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FLP BOOK OF THE DAY: Leave My Soul Alone by Jack Coulehan On SALE: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/leave-my-soul-alone-by-jack-coulehan/ In Leave My Soul Alone, his eighth collection of poems, Jack Coulehan travels through time, space, and the human body in search of the exact location of the soul. In the process, he examines joys and sorrows of the human condition with a disarmingly steadfast gaze, fierce compassion, and sometimes a touch of humor. In the final poem of a sequence reflecting stages and events in his life, Coulehan may have discovered the object of this search – while roasting marshmallows with friends near the peak of an active volcano.#soul #humanity #compassion #healing #dying Jack Coulehan is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine. Jack’s poems and essays appear frequently in health care journals and literary magazines, and his work is widely anthologized. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, including The Talking Cure: New and Selected Poems (2020). PRAISE: In his brilliant new collection of poems, Jack Coulehan opens up a world where doctors, scientists, poets, and prophets intersect. Writing at the height of his powers, Dr. Coulehan explores his curiosity about science and medical practice, the weight of the soul, the history of love etched into ancient bones, and his own aging body. Filled with characters from the past – Neanderthals, Chekhov, Vesalius, and others – Coulehan also raises modern concerns in his “Villanelle for American Hospitals.” And the poet tells us that Keats, “who hoped for hope when every hope was gone,” was once the poet’s “perfect brother.” After reading Leave My Soul Alone it is easy to agree with Coulehan’s self-assessment when he says, “Now I am his son.” — Richard M. Berlin, MD, author of Tender Fences Jack Coulehan’s poems explore the body in time and space with tactile, not abstract sensibility. The body of nature. Body of grief, hurt and broken heartedness. Body of family. Body of mindfulness. Body of imagination. Body of simplicity. Body of what he does not know. When he writes “the holy wind / that carries us along…” in “The Breath of Invisible People,” that image captures the finely made, quick-wit, humility and grace of Leave My Soul Alone; these poems welcome holy wind that moves through life. Each poem you read will carry you along and bring forth unexpected connections and surprises within yourself. — John Fox, author of Poetic Medicine Please share/please repost #booktok #poetry #FLP #book

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Saturday Morning Crusades is a playful yet piercing collection that reimagines childhood cartoons, pop culture relics, and myth through the lens of memory, trauma, and survival. From Muppet Babies dreamscapes to idiomatic bestiary haikus, the poems blur absurd humor with elegiac weight, exploring war legacies, ecological collapse, illness, and the surreal rituals of daily life. Saturday morning turns innocence into a battleground of identity and history, where cartoon archetypes collide with existential dread and longing. Both intimate and mythic, the collection interrogates nostalgia while forging new language for grief, resilience, and the strange joy of persistence. #poetry #popculture #identity #life

Karol Olesiak is a queer disabled poet, writer, and activist whose work explores trauma and transcendence. Karol is a combat veteran and a co-founder of soldiersforthecause.org, an Occupy Wall Street affinity group and antiwar blog, Karol’s work appears in Laurel Review, Rogue Agent, Neologism Poetry, Soul Forte, Zoetic, Lone Mountain Literary, and other publications. Karol is a Wheeler Prize semifinalist, Saturnalia Books semifinalist, Moonstone Chapbook finalist, and Pushcart nominee with an MFA from University of San Francisco.

@poet_in_san_francisco

A Poem by Nicole Zwolinski

https://paddockreview.com/2026/06/05/a-poem-by-nicole-zwolinski/

#poetry #mothers #motherhood #life #relationships @nicolezwrites

A Poem by Cynthia R. Pratt

https://paddockreview.com/2026/05/31/a-poem-by-cynthia-r-pratt/ #life #poetry #nature #relationships #touch

New from Finishing Line Press: Anonymous America by Gary Walton

On SALE: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/anonymous-america-by-gary-walton/

