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Tipton Poetry Journal

Tipton Poetry Journal Editor’s Note

Tipton Poetry Journal, located in the heartland of the Midwest, publishes quality poetry from Indiana and around the world. Statistics: This issue features 33 poets from the United States (24 unique states), and 3 poets from China, Hong Kong, and Ukraine. Our Featured Poem this issue is "What is Modern,” written by Esther Sadoff. Her poem, which also receives an award of $25, can be found on page 1. The featured poem was chosen by the Board of Directors of Brick Street Poetry, Inc., the Indiana non-profit organization who publishes Tipton Poetry Journal. Book Reviews: Devil's Backbone by Julie L. Moore A Vanishing Life: A Poetic Warning by Joyce Brinkman & Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda Cover Photo: Saguaro National Park by Barry Harris Barry Harris, Editor

Copyright 2026 by the Tipton Poetry Journal. All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual contributors and may not be used without their permission. Tipton Poetry Journal is published by Brick Street Poetry Inc., a taxexempt non-profit organization under IRS Code 501(c)(3). Brick Street Poetry Inc. publishes the Tipton Poetry Journal, hosts the monthly poetry series Poetry on Brick Street and sponsors other poetry-related events.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Contents Esther Sadoff ............................................................. 1 Gil Hoy ....................................................................... 2 Allison Thorpe............................................................ 4 Doug Tanoury ............................................................ 5 Paul Dickey ................................................................ 6 Patrick T. Reardon ..................................................... 8 William Aarnes ........................................................ 10 David A. Goodrum .................................................... 11 Maureen Clark ......................................................... 12 Nolo Segundo ........................................................... 13 Bobby Jones ............................................................. 14 Xiang Xu .................................................................. 16 Christopher Stolle .................................................... 18 Timothy Pilgrim ...................................................... 19 Raima Larter ........................................................... 20 Tia Paul-Louis .......................................................... 21 John Grey ................................................................ 22 F.S. Blake ................................................................. 23 Ken Meisel................................................................ 23 Ron McFarland ........................................................ 26 Mykyta Ryzhykh...................................................... 27 Ann Humphries ........................................................ 28 Lylanne Musselman ................................................. 29 William Heath ......................................................... 30 Albert Hwang .......................................................... 32

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Alex DeBonis ............................................................ 32 Ken Poyner .............................................................. 34 Terry Savoie ............................................................ 35 Mark Vogel .............................................................. 36 Paul Ilechko ............................................................. 38 Jim Tilley ................................................................. 39 Michael Keshigian ...................................................40 Hayley Hung............................................................ 42 Review: Devil's Backbone by Julie L. Moore ............. 43 Review: A Vanishing Life: A Poetic Warning by Joyce Brinkman & Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda..................... 46

Tipton Poetry Journal

What is Modern Esther Sadoff When I was younger, I was fascinated by darkness: bells given to corpses that they could ring if they came back to life. I thought the past meant a stultifying abundance of death— watchmen guarding graves, skeletons in a doctor’s closet. It's hard to find historical photos of people striking a silly pose for the camera. Now, we have moved past separation. We have moved past death. We give mirrors to captive birds to trigger companionship. We snap picture after picture, smiling back at no one but ourselves.

Esther Sadoff is a teacher and writer from Columbus, Ohio. She is the author of four chapbooks: Some Wild Woman (Finishing Line Press), Serendipity in France (Finishing Line Press), Dear Silence (Kelsay Books), and If I Hold my Breath (Bottlecap Press). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Hole in the Head Review, and she is the winner of the Women of Ohio 2025 Poetry Award.

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Devotion Gil Hoy I hear her telling me she can’t stop drinking but that she doesn’t start to drink before 5:00. I tell her she gets so drunk on two bottles of wine, it’s as if she’s been drinking all day. She says she’s a functional drunk because she has a responsible job and works every day. I block her on every form of communication I know. I’ve failed before. Last time I broke up with her, she peppered me with sympathetic emails, texts and voicemail messages until I took her back. I block her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. I block her texts, emails and phone calls. She tells me things she’s told no one else before. I tell her things I haven’t even told myself. Her older brother’s friend took her into the woods when she was very young and something happened. She knows it was bad. Her best friend’s father cleaned her private parts when she was four. While she and her friend were taking a bath. Her father told her she was a whore after she had sex in the ninth grade with a senior. I hear her telling me she can change. But the demons are always too strong.

Tipton Poetry Journal

So I block her for my own self-preservation because all of this makes me want to help her. I know how determined she is. So I tell the front gate attendant not to let her in. It’s not the hardest thing I’ve ever done but I haven’t been able to look at him since.

She’s a mean drunk and drinks every night. She’s a mean drunk and keeps me up all night. If I stay with her, I’m finished. Because she’s always been honest with me I write her a note. I send it. But don’t ask me to tell you what’s in it because I won’t. Because she was loyal. When she was five, she hugged a tree and said she wanted to go home. But not to the home where she lived. Back to where she came from before she was born.

Gil Hoy is presently a Master’s Class student for fiction and poetry at The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and previously studied at Boston University. He has been nominated for a Best of the Net award in poetry. His work has previously appeared in Third Wednesday, Flash Fiction Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, The Penmen Review, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, and elsewhere.

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Dear Peace Allison Thorpe Why haven’t you called Are you safe Have enough to eat A place to stay We worry about you out there in the cold and lonely We want you to wander home like the lost kitten of our youth Be the surprise in our cereal boxes Tap our shoulder one day while we wait for the train Persist like an infomercial we can’t turn off Croon our soul’s favorite lullaby It’s summer We long to feel the rain cool our fevered dreams Watch the old men nod away the sultry hours Wallow in fireflies and lilacs Be happy in our peaches We’ll keep the light on

Allison Thorpe is the author of seven collections of poetry and the Family Tree Cozy Mystery series. Her last book of poems, A Girl, Her Slipper, and Yesterday’s Rainbow, won the Poetry Box Chapbook Award in 2024 and the American Book Fest Chapbook Award in 2025. She lived a homesteading lifestyle in South Central Kentucky for almost forty years. She now works as a writing mentor at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and lives in Lexington.

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Luncheon Lecture Doug Tanoury

As the keynote speaker begins talking about a risk management framework for AI ecosystems, I remember her nearness and fragrance as I kissed her neck between where the earlobe ends like Tierra del Fuego at the Straits of Magellan and her shoulder begins tapering downhill like the Indian Sub-Continent beneath the Himalayas slopes toward the sea.

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Weather Paul Dickey I have studied years but cannot learn. a wind of wives The cypress speaks in tongues. Outside undulates a voluptuous storm is coming.

The Art of Leaving Home Paul Dickey Put up your dukes. Do whatever you must. Kiss your old man good-bye as you might need to end a love relationship. But don't just quit your job just because things are not working out. Wait for a sign. Every night the stars might spell out your name. Be prepare though to go on. You may have to go when there are no signs. Don’t beyond your means. Pray for a way of life. Don't take poems too seriously, nor too lightly. Paint the house at least every seven years, some recommend five, but of course, you won't.

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It is silly to run out of gas. You might be on the freeway. ("This is one of my one faults.") But if you do, you can buy more, or that one guy your mother always told you about might be coming by that very minute with gasoline. It’s funny how things work out. Everything is slow. There is a time for anything, but for some things you have to make time. But take time. To visit old people on occasion. even if you have to drive across town to the hospital. Some day you will be yourself. It might teach you both something about need. One more thing but this is too, too difficult. Take no advice. Make mistakes. Put up Your dukes. Do what you must. Work, even if you have to work for free. Kiss the old man. Good-bye.

