“Late now and the ward has quieted / Still I can’t sleep this IV in my arm / the day stuck on my brow”

Interview with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Judge of the 2025 Nature Poetry Prize

Translation Errors

“I composed beautiful desperate letters / And you a phrase // Damn you,”

“the wound across his back becomes / a mouth wide open, filled with blood, and me, / his child standing next to the body. / newly awakened”

“Our neighborhood drowns // in the violet hue of summer stolen, while evening arrives / like blueberries to concrete,”

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We are so grateful to every poet who shares their work with us—please enjoy perusing the stunning work in our poetry archive.

“who am I to bring the world / into our bed? If the nest comes under attack, let me / lose a feather or two in defense of what I know is true:”

Please join us in congratulating these remarkable poets. Winners were selected by Palette editors.

“and only men can brush their hands across the / cages by the altar as the schoolchildren’s feet are clanking on the marble ceiling”