Anonymous America is a book of poems (as well as the title character) that reflects a state of mind. Like the eponymous character who finds herself in the confused and confusing world of early 21st century America, who likes to ride her bicycle at dusk catching glimpses of the anonymous lives of others through the windows of the many homes she passes, letting the twilight dissolve the barrier between their exterior and interior lives, this collection uses irony, humor, and even poignancy to revel in moments gleaned from that liminal space we all increasing find ourselves—buffeted by forces both known and unknown, by imperious yet faceless algorithms, by social and political vagaries, all the while yearning for personal agency and quiet human dignity, perhaps even clarity in a world that keeps moving towards entropic absurdity. In the end, if we can find humor (if not transcendent meaning) in those found moments of self-reflection, perhaps by laughing we can rise above our diffident fate and become fully human once more—and perhaps have a bit of fun along the way. #poetry #humor #absurd #AI #algorithm #mafia #personalagency #irony #entropy #human dignity #environment #life #love #money #success

Gary Walton has published seven books of poetry. His latest, Anonymous America, will be forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2026. His last was Waiting For Insanity Clause (Finishing Line Press, 2017). His novel about Newport, Kentucky in its heyday as a gambling Mecca: Prince of Sin City was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009. He has been nominated for the Pushcart prize twice and in 2010, he was voted Third Place: “Best Local Author” Best of Cincinnati 2010 issue in City Beat magazine. He is an associate professor in the department of English at Northern Kentucky University. His areas of interest include Modernism, postmoderism, and the Irish Literary Renaissance. He received a Ph.D. from the George Washington University. (His thesis was a poststructuralist comparison of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the work of Donald Barthelme.) He is also editor of the Journal of Kentucky Studies, a professional journal of critical and creative work.

PRAISE:

Gary Walton’s Anonymous America is a timely collection of poems about the state of us. Walton combines gut-wrenching analysis with sidesplitting humor—a rare talent, indeed. From the first poem (which is not, the poet’s alter ego slyly tells us, a metaphor for American politics) we know we are on a rollicking ride. Buckle up and enjoy!

—Pauletta Hansel, Cincinnati Poet Laureate Emeritus

In Anonymous America, Gary Walton observes an aging America going through its post-modern menopause, where technology sleeps around; where leaders are “signifiers without / A discernable signified”; where for too many citizens, “meaning has / Devolved into habit.” Perhaps a way out is to follow the advice offered in one of his poems: “stay home and read a book.” Perhaps that book should be this one.

—Rhonda Pettit, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Cincinnati

Please share/please repost #FLP #preorder #poetry #booktok

During the first year of the Covid pandemic, I wrote one poem a day and posted them on Facebook and Instagram, as a way to provide a historical diary of the times and to connect to a larger community in the midst of isolation. The poems are influenced by classic haiku images as well, such as falling snow, the trill of birds, and intimate daily life. The scope of the verse ranges from mundane observations to the larger political sphere, even touching on the 1918 flu epidemic. The Great Empty is written in renga, a style of ancient Japanese verse like an extended haiku. The end of one poem links to the start of the next, as when they were created as a party game.

#poetry #contemporary #Japanese #American#renga haiku

Based in Boston, Gary Duehr teaches writing for local universities. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2001 he received an NEA Poetry Fellowship, and he has also received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. His books of poetry include Point Blank (In Case of Emergency Press), Winter Light (Four Way Books) and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press). His children’s book in verse is Felicia the Ferret and the Atom Smasher (Thurston Howl Publications). His short stories have appeared in numerous journals, and his plays have been presented by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre in Boston and by the Equity Library Play Festival in New York.

To Order: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-great-empty-by-gary-duehr/ @gduehr @garyduehr

A Poem by Pattie Palmer-Baker

https://paddockreview.com/2026/03/26/a-poem-by-pattie-palmer-baker/ #poetry #relationships #grief #loss

Stitches is a debut collection of 20 poems woven together to explore stories told, retold, or only whispered. It is a visceral contemplation of seasons of life and simple moments: a soldier tracing a well-loved photograph; a father’s familiar hand skewering a slice of apple; a mother’s grief as her son spits “her out like some bitter peel”; the final cry of a long life: “I am done.” #poetry #life #family

Mark,

Every poet gets a rejection letter at some point. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to harass the editors who rejected your work. Posting nasty things about the press or editors is not cool. Be a big boy and move on…

POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: In the Tall Grasses by Michael J. Olson

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About this book…

What is our place in this #world, what part do we play in its drama or the politics of nature? While we live in our tall grasses it is difficult to see the world around us for what it is, difficult to find our path, difficult to know what is beyond the fronds. Is our place determined by god or genetics? Is our #place defined by the things we hold around us? Does our place in the world even matter? Life in our tall grasses can be mystifying. These #poems examine some of our #relationships with nature, our gods, our things and other #life around us – for what purpose – to what end and once this life is done with us and we travel to our far fields how does that relationship change for those left behind and for our future souls? Age old questions – yes. Difficult to answer – yes, but perhaps addressed from a different perspective traveling within our own tall grasses.