Paul Dickey, a poet living in Omaha, Nebraska, has appeared recently in Plume, The Midwest Quarterly, Laurel Review, I-70 Review, Plainsongs, failbetter.com, and Apple Valley Review. His recent book of poetry volume was released in September, 2022 in Anti-Realism in Shadows and Suppertime. He has also released in the past year a volume of flash fiction by What My Characters Should Have Said and a poetry chapbook A Reading of Dali (Likely Misunderstood) Which at Twenty Meters Becomes This Poet's Self-portrait.

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Let be

Patrick T. Reardon

Let be the messenger preparing the way. Let be days of old. Let be the old style, old age, old testation, old nation, old expiation, old matter, old empty tombs, old souls rising. Let be dying. Child of the Century only got the rubies, his sister was given the diamonds. Let be eyes that have seen. Forty days and forty nights, let be. Let be Simeon and Anna, the Samaritan well woman, the Good Samaritan, the rich young man, the chief priest and the elders, the scribes, the Pharisees, James and John, Peter and Andrew, Spahn and Sain and pray for rain, Odysseus and Ulysses, Father and Son, Monet, Manet and Rodin. Let be burnt offerings. Bread, wine and water, let be. The lance in the side, let be. Like Mama, Jacoba told GirlJane what to do. Like Papa, she put the bleak fear of God in her. Let be the dying sacristan, the hammerhead toe, the strange spot, the strained shoulder, the coughing usher, the shaking hands, the lost hair, the stomach cancer, the shriveled nun, the ear infection, the twisted ankle, the muscle cramp, the blur of sight.

Tipton Poetry Journal Let be transmigration, incarnation, transfiguration, conception, resurrection, transubstantiation. The pope and the first baseman, let be, and the pipefitter, NICU nurse, ditchdigger, precinct captain, Pepsi truck delivery driver and undercover detective. Let be the sign of peace, the sign of the cross, the sign in the sky. Let be double time, double play, Doublemint gum, a triple double, double-tied laces, double dribble, chin dribble, chin music and chinny-chin-chin. Denmark Jones is shut within the roar of cicadas. Fashioned from clay, he is chopped off at the ankles. Let be Pastor Dom, dying, all dross burned away, focused, centered at the altar of every soul. Let be the blessing of the word, the blessing of the throats, the blessings, first and last. Let be yes Patrick T. Reardon, a Chicago Tribune reporter from 1976 to 2009, is the author of eight poetry collections. His latest is a chapbook from Bottlecap Press called New Chicago. His book Every Marred Thing: A Time in America was the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize. He has been nominated six times for a Pushcart Prize. Photo credit: Steve Kagan

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afloat

William Aarnes I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy

A momentary thought I try to savor while worrying about accumulating disasters: My former students must recall reading or not reading Moby Dick, and, of course, all of them—the re-readers, the skimmers, even those who didn’t buy the book— might drop Ahab’s name into a conversation to explain a brooding ruthless boss who rules over an office crewed by awed assistants. At times perhaps the whale may surface in talk of how increasingly murderous storms seem to strike with intent. And I hope a few re-readers at times take their copies from their shelves, as I did this morning, for the comfort of lingering over the passage in which Ishmael, after chapters of butchery, delights in the vision of nursing mothers and infants afloat in the peaceful depths— the kind of memory one would savor having somehow survived disaster. Born in Missouri, William Aarnes was raised in North Dakota, taught for most of his life in South Carolina, and has along with his wife retired to Manhattan, a fifteen-minute walk from their grandson. His fourth collection of poems is The Hum in Human (Main Street Rag, 2022),

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Balancing Accounts David A. Goodrum When her brother was born with a cord around his neck, the whole family yearned to hear his first screams. Which since then sound to most ears like nuisance pleas from a distant car alarm. Less often he thinks, Thanks, doc, for slipping the umbilical over my head. Over coffee, she learned he bounced around, always westward. A few years in the city of love, then car town, cow town, mile high city. Odd jobs and panhandling. Tenements. Weekends napping in libraries surrounded by Fiction. Doodling in margins. Away from Self-Help. Then the Army provided structure. Though at first seemed “like observing ice cubes form with the freezer door open… Now it’s all precision strikes and drones setting children ablaze.” Down to the grounds in the coffee cup, she tells him, “Whatever I thought I thought when young is now a letter re-taped because my saliva couldn’t make it stick. Because the script yearned for any beginning and now begs for an addendum. Because every valentine kept pleading for a heart, or X, or O, or all three.”

David A. Goodrum is the author of Abrupt Edges (Bass Clef Books, 2025), Vitals and Other Signs of Life (The Poetry Box, 2024) and Sparse Poetica (Audience Askew, 2023). Recent journal publications have appeared in The Orchards Poetry Journal (which awarded his poem “Winter Inquisition” a Pushcart Nomination), Cirque, and Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Born, raised, and educated in Indiana, David lives in Corvallis, Oregon, and is the current president of the Oregon Poetry Association. See more at www.davidgoodrum.com.

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Glastonbury Green Maureen Clark

sound carries here among the ruined walls a sacredness itself the grassy glade a small sign says that King Arthur and Guinevere were buried right here before being moved inside the Abbey now of course that cathedral is destroyed on the high street a mix of hippie/druid/witch shops crystals and smudge bundles tie-dyed clothing, bodhrans wooden flutes dulcimers wands and staves stones kitschy tourist gear for Glastonbury the myth I didn’t come here for that story but to see the destruction of one selfish king not exactly questions that can’t be answered a cathedral without a roof and walls fallen among Jupiter’s beard and the bright buttercups glinting in the grass like stars I could believe in redemption in a place like this the remains where sound itself is holy breezes are whispered prayers children’s voices ring across the field of green little bells of glee in the setting sun a hum begins to rise between the stones the dead sigh vespers about to begin Maureen Clark is a writer living in Utah.

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On Eating an Orange and Seeing God Nolo Segundo I miss the big navels when they are not in season, but almost any orange will do when I really want to see God. But it must be done right, this seeing, this apprehension of the Lord of the Universe, Lord of All the Worlds, both seen and unseen…. First I feel how firm the orange is, rolling it in my hands, the hands of an artist, the hands of a poet, and now the stiff and cracked hands of an old man-then I slice it in half and look at its flesh, its brightness, its moistness, its color-if the insides beckon, urging my mouth to bite, I first cut each half into half and then slowly, carefully-as all rituals demand-- I put one of the cut pieces between my longing lips and gradually, with a sort of grace, bite into the flesh of the sacrificial fruit. I feel the juice flow down my throat and recall the taste of every orange I ever had, even in my childhood—or so it seems, with this little miracle of eating an orange. As I finish absorbing, still slowly and gracefully, its flesh, the last bit of what had been one of the myriad wonders of the world, I look at the ragged pieces of orange peel and I see poetry-- or God-- it’s really the same thing, isn’t it?

Nolo Segundo is the pen name of a retired teacher in New Jersey who became a lateblooming poet published in over 280 literary journals in 22 countries, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, thrice for Best of the Net, and has 4 collections published in softcover by Cyberwit.net.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Where Would I Be If I Hadn't Been Born?

Bobby Jones

Mom might have married Marshie Romig. He was a dandy, driving his doeskin-colored Desoto in that one-stoplight Poconos town. I heard he later bought the filling station. They might have had a boy. He wouldn’t be me. Grandpa Jones might have hooked Dad up, a job on the Chicago-Alton line, if he hadn’t ditched. Dad would never have left Joliet then. He would have hitched up with a Chi-Town gal. They might have had a boy. He wouldn’t be me. Where does God store boys who never get born? Or store the ideas of those boys? Ideas don’t take up much space. And God is vast (they tell me). Would He have hidden me away in the pink and purple heather covering His Scottish Highlands? Would He have blended me in with the beavertail cacti scattered over His Mojave Desert? Would He have buried me in His Mariana Trench, the deepest, darkest depths of His Pacific Ocean? The odds of my birth on earth, one in gad-zillions. Yet, my children parade about like princes and princesses. Where are their wonderstruck Hosannas, their breathless Hallelujahs? They are because I am, and I am because of a deadbeat granddad and a DeSoto driver slow to propose.

