We are delighted to share that we have long-listed 35 poems for our upcoming Poetry Special Issue, Still I Rise: Voices of Women from Around the World, instead of the 25 poems originally planned. The remarkable quality and diversity of the submissions made it impossible to limit the selection to our initial number.
A heartfelt thank you to Quillkeepers Press for publishing this special issue and to Sandee Gertz for generously serving as the judge of the contest. We are deeply grateful for your support and commitment to celebrating women’s voices in poetry.
Long-Listed Poets and their Titles
Dr. Anamika Nath for The Certificates
Leonora O’Brien for The Rape of Greenland
Darshanika Panda for Field Notes from Granny’s Kitchen Top
Meghan C Hoagland for We Are Rats Now / Fat Tuesday
Karen Nielsen for How girls grow up to be unafraid of bears
Vironika Wilde for One Day, These Tools Will Shock Museum Visitors/ Good News
Belinda Behne for Rivers of Hands
Renee Kalagayan for Keeping My Body
Tanja Lau for Map to Perimenopause
Line Dufour for Between a Rock
Aaheli Choudhury for I am the Ghost of a God
Adeleh Zahedi for Her Name
Dawn Raftery for Bad Apple
L.L. Hannah for A Shadow of Leaves
Namkeen Peshawri for Red Bangles at Midnight
Virginia Betts for An Afghan Woman Dreams
Ana Mahomar Simán for dancing in the kitchen
Anyrah Shavéh for Baby Boomers Didn’t Have the Language for Depression
Elena Hijazi for This Is Getting Absurd, Don’t You think?
Emily Mew for Another Ad Tells Me ‘Most Women are Dressing in Outfits that Don’t Flatter Them
Nancy Kangas for Baby
Aida Zilelian for Vacation
Pragya Dhiman for The Marriage Mirage
Zenobia for A Woman! Hokoyo!
Lynnda Wardle for On Not Visiting the Degas Exhibition with a First Date
Mosoul for Still She Rose: The Gospel According to Black Women
Rachel Pomeranz for Swallow
Paris Rosemont for Sour Milk and Cherries
Eva Lynch-Comer for Calling All Goddesses
Maryah Converse for Seven Dreams for a Gazan Daughter
Angela Patten for The Hall of Human Life
Chisom Okoronkwo for Girls Who Refused to Die
Leah Tyus for We Were Meant to Be Dandelions
Mike Liu for Ophella,
Cover Reveal
Front Cover Art by Artisha Youngblood
Artisha Youngblood is a digital illustrator and designer based in the Walla Walla, Washington area. Her artwork intentionally prioritizes emotional resonance and cultural storytelling over technical perfection, specializing in vibrant, stylized portraiture that explores themes of identity, resilience, and community. When she isn’t creating digital art, Artisha enjoys exploring the Pacific Northwest and creating art that reflects some of that beauty.
Back Cover Art by Christina Baltais
Christina Baltais is a Toronto-based artist working in digital and analog collage. Living with ME/CFS for more than two decades has shaped a creative practice that explores chronic illness, disability, grief, resilience, and the strength found in persistence. Through layered imagery and found materials, her work seeks to make visible overlooked experiences while fostering connection, empathy, and understanding.
Author Bios
Dr. Anamika Nath is a forensic medicine specialist, researcher, award-winning poet, and writer whose work explores memory, loss, resilience, and the hidden stories within ordinary lives.
Leonora O’Brien is an Irish poet whose work examines human connection, social injustice, and the natural world. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Poetry Planetariat by the World Poetry Movement, the Dark Poets Club and Poets for Science.
Aditi is an ordinary feminist and a recovering academic. Her book Silencing of the Sirens has drawn critical acclaim, and her work echoes across Borderless Journal, The Wise Owl Literary Magazine, Pangyrus Literary Magazine, The Hooghly Review, MeanPepperVine, SheThePeopleTVXUsawa, and The Writer’s Hour Magazine to name a few.
Darshanika Panda is an Indian poet, lawyer, socio-legal researcher, and classical dancer. Her writing explores womanhood, vulnerability, belonging and contemporary life through culturally textured imagery informed by her advocacy work. She jests that she is the “2 a.m. Seneca,” trapped inside the body of a functioning member of capitalist society.
Meghan Hoagland’s work is interested in identity, desire, womanhood, and the complicated ways we seek to be known by others and ourselves. After a lifetime of writing privately, she has only recently begun sharing her poetry with readers (this week!). She recently completed her first poetry collection and is nearing completion of a second. Her debut collection explores the emergence of a new feminine consciousness and the cultural backlash that followed, while her second examines visibility, longing, and the search for connection after returning to the dating world at thirty-seven. When not disseminating her life on paper, Meghan is a photographer, gardener, and mother who grows plants and little people in Southampton, Massachusetts.
