“In curating this folio, I think Maria and I weren’t only focusing on nostalgia for the music of adolescence or for a specific cultural moment. We were looking for poetry that leaves irony behind, honors emotionality and affect, is shamelessly itself, and is acutely aware of its own impermanence and the impermanence of its time. These are qualities I believe all poetry, regardless of its situation in time, should have. I believe these poems have them in great measure. I’m inspired by their commitment to feeling everything.” —Kaylee

“Kaylee and I are suckers for early-2000s emo and pop punk—for nostalgic reasons, of course, but also because of the scene’s DIY and poetic ethos. It is primarily these two qualities we wanted to translate into our folio—the focus is not solely on songs from this period, but the endurance and wider impact of the subculture’s creative ethos. The modern song lyric is derived from the poetic lyric, and the emo/pop punk label denotes lyrics that are confessional, associative, self-referential, equally unapologetic and self-conscious. Like in poetry, everything is secondary to the emotional life of the speaker. These poems are funny, clever, candid, devastating, and painfully aware of their own ephemerality.

Much of the early emo scene was heavily shaped by the advent of the social Internet, but links die, people grow up, platforms get shut down or bought up. These poems are caught up in the churn and orbit of impermanence, but in this sense, they also feel timeless, acknowledging and transcending the age-old trap of nostalgia. Above anything, this folio is a celebration of the people and places that take us as we are, and the music that makes us what we are.” —Maria

For your listening pleasure, HERE is the Spotify playlist that inspired our folio.

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Drain Cento

by Clare Flanagan

Hundred white birds crush me

I’ve become so very small

I’m sinking into your ashtray

I’m wishing for crystal sleep

At the past-life bus stop, I’m feeling

Like fear is a big dog with wings

The red night comes immediately

Stars sing like needles and pins

I think there is a cockroach in my purse

I think my body parts are dreaming

I’m blacklisted in Valhalla

Gone off my life’s work

Falling off the love building

Writing my ambulance sound

CLARE FLANAGAN is a Brooklyn-based poet, editor, and music writer. Raised in Minnesota, she now resides in New York City, where she was recently a Wiley Birkhofer fellow at NYU. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Poetry Online, OSU’s The Journal, and Poetry Northwest, among others. When she’s not at work on her full-length manuscript, she enjoys reading, long-distance running, and listening to Charli XCX.
“Towards the end of my first semester at NYU, I found myself in a bit of a writing rut. Luckily, in a craft class with Prof. Matthew Rohrer, I encountered the cento––a found, fragmented form that I had never tried before, sort of like a collage made from someone else's writing. Half-jokingly, I decided to make a cento entirely from lyrics by Drain Gang, a Swedish rap collective I had gotten really into a few years back. Part of me was like, "haha, it would be so funny if I wrote a Drain Gang poem," but another part of me was totally beguiled by their lyrics, which are simultaneously wispy and hard-hitting, gnostic and direct. The way they write is quite different from how I tend to write, so restricting myself to their language led me towards images and associative leaps I wouldn't normally have been able to access. In all, the experience entrenched my fangirlish admiration for these artists, as well as my appreciation for the cento as both a form and a process tool. I find it simultaneously puzzle-like and freeing to dissect and rearrange another person's finished work, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's feeling a bit trapped in their own habits.”

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In Another Life Dave Vanian is My Mother

by Chantale Davies

and I am the echo in a Croydon studio

and once upon a time I was a teenager in a car

lulled to sleep watching the moon fade behind

clouds of hairsprayed mohawks who rode bikes

in the backstreets of Camden, while my father

drummed the latest album on the steering wheel.

I trace the patterns of rough love songs

in the ink stains on my fingertips like a psychic

reads tea leaves. The poet has no future

but Dave Vanian reads me a bedtime story from

a train station opera, baritone octaves like

a satellite colliding with meteors on the radio,

and once I was also a song decaying in the depths

of a microphone, born into a new world

in which my static is eternal. Now I am older,

the vicar is bottling guests at my wedding,

my bride is a monochrome photograph of

what I pretend to know, the soot and sherries,

and the London underground, unreeling

like a tableau on a celestial screen, as tortured

guitars and glass shatter through

the speakers of my dreams.