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In Memoriam: Elijah McClain Bobby Jones Aurora police got a call. Someone “sketchy” in a ski mask, that’s all. They packed up their gear: guns, grit, and gall. Elijah was walking home from the store, a slow, summer night, Lou Rawls in his ear, arms flailing out -- “just dancin’, that's all.” Elijah was homeschooled, learned to respect others, bowed from the waist when taking his leave. They called it his “gratitude bow.” To the cops, Elijah seemed strange. “Wait, there’s a gun!” They pinned his carotid, choked blood to his brain. “My name is Elijah McClain. That’s my house, I was just going home. There’s no gun. I’m an introvert. I’m just different. That’s all.” They turned off his brain with ketamine. A dose too strong, the coroner said. Elijah’s body collapsed. His last gratitude bow. Elija McClain was twenty-three. He didn’t eat meat or kill any fleas. He played violin for animals. He was different, just different. That’s all. Bobby Jones is a PhD psychologist retired from a 38-year career in physician education. His poetry has appeared in Last Leaves, Loud Coffee Press, and Passager. He is currently writing a memoir of his Catholic boyhood and lives in Washington, DC.

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To Brother Kirby Xiang Xu You introduced me to the congregation as a Country & Western singer without mentioning my ethnicity. The jokes you told at every Sunday sermon in your thick Cajun accent reminded me I was not the only outsider. There was a lot of roastin’ and pickin’ the day at the Cochon De Lait. I was blessed to taste the sublime roast whole hog for the first time in my life. You introduced me to the crowd as the next star in country music, Then I was crooning the songs of unrequited love in a borrowed accent. The fiddler’s shy face, the guitar picker’s nimble hand, and your chuckling— are signposts to that night You made me feel like I was one of these good ole boys. Then, without a farewell, you left us for the Kingdom of Heaven. Now I dwell in a land where almost none believe in the afterlife, and finding Jesus is as unlikely as hearing your Cajun accent.

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The railroad track that draws the line between Saturday night and Sunday morning, split wide between haves and have-nots, between hedonism and piety is the line I have crossed so many times, though the boundary ceases to exist in my world. Tempted by the bottle, I soar on drunken ecstasy every now and then then I fall from my delusive dreams.

I try to collect my memories every day. I find your chuckling, your wrinkled face, your Cajun accent, and my guitar as characters in a shadow play— passing without leaving a trace but when the church choir chants “I’ll Fly Away” on a Sunday morning, it resurrects my soul, still hungover from last night, yearning to be born again.

Xiang Xu was a country singer and an academic, who received his M.A. in Southern Studies and PhD in History from the University of Mississippi. Xu returned to China in May 2025 after his 13-year residence in rural Mississippi. Since then, he has been writing poetry to convey a profound sense of displacement and homesickness. Xu's poems have been featured in Deep South Magazine, Delta Poetry Review, and DarkWinter Lit Magazine. He currently lives in Guangzhou, China.

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The Hemoflow Cradle Christopher Stolle Among the cacophony the paperwork the gauze and bandages rises up a hero a champion of clot-busters a singer of lullabies as blood flows through a plastic tube and fills a plastic bag Hemoflow gently rocks a metronome pace a breathless whisper of exertion a solitude for those giving for those receiving for those not yet born for those still fighting for more time

Christopher Stolle is an editor and writer. His collection of historical fiction, Re-Visions, was recently published by Henlopen Press. Christopher’s writing has also been published by Indiana University Press, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Coaches Choice, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Flying Island, among many others.He lives in Richmond, Indiana.

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Night metaphors Timothy Pilgrim As sunset fades, gives in to stars I careen across the night, dream we are rejoined, heartbeats unbroken till dark subsides. She joins me an ember growing bright, first throe of ceremony taking hold. I recite an old invocation, summon back our campfire, purple at dusk. It casts a shadow on the full moon. She becomes goddess promising dawn the fire rising in her eyes.

Timothy Pilgrim, a 79-year-old Montana poet living in Bellingham, Wash., has a plethora of acceptances from over 100 U.S. journals such as Seattle Review, Red Coyote, Sierra Nevada Review, Hawaii Pacific Review Tipton Poetry Journal and Santa Ana River Review, and international journals such as Windsor Review in Canada and Prole Press in the U.K. See timothypilgrim.org

Tipton Poetry Journal

Mama Couldn't Bear Spicy Food

Raima Larter

There was the day you made us something you called milk toast, chunks of bread swimming in hot buttered milk. I was surprised you could cook. That was Mama’s job, but she lay sick in bed, for months by then. Her doctor was found dead, a suicide they said and I always wondered if he’d shot himself because he couldn’t help her. The milk toast was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten, each spicy bowlful seasoned with a healthy shake of black pepper.

Raima Larter is mainly a fiction writer with a few dozen short stories and four novels published (so far). Prior to being a full-time writer, she was a chemistry professor at IUPUI (Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis). She lives in Denver and serves as the Nonfiction Editor at Utopia Science Fiction magazine. You can read more about her work at raimalarter.com.

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Bound

Tia Paul-Louis

Space is not the enemy. Neither is time. Neither are people. In this white room, she stands (alone, she thinks) with her countenance hidden through her shadow, cast on the wall. Long and bold without eyes or even a crooked trace of her lips, which she draws on the wall, but they won’t move along with her. Her face—buried in her shadow. Her mind is there. Not her. Not her self. She supplicates the land Lord for a mirror and at last: Eyes. But oh—how dark they turn. How they roll—dry or soaked. How they sink, yet sleep so boldly in their little holes. So, she turns the mirror to the wall and strokes her shadow— long and white. Almost soft. A long white bird— pinned to the wall, awaiting the land Lord’s time to remove her and take her to a space she’s not earned but was given by grace. Tia Paul-Louis is a fiction writer and poet from Florida. She began experimenting with songwriting at age 11 and later felt a deeper connection to poetry. Her themes portray family life, gender role controversies, mental health, and spiritual values. She admires the freedom of expression in most forms of art such as music, acting, and painting.

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2011

John Grey

In the pocket of a coat I seldom wear, I find a receipt for something I bought in 2011 and the brochure from a modest art museum I visited that same year.

Minor histories are observed in ways I never could imagine. What was I doing that year? At last two things because I have the evidence. How I was feeling then is a total mystery. But I purchased hairspray. I saw an exhibition from some minor painters of the Hudson River school. If only I’d stuffed my trepidations in these pockets along with my affection, my doubts, my sorrows, my exhalations. But I’m stuck with two innocuous pieces of paper. They tell me nothing about how things were in 2011. So I squish them up and toss them in the trash. That’s not an option with emotions. John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident now living in Rhode Island, recently published in Shift, River And South, and Flights. Latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, White Wall Review and Trampoline.

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Can We Avoid It F.S. Blake can we avoid it the inevitable fall from grace and from trees F.S. Blake is a Bronze Star decorated U.S. Army Veteran and Pushcart Prize nominated poet living in Georgia. He is a published photographer, traveler, advanced SCUBA diver, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and proud husband and father. He has poems published or forthcoming in The Military Review, Welter at University of Baltimore, San Pedro River Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Persimmon Review and The Main Street Rag, among others. His chapbooks, Terminal Leave, Above the Gold Fields, and The Few Drops Known are available from Finishing Line Press. His full-length poetry collection, Forever or a Week is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. His poetry career began during his sister’s wedding.

