedding ring & made it into a turtle to remind her that home exists in ur body.” I’m reminded how the body can be a safe place but also a site of betrayal, how it’s a place we’ll all have to abandon. In this way, I’m reminded that home is a feeling that shifts, how we’re always looking to find footing in a place we’ll have to leave.
I made the call for poems about home and hiraeth expecting to step into houses filled with tchotchkes, to meander coasts on the shorelines of memory. And I did. But in editing this folio, I also found myself steeped in poems populated by people—coffeeshop strangers and playground-drunk kids. There were words locked and lost on tongues, hands hungry for our ancestors, beings on the brink of exiting this realm.
Physical copies of this issue have now sold out. To purchase a digital copy of Volume 117 Winter/Spring 2023 featuring Chet’la’s guest edited folio, please email poetlore@writer.org.
Chet’la Sebree is the author of Field Study, awarded the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets,and Mistress, awarded the 2018 New Issues Poetry Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She has been awarded fellowships from Baldwin for the Arts, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Yaddo, and her work has appeared in The Yale Review, The New Republic, Kenyon Review, and Guernica. In January 2023, she joined the faculty at George Washington University as an assistant professor of English
Contributors
Ellie Black ● Michael Blumenthal ● Teresa Cader ● Lauren Camp ● Ahn Joo Cheol ● Acie Clark ● Jackie Craven ● Lena Crown ● Jessica Cuello ● P. Scott Cunningham ● Satya Dash ● Darren Donate ● Cristi Donoso ● Meg Eden ● Nathan Erwin ● CD Eskilson ● S. Fey ● Joshua Garcia ● Rolf Gjedsted ● Michael Favala Goldman ● Rupa Gosvami ● Javeria Hasnain ● Chengru He ● Kaylan Hutchison ● Jenny Irish ● Shim Jaekwan ● K Janeschek ● Lenna Jawdat ● Sneha Subramanian Kanta ● Saba Keramati ● Sarah Kersey ● Kim Hyesoon ● Cindy King ● Stefanie Kirby ● Jill Kitchen ● Aron Konrad ● Judith Lakner ● Wella Lobaton ● Shannon Mann ● Jennifer Manthey ● Michael Montlack ● Harryette Mullen ● Cindy Juyoung Ok ● Adesiyan Oluwapelumi ● Gretchen Rockwell ● Maria Surricchio ● Kate Sweeney ● Ingrid Taylor ● Malik Thompson ● Emily Tuttle ● Jeanine Walker ● Mathew Weitman ● Taylor Zhang
Select poems from the issue coming soon to the blog.