Michael Olson is an author raised in the small town of Bisbee Arizona near the Mexican border. He received a BA in literature and creative writing from the University of Arizona and through a career with a Fortune 50 company eventually made his way to Cincinnati Ohio where he now lives with his wife of 45 years. He became engaged in the creative world while still in high school where he had major roles in many stage plays and speech/drama competitions. This dramatic influence can be felt in much of his #poetry. He has been published in many anthologies and journals including Crosswinds, Orchard St. Press, For a Better World and the Ohio Poetry Association’s Common Threads and currently leads the Cincinnati Writer’s Project poetry workshops with members from around the world.

PRAISE FOR In the Tall Grasses by Michael J. Olson

Michael Olson’s poetry is the work of a latter-day Merlin—ordinary words are transformed through his deft alchemy. No book flap or blurb could afford enough space do justice to this impressive collection. Olson’s poems are often complex, occasionally mystifying, yet genuine and ultimately accessible. We are constantly riveted by his revelations and invited to consider questions and phenomena which rarely occur to us. We inhabit the mind of a hawk looking for lunch hiding in the tall grasses. In the natural world, all creatures are unknowingly caught up in a pitched battle for survival, yet they live on the knife-edge of mortality so peacefully. Why can’t we humans graciously accept our own place in the sweet and fragile mystery of life? We learn how a father explains to his young children not to fear the monsters who lurk in the world around them—because he ate them, going so far as to describe how they taste like stinky cheese and old shoes. In “Distant Things,” what would we be called if others had not named us? In “Costume Jewelry,” items passed on by relatives speak and vibrate still with the lives of their former wearers. In the heartbreaking “My Dementia Dance with God,” the sweet and fragile mystery of life is set in the starkest relief. “A Mother’s Portrait” tells of the latent grief a son experiences when he considers how a life of hard work has vilified his mother’s body and spirit. Every single poem in In the Tall Grasses scintillates with rich language and imagery; a gift to be relished and savored. Over and over again.

–Joanne Greenway, author of Low-hanging Fruit, True Confessions and Limited Engagement.

“There is a hunger for the knowing,” Michael Olson writes in the title poem of his debut collection, In the Tall Grasses. These richly imagined poems grapple with existential questions and invite the reader to ponder his or her place in a world that is not always—or often—kind. What is the role of faith in such a world? When are we hunter and when are we prey? Olson asks the unanswerable, and yet these poems are not without resolution, reminding us that “this riddle of ignorance/ solved only with our living in each other’s arms.”

–Pauletta Hansel, Cincinnati Poet Laureate Emeritus and author of Will There Also Be Singing?

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In the Tall Grasses by Michael J. Olson – Finishing Line Press

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FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: strong female protagonist by Heather M. Hoover

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strong female protagonist considers #relationships between and with women, meditating on the beauty and weight of #female legacy. This collection looks closely at the lives of my mother, grandmother, and daughter, as well as my literary heroes—all protagonists of their own stories. These poems consider the lives we have lived, the choices we made, and the heady potential to make new ones. These poems explore what it means “to be” a strong female protagonist through the most quotidian of details—a bouquet of daffodils, an old photograph, even an insect in the windowsill. Together, these #poems tell their own story of love, loss, wonder, and possibility.

Heather M. Hoover earned her Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN. Her poetry has appeared in Leaven, The Snapdragon Journal, and in The Southern Poetry Anthology. She is the author of Composition as Conversation: Seven Virtues for Effective Writing, and teaches English, Writing, and Humanities at a small liberal arts college in East Tennessee.