‘Bottling’ refers to when audiences used to throw objects at performers. It’s also known as ‘concert abuse’.
Chantale Davies is a poet from South Wales. Her work has appeared in Zindabad Zine (2023), Friend: Poems by Young People (2023), and UCL Writers' Society's magazine issues on 'Outlines' and 'Borders' (2024). Her poetry has been longlisted in the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition (2023) and Cheltenham Poetry Festival Prize (2023), and she won third place in The London Magazine’s Poetry Prize (2024). She is currently an editor at L’Audacia Literary Magazine.

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On Tom Waits
by Devon Neal

He’s when you thumb

the brown edge of a new scab,

skin shearing from skin too early,

and a stitch of blood welling behind,

rushing to meet the air.

Devon Neal (he/him) is a Kentucky-based poet whose work has appeared in many publications, including HAD, Stanchion, Stone Circle Review, Livina Press, and The Storms, and has been nominated for Best of the Net in 2023 and the Pushcart Prize in 2024. He currently lives in Bardstown, KY with his wife and three children.

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Self-Portrait as Crash Test Dummy

Ian C. Williams

Sometimes I catch my body

threading the windshield like a cruel needle

hungry for glassine embroidery and violence.

It hurtles through crystalline constellations

in slow motion, a meteor, a missile, a man

without particular consequence. Oh, how a car

can make a ribbon of a guardrail—

how a jersey barrier can fill the trees with glass.

Sometimes I make a ripcord of the emergency brake

to measure the tires’ oleaginous signature—

to find the velocity that sends a vehicle spiraling

in a swirling cursive. Sometimes I’ll swerve

the saddle-stitched center saddle line to collide

a rolling tire and throw the car skyward, an open hand

to God, an offering of debris and smoke.

But every time, I catch my body

by the ankle and drag it, arm over arm, back

into the cab, behind the security of a seatbelt,

piece back together fragments of windshield

and straighten the steel frame. Sweep the dust

from my shoulders. Pass under every green light.

IAN C. WILLIAMS is a poet and teacher from Appalachia. He is also the editor-in-chief for Jarfly: A Poetry Magazine. In 2019, Williams received a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Oklahoma State University, and his debut full-length collection of poems, Every Wreckage, was released by Fernwood Press in March 2024. He currently lives with his wife and two sons in Fairmont, West Virginia.

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Dear Brother

by Mila Cuda

(who braved the brunt

for the both of us)

(who, stilted or stunted,

is still alive at twenty-five)

(who came out cord-caught

& kicking, miracle boy,

who came out singing Sinatra,

came out singing

Came Out Swinging,

who came out

tender as a bruise,

who bruises so easily,

like seriously, my tender-blooded

Von Willebrand brother,

King of the Block

buster summer)

(who, in second grade, was shamed for

having nails painted flame—who

instead of going home

& bathing in acetone,

inspired boys to do the same,

to steal their mother’s polish

& paint, a protest in each shade of

pink, gold, green, blue)

(you, who protected me

from the torment of elementary,

who found me sobbing by the swing sets

& said, half-threat,

you’d hit the heels of

my bully with the sharp edge

of your Razor scooter, you,

who taught me tough skin,

never tormented again,

you, who still holds my hiccups with the

softest snarl, you)

(big brother, who cries beside me at

the Tigers Jaw concert, whole

decade later, whose life

was saved by songs

shouted in the shower,

shouted shrouded

in sweat, shouted silent

in the tourmaline night,

big brother, who gave me lyrics like

heirlooms for when the hurt hums like

heartbeats, like blueprints of an

architectured ocean

you tread & survived

—do it,

I dare you,

I triple dog dare

you, swim up straight

& admit that you’re special.

