Join Presence at Table 944 at AWP in Baltimore! We'd love to meet you! Our 2026 issue will be available for sale at a reduced conference rate.

"I remind myself // that food, and washing that bowl, and even repetition's / a kind of love in itself, the wild soul tamed by its own fingertips,..." Susan L. Miller "The Third Week of Ordinary Time" in Presence 2025.

"Remember, if you can, // those early initial cries, // the way the open page could / save and make strange / an hour, a day - // and maybe, you thought, / a life."
Richard Pierce "Budding Branch" in Presence 2025.

"Give me the raw of it - / hombre of green, / how stalks test teeth. / Assure me I can eat, / eat all I want." Susanna Rich "To Rescue Me, Brian" in Presence 2025.

"I will stand a moment in silence for all I have / forgotten in the nights and also in the days, / the dreams and presences living / their wondrous, irrepressible lives without me." Andrea Potos "To Do, Morning" in Presence 2025.

"Paws kneading the quilt, / My bare feet on the heating element. / And the small house, quietly, sails / Between seas and land." "Sailing" by Rita Kogan, trans. by Zachary Sholem Berger in Presence 2025.

"I stood in the doorway and waited / And you did not come back. / Then you came back as if / You had not come back. / I stood in the doorway and waited." Diti Ronen trans. by Joanna Chen, "Then There Was a War" in Presence 2025.

"But who doesn't love / the serpentine / tongue, // testing the ice / cream, tracing / the curve // a dog makes / lying down, / who doesn't delight // in the lavish figure, / the constant / shifting // of beauty's shadow?" Eric Potter, "Against Metaphor" in Presence 2025.

"Where everything is wholly / holy, where we have transparent / skin & the liminal is not wedged / between what was & what will be." Sarah Dickenson Snyder, "In Another Dimension" in Presence 2025.

"It takes an oriole -// no idea, but a feathered, double-hearted sun/ carrying its own darkness, this particular// squawkishness to gently condemn whatever/ it is in you that hides the waiting world/ from your better eye." @michaeldechane.bsky.social "When You Must Change Your Life" Presence 2025.

"Who will stop the vengeful ghosts of my sins / from stalking me in my sleep? / Neither love, travel, nor art, / neither books nor consuming cause / could fill the great hole God left behind. / He is bulk; and I make up retail." Sharif S. Elmusa, "Mobil Mosque" in Presence 2025.

"Growing up, I always / hated math, how single-minded it was, / its linear compulsions, and its ruthless / lurching toward the single solve, / the definitive answer..." Kate Daniels, "Resurrections" in Presence 2025.

Announcing our submission to Orison's Best Spiritual Literature Anthology: Kate Daniels "Resurrections," Michael Dechane "When You Must Change...," Eric Potter "Against Metaphor," Marjorie Stelmach "Crimes...," Sharif S. Elmusa "Mobile Mosque," James Davis May "Standing Before the Relic . . ."

"the southern blade of the sickle moon / stabs through the veil of clouds - / a jackknife pouting / melodramatically among the stars: / a little dangerous, crazy for certain." Joseph Bathanti "Coyotes" in Presence 2025.

"Here in the heart of darkness / from a kiss on the bridge / of hope, a kiss against the war / against death and exile / I build a kingdom of meaning." Sameer al-Zabin in Presence 2025 trans. by Sharif S. Elmusa. #presence #hope

Congratulations to Margaret Mackinnon whose poem "A Tomb of a Woman at Saqqara" in Presence 2024 was selected for the 2025 volume of Orison Books' Best Spiritual Literature due out in December 2025.

"It takes an oriole - // no idea, but a feathered, double-hearted sun / carrying its own darkness, this particular // squawkishness to gently condemn whatever / it is in you that hides the waiting world / from your better eye." Michael Dechane, "When You Must Change Your Life" in Presence 2025.

"Lint lays atop the book Leaves of pages cheek to cheek / murmur of days A lifetime stacked & piled / means nothing and everything / staring into now" Susan Cowger, "Tipping Points" in Presence 2025.

Calling all poets!! Be part of our 10 Anniversary Issue - submit today! Our submission window closes OCTOBER 1. See our website for details or find us on Submittable. You do NOT have to be Catholic to submit! www.catholicpoetryjournal.com

"Not every evening / descends / and not every old age / creeps up, / some doze like peas / in their green pods / or sprawl with ease / on marshmallow clouds. / Not every angel / terrifies" Age Mishol, "Cabin at the Forest Edge" trans. Joanna Chen in Presence 2025.

"Witness the clown without hands / the horizonless sea // the dervish on fire, / look at the hermit in the rush-hour // crowd, thief among lilies, / killers in the cotton field // and the dead child shattered / in her father's arms." Pablo Medina, "Witness" in Presence 2025.

"Who will stop the vengeful ghosts of my sins / from stalking me in my sleep? / Neither love, travel, nor art, / neither books nor consuming cause / could fill the great hole God left behind. / He is bulk; and I make up retail." Sharif S. Elmusa, "Mobil Mosque" in Presence 2025.

"I want to hear locks opening. / We must keep striking the water, / Shouting dry land, dry land..." Yonatan Berg, "Amen," translated by Joanna Chen in Presence 2025.

"Yet when they sing all the woe of the world / Is transformed. It is as if they / Have touched the tips of their fingers / To the air. The suffering, the blood-vaporized air." Gregory Orfalea, "It Is Hard To Speak" in Presence 2025.

"Everyone said your bones in the box kept singing, talking, yakking, jumping, bouncing as if Petrouchka in his red, white carnival apparel had arrived." Janice Zerfas, "The weather up there must be changing" in Presence 2025.

"How solipsistic / Of us windowsill philosophers / To measure the space / Between God and the moon. " Helen Behe, "Tilting Earth" in Presence 2025.

"The 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 is where the danger is real: / spiraling fears, a vice to conceal, / yourself your worst enemy tied to a chair. / Be careful in there." Monica Silva "Neuroplasticity" in Presence 2025.

"Pablo Medina's newest book of poetry, Sea of Broken Mirrors, [is] a collection of radiant and visceral poems whose graceful movements and keen insights are pure pleasure from start to finish." -- from Jana-Lee Germaine's review in Presence 2025

"The floor bedecked / with mop and broom is the prow / of a ship; the old house / sails on into time, towards the promised Land / and under your idle feet swells / the vasty deep you fled." Jean-Pierre Lemaire, trans. Margaret Morrison, "Equipment" in Presence 2025. #presence #faithpoetry

"Squat in the stacks, her back hunched / Like a bent branch, she kneels before / A wall of children's books." Andrew Calis, "Patron," in Presence 2025.