Black is the Poetry editor of the Pinch

“we stood at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea, / down in Pacifica, remember, near that Fancy Taco Bell, the one / took my sister to for her prom after her boyfriend Rick / drowned down in Santa Cruz”

“ … you say, and don’t answer when they pause, they ask you how long it was and you demur, long, you say, really the truth is it was four years, the length of an education and you don’t know what your world is like now beyond coke and sharing fries with men who don’t know anything about you, …”

“one or two / lines from the poem / using slash to indicate line breaks.”

“ There are an unimaginable number of crows before you, cawing and making clicking sounds. Some of them are already tapping on the windows. Some of them are already in the house. One of them is in front of your dog, who is trying to make himself as small as he possibly can be.”

“You said it was the only ​thing you had left of your father. We fell silent shortly after and watched the waves do their sloshing dance along the streets.”

“You are accepting the reality of a family reunion.”

“These are her thoughts as she tries not to touch the summer’s welts and lumps and itches that insects have bestowed on her, as she notices waterbugs accumulating on the glue traps placed on the kitchen floor each month by the exterminator, as she tries and tries to swat the fruit flies multiplying around the rim of the covered compost bin, as she learns that certain beetles are chewing up the most ancient trees on Earth, as she reads Oliver Milman on the tricks and tribulations of insects.”

“We’re sitting by the fireplace on a new moon night. He says to me, aren’t you ever sad we can’t travel the world? Wouldn’t you like to see the Duomo in Italy or the beaches in Morocco? Don’t you feel trapped…with me? I imagine folding clothes into a suitcase, boarding a plane with ticket in hand, looking out the window—the scenery getting closer, everything taking shape. It would be a lie to say I was always happy with the life I lived, but how could I say that to him. How could I say to him, yes, I dream of running away from you? “

Meet the 2023 contest judges

“your feet grow wet / still you kneel / with the net in your palms / fishing for his cracked pieces / moon jellies floating”

As she finished up her time as The Pinch’s Art Director, Annalee Elmore sat down with another of our wonderful MFA candidates, Lily Kate Anthony, to discuss the art of The Pinch.

“At the store for more dryer sheets, I see someone slide their hand in an O down some other daughter’s ponytail. I know the next part of the joke—he loops it around her neck like a rope. I was a daughter, too, when I learned daughters are always at the hazard of augers.”

As editors consider submissions, they often discuss whether a text is pinchy. One of our editors discusses the term.

“Santa sips herbal tea as he waits for winter, peppermint steam mingling with crisp autumn air. He wanders into the bedroom and crawls under the blanket with me. We spend afternoons hidden from the world, only the soft crooning of the record faintly drifting in from the living room.”

“Even when I was awake, fear dogged me. As my mom carried Finnegan down the street, I imagined her tripping and slamming into the concrete sidewalk. I pictured myself stepping over my injured mother to tend to my son, the necessary horror of casting her aside.”

Contributors: Mya Alexice, Sam Baker, John Blair, NJ Bonham, Noor Brody, Kate Bucca, Sher Ting Chim, Sean Cho A, Robert Evory, Jeffrey Feingold, Elizabeth Feng, Olivier Fitzgerald, Raymond Fleishmann, Cassia Hameline, Hailey Rose Hanks, Marisa Lainson, Mark Magnus, Nicholas Mangigian, Katie McMorris, Erin Miller, Rooja Mohassessy, Sara Moore Wagner, Samuel Prestridge, Jason Sepac, Benjamin Soileau, JR Taylor, Jeff Whitney, Kristin Wong, Lucy Zhang, Jane Zwart

“Everyone is getting ready in the falafel restaurant / they let us use for a dressing room.”

“For the next several years, Mom was parasite-free. But then we heard rumors that an aunt had set her up with someone she encountered through her occasional hobby of drunk driving. My aunt had met this man at one of their court-ordered AA meetings. He owned a house, supposedly. He owned his own business, supposedly.“

2022 Page Prize in Nonfiction