Day #4: Honeyguide Literary Magazine

Celebrating National Poetry Month by highlighting 30 days of literary journals that publish poetry you can read in 5 minutes or less.

Day #4: Honeyguide Literary Magazine

I’ll be honest. I know way more animal lovers than poetry readers and writers, so this recommendation is for all the creature-caring humans, my temporary houseguest, mrbond_thepug, who helps me read, and especially for my vet, Dr. Ryan.

Honeyguide Literary Magazine is your home for all literature and art about animals. Always.

Chief Editor Amanda Marrero started the journal after a family of foxes moved into her backyard and she noticed so many similarities between humans and wild animals.

From the Honeyguide Literary Magazine “About” page: “I wanted a magazine that examined the intersects between the human and animal experience, how one fed into the other, and although we are very different, our lives, questions, struggles, hopes and fears are very often the same.”

Take special note of this gorgeous cover art, (and see the others on the website) one of a series of five mixed media pieces collectively called Nefelibata from the Portuguese for “Cloud Walker: One who lives in the clouds of their own imagination or dreams, one who does not obey conventions.” It was created by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad, an Indian-Australian artist, poet, and pianist, who serves as a chief editor for Authora Australis, a new literary journal from Australia.

Below is an excerpt from “In Great Waters“ by Kiersa Recktenwald featured in Honeyguide Literary Magazine Issue #3.

Center of its universe, the fish

moves in slow decisions made for it

by ancient ritual and timeless ways.

Sunlight captures the sea, but not these eyes. 

Moonbeams sleep above his wanderings…

Yes, there is no end to the link between one literary journal and another and if you want me to select one just for you to read, reach out. Because truly, whatever your heart needs, there’s a poem for that.