Koss Poetry & Art

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Grateful to have erasure work in (Re) An Ideas Journal. Thank you H.E. Fisher and Felice Neal for including me. Pleased to share space with James Diaz, Amarilis Amy, M.A. Scott, Twila Newey, and everyone else! Check out my other posts and pages for more Wuthering Heights visual poems. They are inspired by someone I love and lost but explore […]

I’ve been doing a series of artworks based on Wuthering Heights. Some of them have a feminist bend, some are about someone I lost (who loved this book). Most are pretty nightmarish. Whether you call them collages, blackout poems, or visual meditations, it does my soul good to do them. This one was from an […]

Fonts come loaded in our software and ready to flaunt their beauty and authority as our fingers fly over our keyboards. We take this magic for granted, and we might feel like font masters as they are so part of our daily existence, but knowing how to use Word doesn’t make us fabulous designers, just […]

The best things in life are free—but websites are not among these things! Free web hosting may seem like a great deal, especially if you’re a student or on a budget, but there are many good reasons not to go that route. What might save you in dollars initially can cost you in the long […]

Here is a slow-moving video of my zuihitsuish, lazy abecedarian poem, “Through the Body’s Bramble.” This poem was published in Feral and was the final poem in the manuscript, tiny corpus, a recent runner-up finalist in Harbor Editions ’23 chapbook contest. The poem, IMHO is one of the most important in my grief work. Note […]

Koss 2023 great big publication update—plus when Kali comes to straighten you out—replete with angry gods & convenient skip-to links for busy people While I’ve been super-blessed with numerous publications recently (thank you, kindly, editors), the strangeness of this year has given me pause on all fronts including curbing my submissions and creative production. Of […]

Honored to be included in this cool anthology along with lots of edgy writers. Bonemilk II is the second anthology from Gutslut Press, edited by Aimee J. Sanghvi and P.D. Hogan. I have a poem, “You, Drawing” in this issue, along with a longer, experimental grief piece, “Dreaming in Tongues” and a caged angel photo. […]

Honored to have two poems published in Bending Genres Issue 30. I’m also happy to be in the company of so many great writers including: Kim Magowan, Quinn Rennerfeldt, Hannah Greico, and many others. I’m behind in my posting and Issue 31 is live, so be sure to check that out too.

Very happy to have some asemic writing published in diode poetry this past December. This is the second batch of visual poems Patty Paine published (see previous issue too). For more information about asemic writing, check out this book review in Art News.

Honored to have some visual poetry in Harpy Hybrid Review (three pieces included). This is my second publication with them, so I’m thrilled to be invited back. They include questions for the artists to complete describing their process, so I did my best to shed some light. This is a great issue with lots of […]

So happy to be among the nominees in Gone Lawn’s Pushcart Nominations 2022 list. Very grateful to Owen Wyke and Amy Copella Barnes. The piece was a flash called The Dictations of Cabbages. Other nominees include Susan Triemert, Betsy Finesilver Haberle, Kim Magowan, James Montgomery, and Olga Musial.

Alternate Thanksgiving (first published in Lumiere Review) In the alternate universe, we dwell—early morn—in the ironiesthat are Thanksgiving, discussing abundance and at whose expense. I am your “Cherokee dude”and in kindness, you pull a comb through my wet tangled hair, wresting the handle with your weight.You wouldn’t mind my pounds of grief, speaking of weight, […]

Surprised and honored to receive my first CNF (creative non-fiction) piece nominated for a Pushcart prize for non-fiction from Variant Literature. Grateful to the editors and wish us all luck!

Koss has a mystical poem about grief published in Hyacinth Review.

Writing list poetry is a great way to jumpstart your poetry writing. Use it to generate creative material or organize and refine it into finished works. Lists can be as short as a couple of words or extend into more complete thoughts like a Zuihitsu.

In White Van, Tuite creates her own genre of darkness, of inescapable trauma drawn in vignettes that smear into a miasma of despair. Point of view shifts and blurs, creating a disembodied, dissociative vibe.

Petrichor Issue 21 is full of interesting writing and includes a number of great visual art pieces. My work is an ekphrastic poem about Joan Mitchell’s “The Hudson” painting from the 50s, called “The Hudson Looks Different.” Also included is an asemic art or writing piece, made from old journals and sketchbooks, a palimpsest of […]

Honored to have cover art and flash in Gone Lawn Issue 46. The artwork is hand drawn, then enhanced digitally. The flash, “The Dictations of Cabbages,” is, I think, a COVID persona piece written in the voice of a carrot on the moon. Okay, I hope I didn’t spoil it. It’s unlike anything I’ve written. […]

Really honored to have my zuihitsu poem, “Again: Holidays” nominated for the 2023 Best of the Net anthology for the poetry category. Very grateful to Owen Wyke and Amy Barnes for the nomination.

