How to Attract Birds to Your Yard

Your hair should be neat and freshly washed.

You should be reading a recommended book

and the book should open its wings

as the world changes.  Locate that book.

Amy Newman is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently On This Day in Poetry History. Her poems and essays have appeared in journals including Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Hotel Amerika. She’s won a fellowship to The MacDowell Arts Colony and state arts grants in Ohio and Illinois, and recently was awarded the Friends of Literature Prize from Poetry for her feminist update of “Howl.” Born in Liberty, New York, she is currently a professor in the Department of English at Northern Illinois University. Connect with her on Twitter: @NewmanAmyL

Jacob’s Ladder

watercolor contralto to descant,

to baritone, boiling towards song.

steam spilling purple and grace into air like perfume.

a fat jagged round of light: “Angels” (whisper reverent ((“and here-“))

Madeleine Song lives in New Jersey. Her work has been honored on a regional level by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She is a three-year winner of the Doctor Dorney Poetry Awards. She is the poetry editor of the literary magazine, Runes. She enjoys reading and walking.