Lovesickness at a Drive-In Movie w / Infinite Stars Ken Meisel At the drive-in they are watching Clark Gable & Marilyn, The Misfits. Long lines of cars parked there, this is America, maybe the 60’s & quite possibly last week, &, quite possibly, it only exists now in a photograph I sometimes glance at, while I’m waiting to make love w / my wife . . . as she’s just finishing putting her lipstick on . . . & maybe it only exists – this picture – in my personal fantasies so that it keeps falling silently into my palms so I can keep it as a fantasy, before love-making – Clark kissing Marilyn – & maybe I’ll have to keep it tight in there, like something closing deep inside of me – some gem keepsake –

Tipton Poetry Journal because in America we crave the nostalgia of ourselves viewing ourselves in the mirror, in a film, on a turn table spinning 33 & 1/3 albums on it so that all our music, too, is a kind of hypnotic interlude re-awakening us, since we are the species – the only species – that names itself & loses its name anyway. _____________________ & if a woman leans in to kiss her lover, if she tries it & he likes it, this, too, will become a photo – perhaps in Black & White – for nostalgia’s museum because we all feel afraid to know that our days are turning downward like lost cards, so we snap photos of ourselves being, well, just ourselves. & once the picture passes overhead, once it tilts there like a ½ orchid petal igniting a star, in that raw light one can convince oneself that days are nothing but echo, just movie stills floating over the roofs of cars at a summertime drive-in movie, the July crickets chirruping like prayer worn stars, young kids w / swagger hanging out at car fenders, &, my favorite, a love scene of a woman’s face wanting to be kissed, wanting it so bad she’d cry for it, &, if in the night sky the moon resembles a Georgia peach a little doped up on mescaline so it glows like a potato fruit, or anything at all, maybe then we can feel that our days are real instead of just photographs in a book, or hapless words cut by light, or songs spinning endlessly on a turntable, stills frozen in time on a cinema

print –

Tipton Poetry Journal

& maybe in that moment, clear & empty of everything we own, we’ll let go of all this awkward hesitation in us that only restrains us because it’s just time’s candelabrum fucking w / us, & the guy will kiss the woman, the smitten lover, right back – saving us all – & we’ll empty like a chute; we’ll surrender ourselves into our days. & we’ll savor the infinite . . . because it is ours, it belongs only to us. We, who lament in dust. Seeking salvation. I want to believe just in this: that the infinite might elope w / me & ignite me into a shivering star that someone will witness . . . at the end of a day. & all the lovers will look up: alert, amazed at the effulgent stars, at their crazed madness, their ½ light vaporization, & they’ll kiss all that lovesickness in them away. They’ll kiss for God. & maybe they’ll not need to offer it back to God. But only to us.

Ken Meisel is a poet and psychotherapist. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Net nominee. His most recent book, Chasing Names on Nameless Water, was published in 2025 by Kelsay Press. He has work in Book of Matches, I70 Review, Wasteland Review, The Glacier. Ken lives in Michigan. .

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Red Viburnum (Червона Калина) Ron McFarland Bees in these parts seem keen on Oregon Grape, hustling nectar off to their hives for the great conversion, the metamorphosis, the (dare I say) transfiguration into honey if that’s not too metaphoric a reach, an apostolic invasion of sorts. My sources claim the aroma blends spicy grape wine, anonymous flowery herbs, and earthy notes to evoke a sense of relaxation and tranquility akin to cannabis, of which the pungent smoke riles my sinuses and provokes a bad memory. Better the fragrance of viburnum in early May reminiscent of honeysuckle from my Ohio youth but more sweetly perfumed from their snowy blooms before they erupt in ruby clusters of bright fruit mildly toxic but somewhat medicinal, the opulus, the guelder rose, an antioxidant good for cramps, Ukrainian folk cures for ulcers, tuberculosis, common colds (I checked the phytochemistry). Soldiers near the Donets sing of blood-red kalyna bent to submission in the meadows, ready to rise.

Ron McFarland is emeritus Professor of English at the University of Idaho. His fifth book of poems, A Variable Sense of Things, appeared in December 2023.

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*** Mykyta Ryzhykh Three fingers crushed us with emptiness A knot has wrapped the air around my neck The alarm siren and explosion fatigue are drawn to the eyes We fuck like corpses that will never be separated from each other again [This poem was first published in Ouch Collective]

*** Mykyta Ryzhykh I play war games and watch scat on TV My freckles are gone And yes, I will have to pay back the loan for this [This poem was first published in Corvus Review] Mykyta Ryzhykh lives in Ukraine, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been published any times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Rechport, Topos, Articulation, Formaslov, Literature Factory, Literary Chernihiv, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, on the portals Litсenter, Ice Floe Press and Soloneba, in the Ukrainian literary newspaper.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Probably Gone By Now Ann Humphries Camp horses we rode bareback, pride in their pricked ears Shetland pony who bit and bucked, milk cow who swished her tail at flies and us, the alpha rooster, the old barn that smelled of hay and leather, and the barn cats. Our fourth grade teacher who read to us after lunch, Miss Smoot, who taught English and died at 104 in her historic house. Beloved architecture professor who teased that he would object at my wedding the Chinese pediatricians down the street who moved to California to be closer to their children Great White Pyrenees puppy who dug holes in our yard adopted by a farmer. My dream career, chopped into tiny pieces by a recession and 9/11, the wound where a friend withdrew from our cozy oval—she wouldn’t say why but I believe it had to do with the efficacy of masks and vaccines. I let go of someone who judged me as less than. My retired guide dog, Brego, who gave me a new life, lived to be fourteen. All the rods and cones in my retina withered and died, causing my blindness, but not my transcendence.

Ann Humphries is a poet, hiker, and birder from Columbia, South Carolina who happens to be blind. Most recently, her poems have been published in three anthologies: Coastlines Poetry Anthology, Old Growth: Congaree National Park Anthology, and Kakalak Anthology and are forthcoming in the North Dakota Review. She is a speaker-scholar through South Carolina Humanities and her papers are archived in the University of South Carolina special collections. She has published two collections, An Eclipse and a Butcher (2020) and My Blind Obsession (2025).

Tipton Poetry Journal

Quantum Entanglements Lylanne Musselman The world feels smaller every day, caused by simple serendipitous connections. Like Andy from Indy meeting Terri from Muncie at some work gathering having nothing to do with the creative beings they are, yet they discover that our creative worlds have collided in knowing me. More chained links in the legendary six degrees of separation. Out of the blue, I receive an email from Chadwick who I’ve had a few interactions with over the past six years. He believes we can have relationships with loved ones from the other side. He found out that his beloved former English professor died last year, and in looking up information on her, discovered that we’d co-authored a volume of poetry together. Jayne, my dear friend, who meant so much to me, had been special to him too. Still, we had no idea either were so close. We agreed to do lunch. I envision Rane who said when we die our energy goes out into the universe. You can’t kill the spirit. I smile believing how bright he shines, and Jayne, and so many loved ones, in the stars I see across the rural sky, vibrant souls twinkling. Is it a myth, our reality? Can we be in more than one place at once? Time jars me back to the present, out of my extraterrestrial thoughts and into this bustling coffee shop writing poems with Penny and Helen, and the spicy taste of chai. Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist, living in Indiana. Her work has appeared in Pank, Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Indianapolis Review, among others, and many anthologies. Musselman is the author of seven chapbooks, and author of the full-length poetry collection, It’s Not Love, Unfortunately (Chatter House Press, 2018). Her seventh chapbook, Staring Dementia in the Face from Finishing Line Press was published in July 2023.