PRAISE FOR strong female protagonist by Heather M. Hoover

Heather Hoover‘s work invites the reader to travel into oceans and board rooms, classrooms and gardens, as somehow even a drive to work becomes a heroic journey, a bildungsroman. Reading Heather Hoover‘s work reminds us that each thing that we encounter, like the act of “Teaching Literature, means “nothing, everything.” It falls to the poet to notice and make meaning of it all, and so she does, with stunning precision void of artifice. The simple act of noticing—a daffodil, a groundhog “full and fat” and stealing one’s produce—propels the reader into recollections of past, present, and possible futures. In centering and celebrating the “strong female protagonist,” Heather Hoover rejects crass calculations (“How much it is worth”) to focus instead on the work of remaining alive, attuned to something other than “this wrong question” that is weaponized so often against us. The violence of “Remember” sears into the reader’s mind the image of a torn Octopus healing herself before returning to the work of being alive, “Until at last, /she emerges, tiny/ perfect arm curled /against her own/ amazing body.” The “tiny perfect” moments at the heart of these poems render such acts heroic, and sometimes humorous, while “Red Sky in Mourning” imagines “an impossible 15-year/journey to the past” that becomes, instead, the valiant act of driving to work: “i want to cry, but no tears come/so i keep driving forward/to my destination.” This collection invites us to journey again and again through the recollections and re-visions of this poet, emerging with healed hearts and hopeful souls.

–Kayla Walker Edin, Ph.D.

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strong female protagonist by Heather M. Hoover – Finishing Line Press

#poetry #poetrycommunity #binderfullofwomen #wompo #chapbook #love #writers on tumblr #spilled poetry #poem #writing

A prize of $1,500 and publication for a chapbook-length poetry collection in perfect-bound print edition. Royalty contract. Ingram Group distribution. Open to ALL. International entries a…

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Into a Salt Marsh Heart by Marie-Louise Eyres

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Into A Salt Marsh Heart at first glance, appears to be a straightforward #nature, or #ecologically driven collection of poems, and it is to some extent. But it is also about the sudden loss of the author’s father. The way she has arranged the work allows for that stark reality to dawn on you as a reader as you pass through the first few poems, and for you to experience both the sense of loss that such a sudden death brings, as well as touching on the complexities of family relationships. Before being gathered together to form this #chapbook, several of these #poems have already been highly commended or short listed in poetry prizes and placed in competition anthologies, including The Gingko Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the Bridport Prize, others have appeared in literary journals including Agenda, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Broken Spine and The Poet’s Republic.

Marie-Louise Eyres has had her poems widely published in journals internationally. She’s been recognized in poetry contests in the US and UK and in 2022, was a finalist in the James Tate Prize.

PRAISE FOR Into a Salt Marsh Heart by Marie-Louise Eyres

Into a Salt Marsh Heart is a deeply lyrical, sagacious, and sensual pamphlet. Its deft and delicate writing observes distance and living in a heady mix of a startling range of poems that take risks, stay silent, and sing.

–Agnieszka Studzinska, poet and author of Branches of a House, Shearsman, UK.

I am struck in these poems by the distinctive voice and, more than this, by the unique way of looking at the world, which changes in turn the way that we see. From the artful sequencing to the unforgettable lines, to the overall emotional impact, there is so much to admire in this work.

–Jonathan Edwards, poet and author of Gen & My Family and other Superheros, and former Editor of Poetry Wales.

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Into a Salt Marsh Heart by Marie-Louise Eyres – Finishing Line Press

NEW FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS: Immortal Jellyfish by Alexander Perez

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Immortal Jellyfish propels its readers through turbulent waters on a poetic voyage through unsettled seas of Queer life and identity. These are stinging, high-stakes poems that imagine Queer characters (gay boys and men, closeted lesbian mothers and wives) at the edge of death or madness, negotiating survival and possibly freedom. Alexander Perez gives us soulful poems employing a rich range of voices that engage lyricism and fantastic imagery to create vivid, colorful worlds. Intimate, familial, strange, furious, yearning, and hopeful, these poems guarantee readers a deeper understanding of the Queer experience and demonstrate the performative powers of poetry to unsilence the silenced.

