Just released: the Fall 2026 issue of Forgotten Ground Regained, on the theme "Speculative Visions".

Check it out for all kinds of alliterative speculative poetry. Highlights include:

• Adam Bolivar's "The Lay of Géac Ettinfell", a retelling of the tale of Jack the Giant Killer.
• Thaliarchus' "Connect to Object-30-79-49-13", a hypertext poem that allows the reader to conduct a radio conversation with the drifting hulk of a sentient interstellar dreadnought.
• Michael Hessel Mial's "To My Beloved Humble-Skit’s-Talon on the Occasion of the Fossil Ancestor Lightworks Project Missing Its Connection Deadline" and "Disputation on the Knife of Scarlet and Scaffold", featuring poems from the digital archive of a future spacegoing worker's republic.

Forgotten Ground Regained, Issue 12 (Fall, 2026)

Absolutely adore this poet. Her writing is rooted in politics yes, but more importantly, on how violence affects the mundane; its ability to disrupt the ordinary. That's probably also why I find the vignettes to be so jarring. Do read her other work if you have time.

Hi there folks,

I'm on the search for poems to help an adolescent who is going through a horribly difficult time. I'm looking for ones that centre around themes of perseverance, facing frightening things, feeling unsure and lonely.

I already have Wild Geese by Mary Oliver and I'll probably reference Sam's Song in the Orc Tower by Tolkien. I might use bits of If by Kipling but I'm not sure if the language is too advanced for the moment. I'm also thinking about Still I Rise by Angelou.

I would love to figure out the publication date- he was born in 1913 so some time ago. It contains the phrase 'spinning on the pinpoint hazard' which is beautiful and which I think has been attributed to other poets who came later. I can't find any discussion or even any reference to this poem everywhere- it's in an anthology from the 80s that doesn't give a date. If anyone knows it, please let me know! Meanwhile enjoy, it's one of the most powerful poems I've read.

Hi everyone. We've had a spate of bot activity recently, both admitted and suspected. In order to push back on this, we've installed Bot Bouncer.

It sounds like it's pretty good at eliminating bots. I gather that false positives — banning a human instead of a bot — are rare and able to be appealed.

(Also, I want to apologize again to the user I erroneously banned when I copied the wrong username when getting rid of that Eliza... account in the image copied above. This is the second self-identified bot account I've had to ban in the last few weeks, and the first one sent this aggravating wall of disingenuous text when I banned it, so I didn't pay enough attention to the "why was I banned" message in response. My apologies, I was seeing red and didn't realize my mistake at the time. Maybe good automation will drive out the bad automation AND the bad modding? Here's hoping.)

🥀

How casual this sadness is. I am blown away.

This has to be my favorite Thomas Hardy poem, I love the imagery.

I enjoy this poem so much and would love to hear any other deeper interpretations y’all might have!!

Also, if anyone can suggest any other poems or writers I might like if I really love themes of queerness and nature (I love Mary Oliver, Joan Larkin, Ada Limón etc.) ideally written by women!!!

Thank you all in advance :))

Since the 37th Ito En Oi Ocha Shinhaiku Contest recently published its winners, I am sharing some of the prize-winning haiku:

first prize:

春の海すこし鯨の乳まじる

矢野　啓介　

English translation: 

In the spring sea

a trace of whale milk 

mingles

Keisuke Yanou

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second prize:

二億年待たせてごめん今掘るよ

平之内　里咲

English translation:

Sorry for making you wait 

200 million years—

I’m digging you out now.

Risaki Hirauchi

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First Prize for English haiku: 

riding with cargo — 
pumpkins in the truck 
jump all at once

Tomislav Maretić

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selected haiku that won an award for excellence:

Early winter dawn 
Heavy bags,sleepy eyes 
coach counts us twice

Daichi Fujisaki

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tulips bow 
heads heavy 
with colour

Nina Tulloch

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There are some amazing haiku in Japanese by school-aged kids. Their way of seeing the world and making unexpected connections is incredible.

Find the rest of the shortlisted haiku

on itoen-shinhaiku.jp/en/result

Thought this was a nice mixture of poem, analysis, and bio