Very pleased and surprised to be among Outlook Springs Best of the Net nominees for 2023. My poem, if William Burroughs Were Your Secretary, published in Outlook Springs print journal and online, was nominated. There’s lots of great poetry and fiction you can find on their site. Check out the print issue and my sound […]

Surprised and happy to be included in Mom Egg Review’s online eco-poetry-themed folio. It includes a great selection of poets, so be sure to read the whole issue here, and find my work here. The poems in this portfolio, curated by Cindy Veachy and Jennifer Martelli, are mother-ecological pieces with a range of poetic expressions.

Happy to have a list poem included in Rat’s Ass Review’s Fall/Winter 2022 issue, “Ten Things to Remember About Me When I’m Dead,” a darkly funny piece that shares a few special things about me. I love list poems (also called inventory or catalog poems), which, in many cases, are zuihitsu poems with constraints. One […]

Honored to have tornado artwork (a watercolor) in the first Eat the Storms literary print journal, a project of the international Eat the Storms Poetry Podcast (from Ireland). It’s a fine-quality journal with glossy pages and color work–plus lots of great writing. Eat the Storms Podcast and Eat the Storms Journal are edited/curated by Damien […]

So grateful for this publication in Schuylkill Valley Journal, Volume 54, Spring Summer 2022, of “Telemother,” a mother poem I wrote in my twenties (it has been refined). This is such a handsome issue. When humans kill themselves off and the apes learn to read, they’ll find this in an abandoned used bookstore and love […]

Honored to be included in the latest San Pedro River Review (Vol. 14 No.2) in the company of some great poets. This is a long poem about my great-grandmother, West Virginia logging, labor, and my southern roots. I will update this with the actual poem in the near future, but here’s the link to buy […]

I’m honored to have a strange, mystical synesthetic poem, “Hue Sung,” in the latest issue of Red Ogre Review. There’s an eclectic mix of work in this issue, including art, prose poems, and poems. This piece will also be in their fall anthology. The acceptance came fast and the piece was up quickly. I love […]

Hyacinth, a gorgeous new journal that publishes a range of poetry, photography, and art, published a suite of photographs, August, on August 11, the anniversary of Max’s suicide. Three of these were taken with her by my side a couple of days before she died. Two were shot shortly after. One angel piece also appeared […]

How lucky can I be? Bending Genres included a flash, Sister Story, which I wrote in my twenties called Sister Story in issue 28. This is a difficult piece about how secrets get buried in marriage, stories, and language itself. I’m very grateful to Meg Tuite, David O’Connor, Robert Vaughan, and the rest of the […]

Happy to have this experimental writing, Sandwich, in Schuylkill Valley Dispatches, an online feature of Schuylkill Valley Magazine. It is not holy, but there is still time to be holy. I’m big on validation along with all the transcendental stuff. I’ve got another piece coming out this month (August 2022) in the Schuylkill Valley print […]

Happy to be included in this release of Anvil Tongue, a website and book publisher run by Daniel Ryan. An Emily Dickinson erasure on hope, a written poem, and some visual word art based on Wuthering Heights are included. The work is in my manuscript about the suicide of a person dear to me. Some […]

I am happy to get two poems in Sinister Wisdom, a lesbian poetry journal that has existed for decades. This issue was mostly dedicated to disabled writers and curated, but two of my poems were picked up by the editor, both queer. One is about my great-great-grandmother who died in Eloise, an asylum in Wayne […]

I’m so honored to have another poem published on Bending Genres. This one is about the Brady Bunch, and, oh, how the grass can be greener. I wrote this when I was 25. It was rejected plenty, but I recently sent it out and got lucky. Also, see my page about Toby and Lady, a […]

Honored to have a disturbing but important poem in South Florida Poetry Journal’s latest issue (#25). #CW. So grateful to the editors for publishing. Read it along with a bunch of great work and sound files here.

I’ve been organizing and digging through years of debris as I figure out what I want my life to look like going forward. Haven’t been able to write lately but have been making cards and paper art, which does something else creatively. It’s nice to be outside of language right now. Below, a drawing of […]

Grateful to be in Up the Staircase Quarterly #57. This issue is full of great poetry and art. Poetry by these people included: Quinn Forlini | “Attenuation” Sanvitti Sahdev | “I fill up” Fiona Lu | “hunting” Oluwafisayo Akinfolami | “Semantics” Satya Dash | 2 poems: “Elasticity” and “Two Deaths” Jill Khoury | “Subjective Units […]

Thrilled to be included in this Punk poetry anthology from Kissing Dynamite, a poetry journal (edited by Christine Taylor). There are lots of great writers in here including Michael Chan. Kissing Dynamite is one of my favorite, inclusive online journals. They publish poetry and art once a month and only consider one poem at a […]