MILA CUDA is a caffeine-sensitive lesbian from Los Angeles with an unmatched enthusiasm for spiders. The former Youth Poet Laureate of the West Coast, their work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Button Poetry, Rookie, PBS and Poetry Online. A two-time winner of the Charlotte Paul Reese Memorial Prize for Creativity in Poetry, she now lives in Somerville, MA with her partner and the seasons. Her debut collection Still was published by Game Over Books in November of 2024.

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BAMF

by Mimi Flood

Hanna Beth. Audrey Kitching. Original influencers of 2005. Pink hair. Tattoos. Lick a joint. In front of a Peaches show. Hookups off of Bebo. I’m a string that holds the bait. Close your jaw around this if you wanna take a bite. Eyeliner smearing from sweat. Mohawks just turn me on. Mosh pits. Late nights. Sidekicks. Where are you? Getting fucked. (ROTFL) What do you mean Tom Delonge left the band?

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MIMI FLOOD (she/her) is the author of Provocative is a Girl's Name (Querencia Press) and Slut Pop (Dark Thirty Poetry Publishing). You can find her on Instagram @marigold_jesus.

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I Missed the End of the World

by Kari Pindoria

‍After Paramore & Morgan Parker

by accident i woke up

& the sun had already logged off

everyone is at the last supper

with their hair done

apocalypsing without me

i’m still rotting in bed

malnourished like a ration

losing my friends to infinite scroll

i feel most coloured when i’m late

when the clock looks back at me

with hate-crime

i’m always running out of time

out of long skins before a party

characters in a tweet

how he loved to keep me waiting

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KARI PINDORIA is a writer from London. Her writing appears in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Unbroken Journal, Propel, And Other Poems, and various anthologies. She often daydreams about living in a Studio Ghibli film and being taller.

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The Devil’s Keeper

by Victoria Mbabazi

the devil is kind he is just like Pearl in that one Ti West movie the devil loves

me just like the queen in that one Yorgos movie I need you

to imagine the song Savage I need you to remember Beyoncé’s phrases

I mean if you have not been worshipped by your abuser you don’t feel my pain  

Hades adores Persephone he is just as sassy as his depiction

in that Disney movie you think I would love a monster

who did not know how to subdue me you think I’m crazy you think

I fell in delirium like I’m not smart enough to need

to be charmed you think he couldn’t happen to you

like I haven’t seen him happen to you many times oh how easy

it is to let go and when I do I only want him to comfort me

because you can’t you’re so tired you’re so exhausted I’m exhausting

to everyone but the devil is at least someone who never tires of me

those who want him said my cage was good for him I had the saviour

complex and the moon in my hands I had all the blood I was everything

he was promised no one who loved me understood it no one

who loves me will ever understand they don’t understand

what is exciting about my violence I want you to imagine a Savage

please remember how partynextdoor phrases I mean he gave us hope

and she did the hoping Lana asks our culture questions because she believes

we are excited about our own violence she said what about mine

like she won’t ignore mine if it has nothing to do with her

she is just like her all she wanted was to be loved by him I told her

the floor was concrete and now her head is cracked hoping Tylenol will fix it

try to imagine that Savage song please remember how Rihanna phrases

I mean he needed me and now we are both ruined about it

“I’ve been working on a book in which all the poems are divided into seasons and are called darling poems. This poem is a winter darling poem. I had written this poem after finishing “the favourite” by Yorgos Lanthimos for the billionth time two Decembers ago. I was interested in writing about the intoxicating nature of loving an abuser and how as someone who presents as a Black woman I was made out to be a liar by a white woman who viewed the abuse I endured from this man as a distraction from her own woes. I wanted to make a parallel to Lana Del Rey because of her letter she wrote in 2020 where she calls out a series of Black female artists for being seen as more feminist than her. Lana whose career benefited from her relationship Black rappers and who turned on Black women the second she felt threatened by their perceived sense of agency.”
VICTORIA MBABAZI’s work can be found in The Puritan, CV2, No Contact, Rejection Letters, Untethered Magazine, Grain, Minola Review, Peach Magazine, Maisonneuve, and elsewhere. Their poem “Medusa Smile” placed second in the Hart House Review contest and their work has been shortlisted in Plenitude’s flash fiction contest and long-listed in Room’s poetry contest. They have two Best of the Net nominations. “chapbook” is available with Anstruther Press and “FLIP” is available with Knife Fork Books. Their first full length poetry collection The Siren in the Twelfth House came out in fall 2024 with Palimpsest Press. They’re currently Canadian in Brooklyn, New York.

