From Volume 37: A poem by Daniel Saalfeld

STRAYS
By Daniel Saalfeld

Riding to Stalin’s dacha on Easter morning,
we listen to a Russian woman point out,
in Russian, the major Sochi landmarks
from hotels to monuments to parks

From Volume 37: A poem by 黄昏, Mi Zheng-ying

樱花落

那时，我正迎着曙光
漫步在铺满樱花碎石的小径
一只白鸟扇动翅膀，发出咕咕的叫声
等我抬起头，它已消失在樱花 树
梦幻的边缘。
我蹲下身，触摸樱花粉嫩的躯体
感知它扑向泥土时最后的
颤抖

Get Involved at The Worcester Review!

The Worcester Review is currently seeking a copy editor to join the editorial team. Like all editorial positions at The Worcester Review, this is a volunteer opportunity and is ideal for a candidate looking to build copyediting credentials and references at a literary journal.

Copy Editor Position Description:

The primary role of the Copy Editor is to help the Managing Editor prepare The Worcester Review for publication. The Worcester Review is the annual publication of the Worcester County Poetry Association. Most of the work of the Copy Editors is done independently; however, all editors are invited to attend twice-yearly staff meetings, usually held in January and June.

The Copy Editor timeline is as follows:

From Volume 37: A poem by Jonathan Blake

VIGIL
By Jonathan Blake

Heavy flakes of snow float
Beyond the windows that overlook
The valley. The hills of the horizon
Are blue. I have forgotten what it is
I must do in this world, and the voices
That trouble me are still. I grow
Old, but the winter light in my small
Room grows and fades like the breath
Of god. I do not need science to know
It enters me, lights the holy marrow
Of my bones. I am not the dark wings
Of those birds coming to rest
In the bare oak like the blind eyes
Of a woman who knows night
Comes on. No. When the long mirror
Of the world grows opaque, I am
Nothing. And nothing more.

From Volume 37: A poem by Sarah Brown Weitzman

MONET IN WINTER
By Sarah Brown Weitzman

Though he must have longed for summer gardens
at Giverny, hot light flaring off water-glazed lilies,

From Volume 37: A poem by Henry Walters

MILKMAN*

By Henry Walters

Not till this old-fashioned morning, Son House singing
through fifty pushups, fifty situps, some pain-
ful stretches into lower registers

that can’t be reached, on a skipping record,
Got a letter this morn-, Got a letter this morn-,
not till I rifled every kitchen cupboard

& poked through sacks of nothing but dry goods,
& the fridge the same, no eggs, no meat, no greens,
& I, who have never been poor, sat down, tired,

not till then did I think about the milkman,
a real man to my parents’ generation
but myth to mine, who’d come in the dawn & leave

two bottles on the stoop beside the door,
uncapped, they said, & frothy, &, sometimes, warm,
narrow-necked bottles that flared out like the bell

of a gramophone, like the mouths of changeling twins
you found each morning, unswaddled, unexplained,
& take in full, & put out empty, & think

no more about than mail arriving twice,
or papers by evening, or kids after school, or sun
going up & down by everybody’s watch.

But now your bottle floats up into mind,
milkman, minstrel, waylaid messenger,
without a message, without milk, without

even a sun to slip slow through your glass,
& you say, Hush—I thought I heard her call
my name, & suddenly your being gone

delivers me a second time into the world,
brimful, & fuller, maybe, than before,
having had no taste of what there’d be to lack.


*reprinted with permission from Field Guide A Tempo (Hobblebush Books, 2016)

2016 Pushcart Prize Nominees

The Worcester Review has selected its 2016 Pushcart Prize Nominees. 

In no particular order, the nominees are:

Karen Sharpe, "Neutrals"

Henry Walters, "Milkman"

Renee Bibby, "Than All the Treasures"

Heather Treseler, "Voyeur in June"

Judy Kaber, "Elvers"

Hu Xian / Zhang Ziqing / Rodger Martin, "Chinese Wolfberry"

Best of luck to all our nominees!