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On Suicide William Heath You can fill your pockets full of rocks and take a walk toward the river, that’s one way out, or you can realize how silly you look with rocks in your pockets and maybe laugh at the absurdity of it all and perhaps decide to dump the dumb stones and find a better way to end or begin your life. Remember, all is not lost until it absolutely is. You never know what life has in store for you after death. What cat dreams that its guts will end up as strings on a banjo creating tunes even a cat might like

Tipton Poetry Journal

The Third Man William Heath Orson Wells, alias the Third Man, is down on Swiss cuckoo clocks, he prefers a life of watered down penicillin so children will suffer slow deaths with time to sing their songs of pain. Different strokes for different folks, the saying goes, since his girl loves him in spite of his dubious ways, to hell with the goofy American who moons over her, he’s just a hack writer of westerns, no glamour in that. Besides, her cat is in love with Orson too, likes to rub against his large shiny black shoes.

William Heath has published five poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, Going Places, Alms for Oblivion, Prime Time; three chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio, Leaving Seville, and Inventing the Americas; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake's Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards and the Oliver Hazard Perry Award); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Hiram College. He lives in Annapolis. www.williamheathbooks.com

Tipton Poetry Journal

Your Ring Albert Hwang I wore that ring today the one you got me. And I felt three millimeters closer to you for hours and you were heavy on me like nine grams or ten of anchor, anchoring me to who I am. And I could feel you every time I typed “W” that key that clack that begins every “we” every “were” every “were?” And really you were again everywhere, three millimeters nine grams round around everywhere. [First published in “Does it have pockets?” (June 2026)]

Albert Hwang is a Taiwanese American poet from Illinois. He is a James B. Reston New York Times Gold Key winner (Scholastic Arts & Writing) and a Betty L. Yu & Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize winner (TaiwaneseAmerican.org). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, Inscape Journal, The Lake, New Verse News, Unbroken Journal, and other publications.

A Parade of Flags Alex DeBonis Downtown on a Friday morning, still chasms between buildings, cold as canyons in the Arctic. I sat in my car, heater stuttering, at a stoplight. Not one person on the sidewalks, like Sunday had come

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and I hadn’t realized. I lived alone, worked alone, and sat there knowing I’d have to choke that Friday down. From around a building’s corner streamed preschoolers, a chain of colors, holding hands of the one ahead and the one behind. I blinked at these flags on a line: snow pants the color of tea roses, a boy in a school-bus yellow slicker hopping with excitement, a tangerine pennant bobbing next to turquoise and pearl stripes over small shoulders. A girl in purple led by her teacher,

her mittens glinting in the sun. They trailed her across Lincoln Avenue headed toward the fire station. The green light shone. I passed them —didn’t follow, of course, couldn’t— and my car followed the road. But I wasn’t in the driver's seat, something no longer me sat there, a bud that, even in the cold, readied to burst open.

Having previously resided in Indiana burgs such as Seymour, Bloomington, Muncie, and Indianapolis, Alex DeBonis now lives and writes in western Kentucky with his wife, children, and two spoiled dogs. He is a professor in the English Department of Bethel University just over the Tennessee line, and his writing will appear or has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Eclectica Magazine, Hartskill Review, and Esquire.

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Abused Charity Ken Poyner He opens a small shop selling moon wind chimes. Not wind chimes with a moon theme, but chimes to be hung on the moon, affixed to any porches there, dropped from whatever trees might grow there. People saunter by and ask him about his craft. Halfway through his description, they note that there are no porches on the moon, no trees, no air, no wind, and no way yet to get there. In sympathy with his surprised look, many buy a chime and think maybe it will work on their terrestrial porch. He had thought it might settle that way.

Ken Poyner lives in Norfolk, Virginia and has eleven available collections of poetry, flash fiction and micro-fiction, the latest The Lechery of Fish Tuners, drabbles. He has suffered ten Pushcart nominations without a win, and has taught on an NEA Poets in the Schools grant. He spent 33 years herding computers. He is married to a world class female powerlifter, who is still setting raw world records. www.kpoyner.com

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Driving by a Nineteenth Century Derelict Stone Schoolhouse in Iowa, I imagine

Terry Savoie

a neighboring farmer’s jackass braying unmercifully, braying full-throated, calling to the harlot's morning moon while the class of scholars who struggle with their counting lessons as the schoolmarm does a pixilated, fingertip dance at the ends of her pipestem arms, playing their shadow puppet's game across the chalkboard. The children manage to retreat further back toward the cloakroom and schoolhouse door while their nervous teacher, hardly a few years beyond the oldest scholar before her, unconsciously licks her buckteeth as her prized heirloom pendant pancakes flat on her bosom like a duckling’s fresh, wet splat beneath her high collared white blouse, the pendant hanging there for comfort’s sake earlier that very morning to signal protection under a fanciful array of buttons ‘n’ bows designed to alleviate her mounting anxiety that's been hers both today as well as her lifelong companion. Experience – what her father beat into her nightly at the end of his green willow switch – will always be the devil’s stable mate although now she knows only too well that experience alone will never provide any portion of that “shadowie” future she so eagerly desires. Beyond the school’s quarried, stone-block walls, purple lilacs blossom beneath the springtime burst of sun as two dozen scholars before her are retreating by now into their midday stupor, each and all, sleepy-eyed, mesmerized by the teacher's fingertips flittering,

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mumbling this in spring like barn swallows above their never-again-to-be-innocent heads that’ve been filled beyond measure today with visions of drudgery ahead, field work, wood stacking, cook stove duties and an endless evening: work, work, and more work beneath their fathers’ perpetually iron-fisted rules. Terry Savoie lives in Iowa. Beyond previous appearances in Tipton Poetry Journal, Terry Savoie’s poetry can be found in more than two hundred literary journals and anthologies over the past five decades, journals such as American Poetry Review, Poetry (Chicago), Ploughshares, North American Review, Sonora Review, American Journal of Poetry and The Iowa Review as well as in recent numbers of North Dakota Quarterly, Slab, America, Seems, and Broad River Review among many others.

You just lost Mark Vogel at the morning bus stop, Richard Spalding posing for the world in mythic linebacker mode, wearing his black and gold letterman jacket. Insolent and mute, his body weight-room square, ready to explode. Somehow that Thursday the air was altered, heavy and waiting. Then Spalding, like an aggressive dog, moved on mousey Greg Davis, for something was murmured, and Big Dick, like a machine, punched three times, then shoved him into the bushes where we saw blood on his pressed shirt from his flowing nose. We scattered, giving the monster space, seeing how quickly violence smashed the veneer of the daily habit—how power wearing a sneer nearly always owns the story. Then the bus arrived, and Spalding stood like a lonely adult,

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refusing to board. We scrambled through the open doors, and the bus roared off, leaving him lonely and tough, a god we could never understand. Even now nothing really is static, the story slightly alters with each telling. Something new learned, like how little can be taken back— Davis’s humiliation so permanent he never rode the bus again. The message lingering on the testosterone-poisoned billboard, saying you just lost. The whole world of revolting obscenity out in the open, the universe of so much that is ugly, reminding again how some British actors delight in using cunt to label those they wish to be defiled, and the air quivers before an awful message, right there on the sacred surface. Mother washing out my mouth with soap when I said damn. Doesn’t matter that Davis went on to advanced degrees, became an Indianapolis pharmacist with a white fluffy dog, three kids. For that bus scene lingers, back again and again. Permanent like a tattoo, the blood on his pressed shirt. How from that day on, he virtually disappeared.

Mark Vogel lives at the back of a Blue Ridge holler with his wife, Susan Weinberg, an accomplished fiction and creative non-fiction writer, and two foster sons. He currently is an Emeritus Professor of English at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Poems and short stories have appeared in several dozen literary journals.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Breath

Paul Ilechko

When the breath was intact and we lived inside the breath lungs belly ribs all linked all connected by the breath that pulsed and flowed beneath the surface of the water where golden fish flash past in glittering streams beneath the mirrored surface the breath that remained inside pressuring the thoracic cavity I woke lightheaded and saw the empty room where once we shared the green of your eyes and the blue of mine a saltwater aquamarine all that remained.

Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, New Jersey. He is the author of Post Moby (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026) and Fragmentation and Volta (Gnashing Teeth, 2025). His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, Bear Review, Atlanta Review, Permafrost, and Laurel Review. He reads for Marrow Magazine.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Is the Top Floor High Enough? Jim Tilley Spider, I’ve written about you before, if not you, then one of your cousins, but never have I seen you so adventuresome as to build your web 18 stories up, outside in the winds that try to take it down, causing you to keep weaving and weaving into the night, and the next morning I see that you’ve invited a partner to build her own nearby. What is it you expect to catch up here, so far above the terrace below? Why did you entice her into your scheme? I can’t believe that you crawled all the way up the side of this building, except, perhaps, to distance yourself from something bothering you down below, the same reason I am in this spot overlooking the river, a giant fleuve flowing out to the ocean. Peace. Quiet. But still— I think you came upon this floor through normal means, first the high-speed elevator, then working your way through a cracked-open window to fabricate your design where there was less likely to be an agent to take you down. Again, the very same reason I’m up here, as if altitude

Tipton Poetry Journal will somehow allow me to evade the news, as if the agents who might want to capture me would not climb to such heights, something the French thought back in 1759, the British unwilling to scale the cliffs with their canons to conquer New France. But they were wrong, and will you and I be wrong, too? Have you wronged your partner?

Jim Tilley lives in New York State and has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, was published in June 2024. His forthcoming collection, When Godot Arrived, will be published in 2026.

Soul Questions Michael Keshigian He thought about his soul as he walked the mulched paths on a forest morning, deciding it might be solid like his heart rather than intangible like his mind. Yet solid would mean it would eventually fail and break apart like the tender wings of a moth. And if it were,

Tipton Poetry Journal

where might it be? Could he be sure he had one? Do others? The fawn that crosses his path then scampers in fright, had the face of a child confronting a stranger. The black crow that caws concern amid the pines warns his brethren. Bears retreat into caves for sleep and survival. Surely, they may posses what he cannot locate. It might have a shape like a mountain or resemble the beady eye of a loon. Why wouldn’t a fox have one or the robin who tenders her young so carefully? For that matter, why wouldn’t the trees, the shrubs, or the lady slippers with their big pink heads. All living things bleed when they are cut. Perhaps the soul is liquid.

Michael Keshigian from Londonderry, New Hampshire, is the author of 14 poetry collections, his most recent, What to Do with Intangibles, from Cyberwit.net. His work has appeared in numerous national and international journals as well as many online publications, including The California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, San Pedro River Review, Oak Bend Review, and Sierra Nevada Review. He is a 7-time Pushcart Prize and 3 time Best of the Net nominee.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Domestic Regime Hayley Hung While you praise me for the tolerance when you chide your son for forgotten passwords and their verbal firewall, I recite alphabets from our conversations: Discord. Destruction. Defence. Thrice as an unspoken monologue. Know that it’s a noble game, how those words align in checkered tiles, how your son forfeits his loyalty to you as your wife steps one square to the left. I manoeuvre past kitchen aisles, peeking through stacked pots, camouflaged in the shadows. I place handkerchiefs on ears to muffle the sound of your breath until you emerge from governing. I am left sauntering diagonally behind the doorway, as checkered ranks shift to count the times you asked the moon who triumphed the night. When the blackbirds start to sing, summoning the clouds, I am to be the light shrouding the counter with codes you can’t recall as I remain mid-floor in the kitchen. Hayley Hung is a poet from Hong Kong. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Trampoline, Sublunary Review, and Belladonna’s Garden.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Review: Devil's Backbone by Julie L. Moore

Reviewed by Barry Harris

Title: Devil's Backbone Author: Julie L. Moore Year: 2026

Publisher: Wildhouse Poetry Julie L. Moore’s Devil’s Backbone is a masterful exploration of America’s violent legacy and the arduous path toward moral clarity. Poets will find in this collection a profound synergy of form, diction, and lyric intensity. Moore employs a variety of meters and forms that serve as a musical scaffolding, allowing her to dance between themes of shame, memory, and hope. Her poems whisper or shout truths that demand attentive listening. The sounds within her poetry elevate her meditations from personal lament to collective witness. Words like “crooked,” “erasure,” and “flesh,” resonate with visceral power, anchoring abstract moral inquiries to concrete imagery. For example, Moore’s use of the metaphor “driving along the devil’s / backbone,” with its rhythmic cadences and vivid images, anchors the reader in both landscape and history, prompting reflection on systemic violence juxtaposed with the natural world.

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Poets will appreciate her use of formal devices to foreground her themes. In her poem “The Color White,” Moore blends historical narrative with poetic inquiry, weaving in epigraphs, references—such as Bass Reeves and the lynching postcards—and poetic persona to embody embodied memory. Her careful embedding of archival detail deepens the authenticity and urgency of her voice. Moore’s lyricism also manifests in moments of stillness amid chaos— “water spills / over the back wall, / dissolving the distance / between heaven & Earth”—offering reflective spaces within her political questions. Her fluency with religious, Biblical, and historical allusions—e.g., Cain and Abel, Joshua, Achan—enrich the symbolic texture, inviting poets to explore layers of meaning and the ethics of remembrance. In the title poem, though hiding out in the middle of the volume, Julie Moore describes her "stomach rising / & falling like an empire" over the Devil's Backbone of a country road, as she juxtaposes political news from the radio as a squirrel darts dangerously beneath her wheels, all accompanied by a Green Day song on the radio acting like a Greek chorus echoing her inner thoughts. Devil’s Backbone challenges poets to consider the ethics of form—that our craft can be a vessel for difficult truths. As Moore writes, her work is “not about transcendence but rather like a penny whistle beckoning in the pitch / of expectation.” Her poetic forms, sonic textures, and layered imagery exemplify how formal mastery can serve activism — by creating new modes of empathy and resistance. For poets committed to social justice, formal experimentation, and moral inquiry, Moore’s collection offers a compelling example of the political potential of craft. It is a call to listen and to bear witness through the precise and poetic shaping of language.

Tipton Poetry Journal Julie L. Moore is a Best of the Net and eighttime Pushcart Prize nominated author of four poetry collections, including the acclaimed collections Particular Scandals and Full Worm Moon. Moore’s poetry has won Fare Forward’s poetry competition, the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize from Ruminate, the Editor’s Choice Award from Writecorner Press, and the Rosine Offen Memorial Award from the Free Lunch Arts Alliance. Her poems have been included in art exhibitions, inspired a musical composition for the Chorale at the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music, and received an Award of Merit from The Associated Church Press.

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and several anthologies by Brick Street Poetry. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center. Married and father of two grown sons, Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company. His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, Silver Birch Press, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers‘ Bloc, Red-Headed Stepchild and Laureate: The Literary Journal of Arts for Lawrence. He graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Review: A Vanishing Life: A Poetic Warning by Joyce Brinkman & Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda

Reviewed by Barry Harris

Title: Vanishing Life: A Poetic Warning Author: Joyce Brinkman & Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda Year: 2026

Publisher: Kelsay Books Vanishing Life: A Poetic Warning is a compelling and urgent collection that blends lyrical poetry with environmental advocacy. Crafted by Indiana Poet Laureate Joyce Brinkman and Virginia Poet Laureate Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, this collaborative work addresses the crisis facing Earth's endangered species and habitats. Brinkman and Kreiter-Foronda employ a unique haibun-like form where their initial tercets treat a specific theme in nature, followed by short, staccato tercets that summarize the introductory stanzas, like a traditional haibun summarizes prose with haikus. In this collaboration, both poets took turns constructing the two parts of each poem. The book paints vivid poetic portraits of disappearing wildlife and the places they inhabit. It’s a heartfelt tribute and urgent call to pay attention, to notice and protect the natural world—from rare animals to our precious, natural habitats. Structured around 16 evocative poems, each dedicated to a specific species or ecological domain, from the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle and the Sumatran tiger to wetlands and coral reefs—the collection underscores

