Oatleaf

August has come to an end and we'd like to say thank you to our wonderful contributors! We are so, so glad that you chose Oatleaf to showcase your work. ... We are grateful to: Bracha K. Sharp |  Evocation Elana Lavine | The @ James Machell | Einstein Dreaming Jan Wiezorek | Let Love In Safire Syrup | Something More  (August 2025 Competition Winner) ... We appreciate the work you put out into the world!

What got you interested in writing poetry? I first became interested in consistently writing poetry while studying the works of E.E. Cummings and other writers that frequently get studied in high school literature class. There was always an underlying current that naturally came up inside to write, it was something instinctual I returned to periodically. I reconnected to it more deeply during the pandemic. I realized it was something that didn’t feel demanding or draining but like escapism and a portal to another reality. What does your writing process look like? It varies, but I write best in a thoughtless state where I feel more relaxed and light.  Occasionally there will be stanzas and poems that come to me in my mind fully-formed. I tend to gather sentences that come to me and quickly jot them down, as usually there will be more of where it came from. I always try to stay curious and open-minded of the words that come to me or inspire me, and how I can uniquely craft them into ...

... At which corner in the living room do you sit  strapped in fear? While others move to him,  my heart beats in repeated immobility,  as his does, less responsive, lying on the floor. It’s less important whether there’s story here, like it’s less important to run for the pill bottle,  jog to the drugstore, ingest placebo or more  by mouth. You go stiff by lacking to love,  failing to move. I say it was simple fear  that motivated my inaction, with Father  on his back on the living room carpet,  unmoving as false ceiling squares.  All those little holes to let air out.  Cornered here, I still tell him  I’m learning to let love in. ... Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan and walks daily among the beech forest of McCoy Creek Trail. He is author of the poetry chapbooks Prayer’s Prairie (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press) and Forests of Woundedness (forthcoming in September 2025 from Seven Kitchens Press). Wiezorek’s work has appea...

Editor's Note: Congratulations to Safire Syrup for winning this month's competition!

... The wind, bluer than souls, makes stars of my teeth as I ascend the milky stairway to Mt. Sagittarius. These steps, never climbed before, can only be climbed once, for there is fire behind me and a prison ahead. I finally freeze, at the point of greatest cold and watch creation explode from the nethermost peak of Mt. Sagittarius.   END ... James Machell is a British science fiction writer and poet. Some of his interviews have been with Ken Liu, Samuel R. Delany, and P. Djèlí Clark. He is also the contest chair for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, outreach manager for Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, and a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. YouTube | @fell-purpose Poem originally published with: Star*Line

... Choose a new email address, they said, like it’s no big deal  But all conversation has contracted down to this keyboard No lingering on concrete steps, stiff legged, damp folds of magazines No late nights on the carpet, chin raw from handset perforations, Phone cord stretched beyond its loops No lusciously bulging envelopes Everything arrives on screen, news and fright, attempts at pleasure Just use your first name last name, they said, put a dot in the middle As though I didn’t understand But surely there’s something more I could add, an inflection to make it clear That I’m here, waiting, for more than 12-point text and autoreplies That something was lost in transmission The drift of your nails on my back That this is the way you’ll find me, one day, When you finally decide to get in touch ... Elana Lavine is a writer from Toronto.

... And I remember the tree on that dark night, in deep black, backlit by lamplight,  quiet tableau. And in the middle, I and the tree, alone in chill air,  we stood— at the end of the block, the beginning of it, and I, looking at the leaves, fire and gold blazing there,  in the cool silence of my night, leaves like streaks of glass, blazing. Fire and gold mixed with honey, it stood, solid, held in song. My tree, jeweled—alight. ... Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Wild Roof Journal, Rogue Agent Journal, and the Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards and was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. She received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revi...