December 2023 Poetry
A special poetry issue to end the year
Regular readers of Literary Mama will know that a typical issue includes only eight to ten poems. This special issue features 31 poems that touched us with their beauty, their honesty, or their unique approach to storytelling through verse. Consider them our December gift to you.
Libby Maxey, Senior Editor and Poetry Editor
Read the complete From the Editor letter
Finally
By Lori Negridge Allen
At the Children’s Hospital
By Ellie Francis Douglass
Glitter Trail
By Elizabeth Kuelbs
Nightcap
By Kate Muth
The Smell of Apricot Oil Still Unhinges Me
By Rayya Liebich
Ode to an Emigrant
By Mary Rohrer-Dann
Scrolling headlines from a hospital bed
By Ariel Friedman
Quadriplegia: Eleven Years In
By Wendell Hawken
Aubade, first trimester
By Chantelle Lynn
Milk Teeth
By Helen Scadding
Domestic
By Katherine L. Hester
Joseph
By Joanne Clarkson
Musical Notes: Motherhood
By Jennifer Randall Hotz
Worn
By Ashley L. Case
Second baby
By Alyssa Sinclair
Coreopsis
By Hannah Ringler
Rearrangement
By Marda Messick
Stolen Lollipops
By Gretchen M. Michelfeld
Listening to My Son, 13, Play the Piano
By Kristine Rae Anderson
Not the Hawk
By Lisa Rhoades
How I Come to Rely on Your Wisdom
By Angie Mimms
King Tide
By Emily Winakur
Two Photos
By Jaime Speed
Texts to É. during My First Work Commute in Two Years
By Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren
The Swing
By Summer Hardinge
Ten ways of engaging with your teenager
By Dayna Patterson
“If We Could Dream Back Everything Lost”
By Roseanne Freed
Growing Pains
By Jane Medved
Getting Rid of the Books
By Jennifer Hyde Dracos-Tice
Babymoon Over Blackened Bay
By Katelynn Bishop
Attachment
By Sarah A. Etlinger