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the interconnectedness of all life. The poets use accessible yet powerful language, transforming scientific concerns into heartfelt poetic pleas. One of the collection’s most striking features is its use of repetitive, lyrical structures that mirror the fragile, fleeting nature of the subjects they depict. Brinkman and Kreiter-Foronda write, “Let them live their life span of 40 years. Keep! Hear! Let them live!” , emphasizing the plea for preservation. This recurrence creates a sense of both alarm and hope, urging readers to pay attention. The poems about the Sumatran tiger and Gilbert’s potoroo vividly depict the threats of habitat destruction and poaching. The tiger’s voice, roaring from its endangered sanctuary, warns: “Stop invading my territory. Are you trying to capture me?” — a powerful indictment of human encroachment. Likewise, the poem about the Gilbert’s potoroo implores, “Forbid bushfires from triggering its decline. Nature needs this breed in its midst, emphasizing the importance of proactive conservation . Poems celebrating ecological roles—such as the pollinating fauna— highlight the importance of maintaining biodiversity: “I’m a helping hand to pollinators who enrich soil and fertilize plants,” reminding us of the vital functions these creatures perform. What makes Vanishing Life compelling is its poetic innovation. The collection creates an affecting rhythm that underscores both the beauty and impermanence of these species. The authors’ lyrical warnings resonate deeply, blending artistry with advocacy. Ultimately, Vanishing Life is more than poetry; it is a vital call to action. Brinkman and Kreiter-Foronda demonstrate that poetry can serve as an urgent voice in the climate crisis—“sound the alarm about these impaired lives that desperately need our attention and help to survive” . This poetry collection challenges us to witness, reflect, and act before it's too late.

Tipton Poetry Journal Joyce Brinkman, Indiana Poet Laureate 2002– 2008, believes in poetry as public art. She creates public poetry projects involving her poetry and the poetry of others. Collaborations with visual artists using her poetry for permanent installations include her words in a twenty-five-foot stained glass window by British glass artist Martin Donlin at the Indianapolis International Airport, in lighted glass by Arlon Bayliss at the Indianapolis-Marion County Central Library, and on a wall with local El Salvadoran artists in the town square of Quezaltepeque, El Salvador. Non-collaborative public literary art includes two of her poems featuring John Wooden in two places in Martinsville, Indiana, a haiku on a sculpture of the Earth in Shelbyville, Indiana, and poems “First Impression” and “Moon Rising” in windows at Circle Center Mall in Indianapolis. Joyce organized the collaborative poems for the Indiana Bicentennial Legacy Book, Mapping the Muse. One of those poems, “Following the Rivers’ Flow,” traveled to the Moon on a NASA flight in March of 2024 as part of the Lunar Codex. A framed copy of this poem is on permanent display at the SullivanMunce Cultural Center in Zionsville, along with another one of her collaborative pieces, Quilting Words. Joyce received fellowships from the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio, and the Indianapolis Arts Council. She is a graduate of Hanover College, studied poetry in Spain, and lives in Zionsville, Indiana with a cantankerous cat.

Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda served as the 2006–2008 Poet Laureate of Virginia. She holds a B.A. from the University of Mary Washington and an M.Ed., M.A., and Ph.D. from George Mason, where she received the university’s first doctorate, an outstanding academic achievement and service award, and a letter of recognition for quality research from the VA Educational Research Association for her dissertation, Gathering Light: A Poet’s Approach to Poetry Analysis. In 2007, both universities gave her the alumna of the year award. Her nine poetry books include The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, winner of the international Art in Literature: Mary Lynn Kotz award. She has also co-edited four anthologies and a poem-play. Her abstract paintings and sculpture have been exhibited in galleries, educational settings, and nursing homes throughout VA. She received five grants from

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the VA Commission for the Arts and won the Ellen Anderson award, multiple 1st-place awards from the Chesapeake Bay branch of the NLAPW, a resolution of appreciation from the VA Board of Education for her service as poet laureate, an Edgar Allan Poe Poetry award, a VA Cultural Laureate award, and six Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. Her poems appear in numerous magazines, including Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, MidAmerican Review, Best of Literary Journals, and World Poetry Yearbook. They are also featured in two art installations at the McLean Metro Station in Northern VA. Her poem “In the Comfort of Light,” which appears in the anthology The Polaris Trilogy, traveled to the Moon in 2025 on a NASA flight as part of the Lunar Codex.

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Contributor Biographies Born in Missouri, William Aarnes was raised in North Dakota, taught for most of his life in South Carolina, and has along with his wife retired to Manhattan, a fifteenminute walk from their grandson. His fourth collection of poems is The Hum in Human (Main Street Rag, 2022), F.S. Blake is a Bronze Star decorated U.S. Army Veteran and Pushcart Prize nominated poet living in Georgia. He is a published photographer, traveler, advanced SCUBA diver, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and proud husband and father. He has poems published or forthcoming in The Military Review, Welter at University of Baltimore, San Pedro River Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Persimmon Review and The Main Street Rag, among others. His chapbooks, Terminal Leave, Above the Gold Fields, and The Few Drops Known are available from Finishing Line Press. His full-length poetry collection, Forever or a Week is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. His poetry career began during his sister’s wedding. Maureen Clark is a writer living in Utah. Having previously resided in Indiana burgs such as Seymour, Bloomington, Muncie, and Indianapolis, Alex DeBonis now lives and writes in western Kentucky with his wife, children, and two spoiled dogs. He is a professor in the English Department of Bethel University just over the Tennessee line, and his writing will appear or has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Eclectica Magazine, Hartskill Review, and Esquire. Paul Dickey, a poet living in Omaha, Nebraska, has appeared recently in Plume, The Midwest Quarterly, Laurel Review, I-70 Review, Plainsongs, failbetter.com, and Apple Valley Review. His recent book of poetry volume was released in September, 2022 in Anti-Realism in Shadows and Suppertime. He has also released in the past year a volume of flash fiction by What My Characters Should Have Said and a poetry chapbook A Reading of Dali (Likely Misunderstood) Which at Twenty Meters Becomes This Poet's Self-portrait. David A. Goodrum is the author of Abrupt Edges (Bass Clef Books, 2025), Vitals and Other Signs of Life (The Poetry Box, 2024) and Sparse Poetica (Audience Askew, 2023). Recent journal publications have appeared in The Orchards Poetry Journal (which awarded his poem “Winter Inquisition” a Pushcart Nomination), Cirque, and Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Born, raised, and educated in Indiana, David lives in Corvallis, Oregon, and is the current president of the Oregon Poetry Association. See more at www.davidgoodrum.com.

