best poems 2025

The Best The Best The Best

Announcement

OUR NOMINATIONS FOR 2026 BEST OF THE NET

AT THE MOMENT we’re strictly an on-line project, at least until we get our art printer fixed and begin cranking out print publications again. Which means the best location for nominating writing we’ve published is Best of the Net. SO: we nominated some of the work we’ve run, by some of the de facto if not de jure very best writers out there. You can read about which writers, and which writings– two stories and six poems– at an announcement at our underutilized News blog.

THE TWO STORIES: Both are excellent reads which stress our humanity– so necessary in this time of AI, of the diminishing value given to human needs and uniqueness.

THE SIX POEMS: All exhibit from their authors a way with words, with sound, yet are simultaneously visual. The poems project penumbras of meaning while capturing the vibe of NOW.

All eight nominees are well worth rereading.

Poetry of NOW

Poetry

WE’VE HEARD of shock therapy, and “Shock of the New.” What about shock poetry? Or at least, Poetry NOW?

Meaning, ways of approaching current events in a more unstructured fashion; in so doing, expressing the truth of a matter better than long think pieces. Our new featured poetry, “On the Killing of Brian Thompson and the Coronation of Luigi Mangione” by Bud Sturguess, is an example of the examination of news through art– distilled through art– containing resonances of past and present accused/villains turned into celebrities, as well as our society’s all-encompassing media landscape. Echoes of influences we carry inescapably with us at all times.

Read the poem and see what you think!

I saw Mr. Oswald (or someone who stole his face)
Mr. Guiteau, a slew of Proud Boys,
defenders of such and such a race,
and the fellow who shot Spencer Percival
(I was embarrassed to forget his name)
There was even a scruffy fellow I knew as Joe
(of “Hey Joe” fame)
and true to lore, in his hand he held a gun