Persona Poems

Conversation with
Kim Bridgford

The Spring 2019 issue features a tribute to Persona Poems. This theme was a reader suggestion, and we thought it was a great idea. Poems work like little empathy machines, and nowhere is that imaginative power more apparent than when the writer dons a mask and speaks from a different perspective. The tribute includes 18 poets writing in the voice of someone else. In the conversation section, editor Timothy Green talks to “America’s First Lady of Form,” poet Kim Bridgford. We also include the long title poem to her forthcoming book, Blue Whale Sonnets.

Another eclectic open section includes a haiku sequence for Graceland, Anders Carlson-Wee telling us where he’s at, the return of Rayon Lennon with a kind of sequel to his 2018 Rattle Poetry Prize winning “Heard,” and so much more.

	Persona Poems
	Kim Bridgford	Blue Whale Sonnets
	Deborah H. Doolittle	Lament of the Violin
	Alexis Rhone Fancher	Tonight at Last Call, J. Calls Me …
	Joseph Fasano	Caril Ann Fugate
	Brock Guthrie	Las Vegas
	Stephen Harvey	Petrarch Looks for Laura at Holiday World
	Red Hawk	The Indian Killer Explains Manifest Destiny
	Maggie Rue Hess	A Housekeeper’s Villanelle
	Lynne Knight	Fugue: Red Bird Taking Wing
	Sue Fagalde Lick	Mustering Out
	Amy Miller	The Turkeys by the Road Consult with the Deer
	Jennifer Perrine	Colossal
	Alexander Radison	My Mother Speaks to Me from the Dead
	Jennifer Reeser	Strong Feather Buries the White Woman
	Liz Robbins	Bingo Caller
	Carrie Shipers	In Preparation for a Visit from Our CEO
	Jamey Temple	Three Sijo
	Larina Warnock	Elroy Trains the Stock Boy
	Poetry
	Clayton Beach	Graceland
	C. Wade Bentley	Recalculating
	Jesse Bertron	Arc
	Anders Carlson-Wee	Where I’m At
	Rachel Custer	The Grand Dragon of the KKK Is Buried …
	Kim Dower	Letter to My Son
	Frank Dullaghan	How Quickly the World Can Change
	Jim Gustafson	Shards, Storms, Smoke, and Sprouts
	John Philip Johnson	The Book of Fly
	Laura Judge	Skin
	Peycho Kanev	The Hope
	Rayon Lennon	Red Brick Town
	Al Maginnes	Stern
	Marsh Muirhead	Four Haiku
	Linnea Nelson	Counting to Twelve at Willamette Park
	Antonia Pozzi	Solitude
	Jenny Qi	Machine Learning
	Hayden Saunier	Object Lesson in Over-Attachment
	Katherine Barrett Swett	City of Refuge
	Craig van Rooyen	Prozac Ode
	Conversation
	Kim Bridgford (web)
	Cover Art
	Angie Rehnberg (web)