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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident now living in Rhode Island, recently published in Shift, River And South, and Flights. Latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, White Wall Review and Trampoline. William Heath has published five poetry books: The Walking Man, Steel Valley Elegy, Going Places, Alms for Oblivion, Prime Time; three chapbooks: Night Moves in Ohio, Leaving Seville, and Inventing the Americas; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake's Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest (winner of two Spur Awards and the Oliver Hazard Perry Award); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Hiram College. He lives in Annapolis. www.williamheathbooks.com Gil Hoy is presently a Master’s Class student for fiction and poetry at The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and previously studied at Boston University. He has been nominated for a Best of the Net award in poetry. His work has previously appeared in Third Wednesday, Flash Fiction Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, The Penmen Review, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, Ann Humphries is a poet, hiker, and birder from Columbia, South Carolina who happens to be blind. Most recently, her poems have been published in three anthologies: Coastlines Poetry Anthology, Old Growth: Congaree National Park Anthology, and Kakalak Anthology and are forthcoming in the North Dakota Review. She is a speaker-scholar through South Carolina Humanities and her papers are archived in the University of South Carolina special collections. She has published two collections, An Eclipse and a Butcher (2020) and My Blind Obsession (2025). Hayley Hung is a poet from Hong Kong. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Trampoline, Sublunary Review, and Belladonna’s Garden. Albert Hwang is a Taiwanese American poet from Illinois. He is a James B. Reston New York Times Gold Key winner (Scholastic Arts & Writing) and a Betty L. Yu & Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize winner (TaiwaneseAmerican.org). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, Inscape Journal, The Lake, New Verse News, Unbroken Journal, and other publications. Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, New Jersey. He is the author of Post Moby (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2026) and Fragmentation and Volta (Gnashing Teeth, 2025). His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, Bear Review, Atlanta Review, Permafrost, and Laurel Review. He reads for Marrow Magazine.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Bobby Jones is a PhD psychologist retired from a 38-year career in physician education. His poetry has appeared in Last Leaves, Loud Coffee Press, and Passager. He is currently writing a memoir of his Catholic boyhood and lives in Washington, DC. Michael Keshigian from Londonderry, New Hampshire, is the author of 14 poetry collections, his most recent, What to Do with Intangibles, from Cyberwit.net. His work has appeared in numerous national and international journals as well as many online publications, including The California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, San Pedro River Review, Oak Bend Review, and Sierra Nevada Review. He is a 7-time Pushcart Prize and 3 time Best of the Net nominee. Raima Larter is mainly a fiction writer with a few dozen short stories and four novels published (so far). Prior to being a full-time writer, she was a chemistry professor at IUPUI (Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis). She lives in Denver and serves as the Nonfiction Editor at Utopia Science Fiction magazine. You can read more about her work at raimalarter.com. Ron McFarland is emeritus Professor of English at the University of Idaho. His fifth book of poems, A Variable Sense of Things, appeared in December 2023. Ken Meisel is a poet and psychotherapist. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Net nominee. His most recent book, Chasing Names on Nameless Water, was published in 2025 by Kelsay Press. He has work in Book of Matches, I-70 Review, Wasteland Review, The Glacier. Ken lives in Michigan.

Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist, living

in Indiana. Her work has appeared in Pank, Flying Island, Tipton Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Indianapolis Review, among others, and many anthologies. Musselman is the author of seven chapbooks, and author of the full-length poetry collection, It’s Not Love, Unfortunately (Chatter House Press, 2018). Her seventh chapbook, Staring Dementia in the Face from Finishing Line Press was published in July 2023. Tia Paul-Louis is a fiction writer and poet from Florida. She began experimenting with songwriting at age 11 and later felt a deeper connection to poetry. Her themes portray family life, gender role controversies, mental health, and spiritual values. She admires the freedom of expression in most forms of art such as music, acting, and painting. Timothy Pilgrim, a 79-year-old Montana poet living in Bellingham, Wash., has a plethora of acceptances from over 100 U.S. journals such as Seattle Review, Red Coyote, Sierra Nevada Review, Hawaii Pacific Review Tipton Poetry Journal and Santa Ana River Review, and international journals such as Windsor Review in Canada and Prole Press in the U.K. See timothypilgrim.org

Tipton Poetry Journal Ken Poyner lives in Norfolk, Virginia and has eleven available collections of poetry, flash fiction and micro-fiction, the latest The Lechery of Fish Tuners, drabbles. He has suffered ten Pushcart nominations without a win, and has taught on an NEA Poets in the Schools grant. He spent 33 years herding computers. He is married to a world class female powerlifter, who is still setting raw world records. www.kpoyner.com Patrick T. Reardon, a Chicago Tribune reporter from 1976 to 2009, is the author of eight poetry collections. His latest is a chapbook from Bottlecap Press called New Chicago. His book Every Marred Thing: A Time in America was the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize. He has been nominated six times for a Pushcart Prize. Photo credit: Steve Kagan Mykyta Ryzhykh lives in Ukraine, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has been published any times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Rechport, Topos, Articulation, Formaslov, Literature Factory, Literary Chernihiv, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, on the portals Litсenter, Ice Floe Press and Soloneba, in the Ukrainian literary newspaper. Esther Sadoff is a teacher and writer from Columbus, Ohio. She is the author of four chapbooks: Some Wild Woman (Finishing Line Press), Serendipity in France (Finishing Line Press), Dear Silence (Kelsay Books), and If I Hold my Breath (Bottlecap Press). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Hole in the Head Review, and she is the winner of the Women of Ohio 2025 Poetry Award. Terry Savoie lives in Iowa. Beyond previous appearances in Tipton Poetry Journal, Terry Savoie’s poetry can be found in more than two hundred literary journals and anthologies over the past five decades, journals such as American Poetry Review, Poetry (Chicago), Ploughshares, North American Review, Sonora Review, American Journal of Poetry and The Iowa Review as well as in recent numbers of North Dakota Quarterly, Slab, America, Seems, and Broad River Review among many others. Nolo Segundo is the pen name of a retired teacher in New Jersey who became a lateblooming poet published in over 280 literary journals in 22 countries, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, thrice for Best of the Net, and has 4 collections published in softcover by Cyberwit.net. Christopher Stolle is an editor and writer. His collection of historical fiction, ReVisions, was recently published by Henlopen Press. Christopher’s writing has also been published by Indiana University Press, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Coaches Choice, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Flying Island, among many others.He lives in Richmond, Indiana.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Doug Tanoury is a lifelong poet whose work has appeared widely in both print and online journals. He is the author of more than twenty chapbooks, including St. Mary’s Art Cloister, Tolstoy’s Ghost, and Chicago Poems. An outsider artist by circumstance and choice, Tanoury writes outside the academic tradition, bringing a distinct voice shaped by lived experience rather than formal literary training. He holds a BBA and has spent much of his professional life as a management consultant, a background that informs the clarity and structure underlying his work. His poetry often explores themes of place, memory, spirituality, and the emotional landscapes of urban life with a lilting lyricism, particularly in and around Detroit. Allison Thorpe is the author of seven collections of poetry and the Family Tree Cozy Mystery series. Her last book of poems, A Girl, Her Slipper, and Yesterday’s Rainbow, won the Poetry Box Chapbook Award in 2024 and the American Book Fest Chapbook Award in 2025. She lived a homesteading lifestyle in South Central Kentucky for almost forty years. She now works as a writing mentor at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and lives in Lexington. Jim Tilley lives in New York State and has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, was published in June 2024. His forthcoming collection, When Godot Arrived, will be published in 2026. Mark Vogel lives at the back of a Blue Ridge holler with his wife, Susan Weinberg, an accomplished fiction and creative non-fiction writer, and two foster sons. He currently is an Emeritus Professor of English at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Poems and short stories have appeared in several dozen literary journals. Xiang Xu was a country singer and an academic, who received his M.A. in Southern Studies and PhD in History from the University of Mississippi. Xu returned to China in May 2025 after his 13-year residence in rural Mississippi. Since then, he has been writing poetry to convey a profound sense of displacement and homesickness. Xu's poems have been featured in Deep South Magazine, Delta Poetry Review, and DarkWinter Lit Magazine. He currently lives in Guangzhou, China.

Tipton Poetry Journal

Editor Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and several anthologies by Brick Street Poetry. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center. Married and father of two grown sons, Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company. His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Eunoia Review, Amethyst Review, Polk Street Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, Silver Birch Press, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers’ Bloc, Red-Headed Stepchild and Laureate: The Literary Journal of Arts for Lawrence. One of his poems was on display at the National Museum of Sport and another is painted on a barn in Boone County, Indiana as part of Brick Street Poetry‘s Word Hunger public art project. His poems are also included in these anthologies: From the Edge of the Prairie; Motif 3: All the Livelong Day; and Twin Muses: Art and Poetry. He graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University.

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