2026 Open Reading Period Selections

Rhyme Between

CLAIRE MARIE STANCEK is a writer, editor, and educator. She is the author of six books of poetry and one book of essays. Some of her recent and forthcoming books include WHO IS THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE (Omnidawn, forthcoming 2028), Double Life (Omnidawn, forthcoming 2027), and Operating Moon (Pinsapo, 2026). With Jane Gregory and the late Lyn Hejinian, she is co-founder and co-editor of Nion Editions, a chapbook press. Claire Marie earned a B.A. from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Philadelphia. Her website is clairemariestancek.com.

EVERY DEATH / A DOORWAY 

MIN KANG is the author of two collections of poetry, darkly + completely (chapbook at Essay Press, 2022) and Diary of a K-Drama Villain (Coconut Books, 2015), and her work has been published in Gulf Coast, Asia Literary Review, Bone Bouquet, and elsewhere. She was a semifinalist of the 2025 Pamet River Prize at YesYes Books and a finalist for the 2024 Gournay Prize at the Ohio State University Press. She is a Kundiman fellow and a graduate of the LSU Creative Writing Program, SFSU Department of Creative Writing, and Texas A&M University. Born in Busan, South Korea, she spent her formative years in Arkansas and Texas. She lives and teaches in St. Paul, Minnesota.

But Also This – Correspondences for Etel 

DAVID BUUCK lives in Oakland, CA, where he edits & publishes Tripwire, a small press & journal. Books include Disfigurations (Roof Books, 2027), Noise in the Face of (Roof Books 2016), SITE CITE CITY (Futurepoem, 2015) and An Army of Lovers, co-written with Juliana Spahr (City Lights, 2013), along with the chapbooks The Riotous Outside (Commune Editions, 2018) & Distribution Points (Antiphony, 2026). He is the Director of the Clemente Course in the Humanities at Oakland Adult Career Education, teaches at San Quentin’s Prison University Program, and is a charter member of the Known and Elsewhere Collective.

Finalists

The Lake by Kimberly Andrews

The Purgatory Waters Underneath by Momina Mela

A Species of Sentimentality by Etan Kerr-Finell

All These Goings, Stayings, In-Betweens by Pria Louka

East: a pocket dictionary by Marta Michalowska

Monotropisms by Sarah Cook

Pablo Traba by Brian Alarcon

Mirage [H]ermitage by Cameron Lovejoy

Slickens & Bone by Stephanie Sauer

Mother Time: Memoir in Prose Poems by Robin Silbergleid

I AM NOT A PHOTOGRAPHER by Vi Khi Nao

Checked Out by Benjamin Niespodziany

MARKED BY DELICATE CHISEL IS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW LINE OF THOUGHT. by Khashayar Mohammadi

Rough Trade by Chris Campanioni

Wherever Shore by Stephanie Choi