ABOUT THE ISSUE
Great River Review
ISSUE 67 MASTHEAD | 2020-21   EDITOR PETER CAMPION    MANAGING EDITOR MELISSA CUNDIEFF    FEATURE EDITOR TARIK DOBBS    GENRE EDITORS (POETRY, PROSE) MARIA BOWLER, NADIA D’RAINAH, T
PINK POETRY PRIZE, RUNNER-UP
Amie Whittemore
THE ANIMAL EYES GROW DARK RUNNER-UP FOR THE 2020 PINK POETRY PRIZE Because it’s November, harvest done, I remember my grandfather stabbing possums with a pitchfork in the silo. N
POETRY, FEATURE
Marissa Davis
POETRY SPOTLIGHT: MARISSA DAVIS   MARISSA DAVIS READS TWO POEMS “Parable for the Apocalypse We Built, ii: Doe of the Haruspex” & “False Aubade After My First Time Taking Plan B”
REVIEW, The Tradition, Jericho Brown
Patrick Davis
BOOK REVIEW Form and Body: Jericho Brown’s  The Tradition The first lines of verse to appear in Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2019)
POETRY, FEATURE
Golden
POETRY SPOTLIGHT: GOLDEN   GOLDEN READS TWO POEMS “TWIN” & “[X][Y]/[X][X]” <iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/U8_ECyYUJxw?wmode=opaqu

PINK POETRY PRIZE

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HOARFROST

RUNNER-UP FOR THE 2020 PINK POETRY PRIZE

We never thought we were old until lightning struck us.

The way our trunks had snapped so easily was a shock.

Our lower backs had been hurting for a while though.

It was so humiliating to lie there, abandoned.

The weight of frost on our joints strained our patience.

We weren’t ready to be decorated with badges of age.

Murmurs of concern from the underground rise;

we are still root-connected to our younger relatives.

Lichen knits trunk-blankets to comfort us.

The forest sounds very different on the ground.

Mushrooms whisper poetry into our ears.

They make us cry. We must be getting soft.

In this battlefield brambled with twigs,

we embroider our tears into the earth’s fabric.


Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 22 books, including Flannelwood (Red Hen Press) and Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman (Squares & Rebels). His work has appeared in Poetry, South Carolina Review, and elsewhere. A ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and online at raymondluczak.com.