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Mono Speaker

by D.C. Klein

Synchronicity on the Emerson cassette player.

Hair’s gotten too long yet again.

Library won’t reopen until mid-month.

They’re changing the carpets on all the floors.

Sting sings about the pouring rain.

My mind is alone and my body craves warmth.

It’s been a few days since I’ve read more than a couple pages.

Guitar solo from the 1980s.

Climbing the stairs to the fifth floor terrace is my exercise.

I think my brother’s friend was in a band called Chapter 14.

Pain is measured in monarchy according to The Police.

It’s overcast and I wonder about Southern California.

How old are the rugs in the El Cajon library where I hid once.

My mother found me there. I had not lied about where I was.

She could never name my favorite music. She didn’t know.

She didn’t care.

D.C. Klein is a poet living in the Pacific Northwest. In his work he often explores the point where domesticity and brutality meet, and what it means to live in a burning house. His writing has been published by Broken Antler Magazine, Major 7th, Body Fluids, Not My Style, and the Salmon Creek Journal. In 2021 he self-published a chapbook titled Half A Martyr. He is on Instagram @kleindcklein and on Bluesky @drekklin.bsky.social. He is currently reading Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad.

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I Wish You Knew How Much I’ve Hated Bracing for the News of Your Death

by Sam J. Grudgings

It took you three decades of living to learn

there was no bravery in leaving. Still, you

called yourself COWARD for staying. Your

speech patterns                          the scenic

route. You’ve built up tolerances           to

everything. Still, your body craves

distance.           You should take time instead of

risks. They asked you what you wanted to be

when you grew up & you said you didn’t but

tried your hand at alternative options:

experimental chemist,          stunt double

for crash-test dummies, knife sharpener,

blade bluntener, scissor relay runner, poison

taster.               You say your dream job is

nothing.           You have the experience.

You tell us                   you have a way to

cheat death, just no intention of doing so,

you got it all figured out, it will all work out

in the end, always cutting corners & ending

up with more corners.

The damage becomes familiar.             You

have no idea how to make it feel anything

other than welcome. The depths you’ve

peered into don’t know                    you know all

there is to know about depths.   If THEY

call you COWARD, take courage in this.

           I’ve seen people lose scissor fights

with themselves, lose the paper with their

real name, lose the rocks thrown through

windows left open & still make it. COWARD,

I knew those who sewed the scout’s badge in

SCARED OF LITERALLY EVERYTHING

directly to their heartsleeves             &

still made it. So if I talk of making something

know making it HERE is sometimes enough.

COWARD means SCARED OF, not DIDN’T DO.

I  have seen you crash through plate glass      &

emerge mostly unscathed so if my belief in

you seems unlikely       know I’m holding your

survival up as evidence of miracles.     Heavy

the bottle called your name &              I know

how heavy your body feels &               I know

boys who never wanted to become men

because no one ever showed them how to be

good men but when I look at you I know you

figured it out               fighting.           Scout’s

honour—I can set myself on fire if that

would help you feel less alone I can hold my

breath                      for as long as it takes if this

seems like a baptism                I can do that

holy  thing  for  both  of  us.      I’ll  hold  your

breath if you hold mine. Catch your voice if

it’s thrown. WHY SO FAST, you ask. I answer.

SAM J. GRUDGINGS is a queer poet, storyteller, & events host from Bristol who was shortlisted for the Outspoken Poetry Prize in 2020. His debut collection, The Bible II, was released by Verve Poetry Press in 2021. His pamphlet The Nation’s Saddest Love Poems was published in 2023 with Broken Sleep Books.
“the title comes from a plea from Steve-O to Bam Margera which as an addict & kid of the jackass generation felt relevant as hell”

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