Karen Nielsen is a physician and multidisciplinary artist in NYC. Her albums have topped the college music charts. Her artwork has shown at the Watermill Center, Pop International Galleries and others, and her poetry and visual work has appeared in I Am Not A Size Magazine, Abstract Magazine and more.
Vironika Wilde is a Ukrainian-born, Russian-indigenous poet and spoken word artist. She is the author of Love & Gaslight (New Rage Poetry, 2020) and a recipient of the OAC Literary Grant. When Vironika isn’t writing, she loves getting lost, stargazing, singing to her kids, and eating pickles (sometimes all at once).
Belinda Behne grew up in the midwest, spent most of her adult life in the vibrant culture of NYC, and currently lives on the edge of a quiet salt marsh. Her poems can be found in LEAF, The Wise Owl, Cold Moon, Folk Ku, Enchanted Garden and Shadow Pond journals.
Renee Kalagayan is a Filipina-American writer. Her work is featured or forthcoming in, among others, Relief, About Place, SoFloPoJo, Euphemism, The Dewdrop, and Sídhe Press. An MFA candidate at Converse University, she is the assistant poetry editor of South 85 Journal. Find her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Bluesky @rkalagayanpoet.
Tanja Lau is a Swiss-based poet with German-Italian roots. A highly sensitive observer and mother of two, she explores life’s complexity with vulnerability and humor. Her poems appear in Sky Island Journal, Thimble, and others. Her debut children’s book made the Swiss bestseller list in 2026.
Line Dufour‘s poems have appeared in several anthologies, as well as in magazines, including Queen’s Quarterly, US1Worksheets, and Solicitations: Poetry in Quebec. Her chapbook poem, Spade Work was nominated for the bpNicol poetry prize. She creates handmade paper poems and unique artist books, each with a poem. https://www.linedufour.com/
Aaheli Choudhury is a poet and literature student from India. A recent poetry fellow, her work explores women’s lives, sociability, and displacement. Her poems have appeared in the Utkarsh Poetry Fellowship Anthology 2025-26.
Adeleh Zahedi has a master’s degree in clinical psychology and is a PhD student in psychology. She believes that story and poetry in any medium give her the opportunity to experience a new life.
Dawn Raftery (she/her) is a writer, poet, and Korean American adoptee based in the American Midwest. Although newer to the literary world, she has bylines from a career in journalism. Currently, she’s the CCMO at a civil rights organization. She’s also known as a swanky sipper and fancy bag lady.
L.L. Hannah writes about nature, gender, and complex trauma from an ecofeminist perspective, highlighting the importance of environmental stewardship and recognition of C-PTSD. Their poetry was nominated for the Best of the Net’s 2027 Anthology, with poems available or forthcoming in Orangepeel Lit Mag, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, and elsewhere.
Namkeen Peshawri is a Khwaja Sira poet, artist, and human rights advocate from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Her work explores gender diversity, faith, belonging, resilience, and social justice. Through poetry, she amplifies marginalized voices and documents the lived experiences of transgender communities in Pakistan.
Virginia Betts is a multi-disciplinary artist: author; poet; actor and also a tutor. Her first novel was shortlisted for the Page Turners Prize 2025 and she regularly performs her poetry on stage.
Ana Mahomar Simán (ella/she/her) is a Honduran-Palestinian daughter, sister, friend, and therapist who is constantly curious about the world. Writing is how Ana pauses to remember what she’s seen, heard, and savored, how she’s been confronted and comforted, who she loves, and how she’s been shown love. You can find some of her writing in Central American Magazine Revista Zanatillo (10th & 12th Editions), Toyon Literary Magazine (Sumud Edition) The Fool’s World Vol 2.1 (Spring 2026).
Anyrah Shavéh is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, and cultural worker. She is an MFA student in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Newark. Her work explores healing, identity, womanhood, and generational memory using poetry as both advocacy and sanctuary. She empowers artists through bi-monthly showcases and educational programming. Anyrah meets every room with intention, warmth, and a voice that lingers long after the last word.
Elena Hijazi is a 22-year-old aspiring poetess from the South of Lebanon. She was born with a pen in her hand and a heart on her sleeve. She writes for her life and encourages others to do just the same. She has a blog on “Medium” where she writes articles about film, art, music, politics, literature, and poetry. Writing is all she has ever known and all she ever wants to do.
Emily Mew is a poet and therapist from Bristol, UK. She often returns to themes of nature, mothering and womanhood in her work. She has performed at Southbank Centre, London’s Vagina Museum and New York Poetry Festival. Her debut poetry collection ‘Ungrateful Woman’ was published with Written Off Publishing.
