Day #8: Voicemail Poems

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

Have you ever come upon something that looks as if it was abandoned moments before you found it? These empty pink lobster tails, lit by the setting sun on wet sand at the tide line, are just that, and a metaphor for this 30 Days of Poetry Project, Day #8.

The image represents me shedding the idea of focusing on literary journals that you can solely read rather than listen to. Poetry is, after all, a literature meant to be heard. 

Today’s journal recommendation, Voicemail Poems, is for my friend Pam who lost her sight as an adult. Pam says she’s been a bit surprised by how unpleasant it is to explore poetry journals using only the monotone voice of her screen reader so I went in search of those that also offer audio or video.

Voicemail Poems is “an online magazine that highlights the intimate and raw voices of new and established writers of all styles. Poets submit to the magazine by reading their work to a voicemail box. Our favorites are picked seasonally and published on our website and our Soundcloud.” 

That’s right. You get a variety of poets’ voices in your ear with each issue.

One of my favorites poems from the recent Winter, 2022 issue is Crystal Silva’s “primas”

The beginning goes like this:

we bump over basement tile, toes stubbing
over grout grooves. sock-skating
while our tios pinball pool cues upstairs.
lips covered in egg-sweet crumbs gush
of some-days and one-days, when we’re big.

Click around the site and listen to all the voices.

In the category of “some-days and one-days”, yes, I’m trying to do better to get this site more accommodating for all persons on the human experience / sensory ability spectrum. I’m a really slow learner. I make so many mistakes.

Thank you for your patience with my learning curve. And thank you for all your suggestions and questions. It’s feeling like an exquisite scavenger hunt to find just the right poetry fit for my friends this month.