Alexander began writing and publishing poetry in 2022 at age forty-eight. Some of his poems first appeared in journals such as Sixfold, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Blue Unicorn. Alexander Perez is an Albany native and currently lives in Schenectady, New York. He attended the University at Buffalo, University at Albany, and Duke University, and has degrees in English and philosophy. He works in public service for the University at Albany. Visit his website: perezpoetrystudio.com

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Immortal Jellyfish by Alexander Perez – Finishing Line Press

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NEW FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS: A Human Lifetime by Bradley Earle Hoge

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A Human Lifetime is slightly existential and heavily biographical. The poems come from explorations of environmental and contemplative spaces I have encountered during my #life. From the Mischa Mokwa trail I hiked often as a boy, to trails I have found in California. The poems reflect on place and how they shape #identity. The experiences are ephemeral. My identity remains in limbo, seemingly slipping away more and more as I grow older. ‘These poems tell how a single human lifetime accumulates haphazardly into a reflective and resigned perspective.

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A Human Lifetime by Bradley Earle Hoge – Finishing Line Press

NEW FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS: HORSETHIEF MEADOWS: The Collected Poems of Alex Leavens

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ONE LAST WORD PROGRAM

Alex Alan Leavens, was born on July 30, 1975 and raised in Portland, Oregon, as a fourth- generation Oregonian, whose great-grandfather arrived in 1895. He developed his interest in the outdoors as a child, and attended Prescott College in Arizona, where he lived for a year in a wickiup he designed and built. He also attended the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, which led him to start two businesses: the Old Federal Ax Company and the Oregon School of Survival and Tracking. He taught skills ranging from making primitive pottery of the Anasazi tradition to animal track identification. He also served as a firefighter in Arizona, southern California, and the Olympic National Park.

Alex later received a Bachelors degree in English Literature at Portland State University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He honed his craftsmanship skills at properties he and his family owned in Portland, volunteered at the Portland Museum of Art, became an expert baker and charcuterist, and hunted and fished throughout the Oregon backcountry. He also began writing–first a novel, The Border, and then poems infused with his devotion to craftsmanship, art, and a unique perspective on nature. In just a few years, Alex published numerous poems in literary magazines, including Cathexis Northwest, Cirque, Clover, The Ekphrastic Review, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Montana Mouthful, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Perceptions Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, and Windfall. Sadly, as his career as a poet began to flourish, Alex Leavens died by suicide on August 13, 2021. The poems he left behind are gathered here. –Eric le Fatte

PRAISE FOR HORSETHIEF MEADOWS: The Collected Poems of Alex Leavens

As with John Haines, Alaska’s poet of the wild, or Gary Snyder, Alex Leavens is a poet of deep #ecology. His posthumous collection, Horsethief Meadows, brings poems of reverence, wisdom and precision in observation of the natural world, as with these lines: “…the mountain lion had the same tint as the moon ….” With felt grief as wildfires burn out of control, Leavens observes that “flames climb into treetops to ferry substances, no longer bound to earth…”

–Sandra L. Kleven, publisher/editor, CIRQUE: A Literary Journal, and Cirque Press

In the work of the late Alex Leavens, the reader finds compelling poetry of place with a poet who serves as guide and teacher to the backcountry Pacific Northwest. But also found in his poems is a student of witness: we experience the “behaviors and talents of the cold,” see tracks of bears “that won’t heal over,” admire a “thin, wet brush” of a mink at “that lake nobody knows.” With maturity and métier, Alex held a steady gaze over difficult landscapes of harsh seasons, centuries of human intervention, and increasingly, traumatically, fire.

–John Miller, author of Olympic

The poems in Alex Leavens’ collection, Horsethief Meadows, measure the human against the “circumference of the world.” Leavens’ narrator is a shapeshifter moving through that world, helping us to remember we are all one: “and the wind/ found its way down/ into the dry mouth of the badger’s sett,/ down into the earth/ to remind the grove/ to stay joined/ at the root,/ to speak as one living thing.” In poetry “equal to the horizon,/ equal to the morning sun,” Leavens puts us there at the center of things—circling with the hawk overhead, wandering with the cougar down through a streambed, or sunning our wings with the butterfly. A lyric work of interconnectedness between the human and the natural worlds, Leavens’ poems burn like a fire, showing us the way in “that small matter/ of living/ at the center/ of the dark.”

–Peter Grandbois, author of Last Night I Aged a Hundred Years

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HORSETHIEF MEADOWS: The Collected Poems of Alex Leavens – Finishing Line Press

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