Nancy Kangas is a poet, filmmaker, and gardener living in Brooklyn, where she opened the Emergency Poetry Clinic. Her poems have been published in Fairy Tale Review, Plume, and No, Dear. She co-directed Preschool Poets: An Animated Film Series, that features the works of her students.
Aida Zilelian is a first-generation American-Armenian writer, educator and public speaker. She is the author of novels THE LEGACY OF LOST THINGS (winner of the Tololyan Prize) and ALL THE WAYS WE LIED. Aida has told stories across the country, on PBS’ Stories from the Stage, Confabulations, Suitcase Stories and other storytelling platforms. In 2025, she was a speaker coach for TEDx Cabarete. Aida’s debut poetry chapbook DISSONANCE won the Swan Scythe contest in 2025. She is giving her first TEDx talk in April with TEDx Cabarete.
Pragya Dhiman is an Indian writer. Her work has previously been published in The Literary Nest, Setu, Muse India, Defunkt Magazine, Tint Journal, Literary Yard, Muse-Pie Press’ Shot Glass Journal, and more. She has been longlisted for the Wingword Poetry Prize twice, and received a commendable mention in 2024.
Zenobia (she/her) is of Afro-Caribbean heritage and was born in Queens, New York. She has spent most of her life growing up and living in the American South and currently lives in Texas. She has a doctorate in dental medicine and is an emerging writer who has been encouraged by several recent publications in The Rumpus, All the World’s a Page sonnet anthology by Quillkeeper’s Press, and forthcoming work in Jelly Bucket for Reading and more. She is the 2025 grand prize winner of Mosaics of the African Diaspora Award for her poems and was shortlisted for award for the Dark Poets Prize III 2025.
Lynnda’s work has appeared in publications including Gutter, New Writing Scotland, thi wurd, New Orleans Review, Poetry Scotland. She is part of DeathWrites collective (Glasgow University) and is completing her MFA in Creative Writing Glasgow University. Her pamphlet ‘still a thinning’ will be published in 2027 by Red Squirrel Press.
MoSoul is a poet of witness and a law student at Howard University School of Law. He writes for the child still waiting to be seen, the worker still waiting to be heard, and the dreamer still waiting to be free. His work is part prayer, part protest, and a love letter to those history tried to footnote and who refuse to disappear.
Rachel Pomeranz (she/her) is a poet based in Wilmington, Delaware. Her poetry is largely inspired by womanhood, love, loss, and her own intrusive thoughts. She is an opera singer, voice teacher, unapologetic feminist, and single mom to the cleverest preschooler. She writes to honor her dad.
Paris Rosemont is a Thai Australian poet and author of Banana Girl, Barefoot Poetess, and >>glitch<<. Winner of the Matthew Rocca Poetry Prize 2025 and longlisted for the Blake Poetry Prize 2026, Paris is also a critic for Mascara Literary Review and Guest Editor for Written Off Literary Journal. @msparisrose
Eva Lynch-Comer is the author of the chapbook, Sonder and she earned her MFA in creative writing from Hollins University. She is a two-time pushcart prize nominee and her work has appeared in over 20 literary magazines. You can find more of Eva’s work at http://www.evalynchcomer.com and on instagram @evalynch321
Maryah Converse budgets her time between teaching, birdwatching and obsessing over events in the Arab world. She was a Peace Corps educator and Fulbright-Hays researcher in Jordan. Her publications include New Madrid Journal, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Shooter Literary Magazine. Maryah is a PhD candidate in Arabic linguistics.
Angela Patten is an award-winning Irish poet, author of five poetry collections and a prose memoir. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines in the U.S. and abroad. A native of Dublin, Ireland, she is a Senior Lecturer Emerita in English at the University of Vermont. http://www.carraigbinn.com
Chisom Okoronkwo is a Nigerian writer currently based in Scotland. She holds an MLitt in Creative Writing (Distinction) from the University of Glasgow. Her work has appeared or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Gutter Magazine, Isele Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Ake Review, Blue Marble Review, and Lunar Journal, among others.
Leah Tyus is a writer whose work has appeared in Orion and Berkeley Fiction Review. An MFA graduate of San José State University, she enjoys birdwatching and baking. She brings nearly a decade of professional editing experience to her work as both a writer and collaborative editor.
Mike Liu (he/they) is an emerging poet from Toronto, eager to prove that accountants can be interesting, too. His poetry has been featured in Zhagaram Literary, Sam Fifty Four and many more. He is a winner of the Best of the Net 2026 Anthology.
We thank all poets from around the world who participated in the contest. The new list of shortlisted poets will be announced shortly. Stay tuned!
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