Very happy to have two experimental pieces in scissors & spackle, a sort of experimental/punk literary journal. “Love Song for a Friend” is a grief list poem and “gratitudes” is also lists that became something readworthy (hopefully). The friend in “Love Song” is Kim who left the world too soon. I also wrote about her […]

So fortunate to be in another issue of San Pedro River Review. This issue has a theme of Place. Jeff and Tobi, the editors, are kind and efficient. They have two brief submission windows each year, then superfast notices for submitters. Generally, a month or so after an acceptance, the issue is out. I wish […]

Boats Against the Current is a wonderfully designed, promising new journal founded by McKenna Themm, a poet and managing editor of the LA Review. Boats Against the Current Magazine is an online journal dedicated to poetry. My poem explores grief as told through the lifespan and habits of crickets. Read it here, and if you’re […]

I’m very behind in blog posts but was happy to have three poems published in Alien Buddha at the end of January 2022. These are pieces from my manuscript, One for Sorrow, and address domestic violence, one, queers and the church–a tough sell for the lit world–so very grateful for the publication. Alien Buddha publishes […]

Done, 2021, a visual poem on newsprint crossword—created by moi at the end of the year. I’ve been depriving myself of color for a long time. Here’s a new start to occasional color. Happy New Year!

This is nearly a month late, but I’ve been struggling with a photo I bought of Harold’s hearse (from the movie Harold and Maude) and finally finished it today. Was pleased to get accepted into Moist Poetry Journal, a queerish journal and feminist space started by Han Vanderhart. This particular sequence of poems was guest […]

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes I can’t believe in language. But all that really matters is the pencil, the brush, and this moment. Check out some of my other crossword poems and art in my blog. You can also navigate by the categories. Thanks for visiting.

Another crossword poem/drawing. It’s made of graphite crayon, pencil and washes. Check out some other recent posts for more.

Another crossword poem (or the crossword list). Graphite and liquid graphite on mounted crossword poem.

Very happy to have this experimental writing, Because You Are Gone: I Dream You Laughing in Schuylkill Valley Journal Dispatches. When Schuylkill editor Rob Kaniuk wrote me and said it was “kick ass,” it confirmed my suspicion it was finished and gives me the confidence to stay strange (and experimental). Schuylkill’s Dispatches is an online […]

Very happy to have poems in Chiron Review 124. Love this cover art. Chiron is a 40+ year-old lit mag publishing writers like Marge Piercy, Lyn Lifshin and Charles Bukowski. It was created by Michael Hathaway in 1981 and was published in a tabloid format, as many journals were then. I’m so thrilled to be […]

Thrilled to have poetry in Gone Lawn #42. Thank you @OwenKaelan and @amygcb! There are lots of great writers in this issue. This is my third poem about holidays published in 2021, and how fortunate this one comes out on Halloween and as those other holidays come creeping. This piece, “Again, Holidays” is a zuihitsu […]

So honored to get another Best of the Net nomination (for poetry this time). Kissing Dynamite has been good to me. Check out all their nominations on their site. The poem that was nominated is “A Dyke Cowgirl Takes Herself on a Covid Taco Bell Date.” They made this part of their Featured Poet series. […]

Very honored to have this poem, which has had a hard life, in Prelude Magazine. It’s called “Slippery Gods, Not Things” and, well, you just need to click and read it. More art coming soon. Promise. And maybe I’ll even get some up to sell in the near future.

Happy to have a second poem published in Rat’s Ass Review on 10-27-2021. This issue is full of great writers and has a lovely cover (I’ll update this when I’m not so tired). Read it here, and, of course, here’s an album cover, although I fear I soon won’t have time to make these, half-assed […]

Finished a couple pieces and am playing around with another asemic art or writing piece. The big-nosed magpie on board is finished. I posted it earlier. I’m still playing around with drawing/writing on crossword puzzles. Used a fixative, but am struggling with (albeit intrigued by) how media behaves on the cheap newsprint/manila paper. Conjures memory […]

Episode 13, Season 3. This is tomorrow (Saturday, 10-2-2021) and I’m reading (or I did a recording). I’m the only Yank. Everyone else, I believe, reads beautifully with their gorgeous UK, non-midwestern accents. I left several flaws so as not to offend the gods, although I regret it a bit seeing who else is reading. […]

I’m really touched today that Bending Genres nominated my Toby and Lady piece for fiction for Best of the Net 2021. It means so much coming from such a talented bunch of writers. Other BOTN nominees included Lannie Stabile for poetry, and, well, you can see the Bending Genres Twitter list here. And read “The […]

This is throwback Saturday, I guess. This poem was previously published in Spillway 27.

CW SUICIDE |  Once a sonnet, once a not-sonnet, longer and in Entropy in a haibun, now reduced to this. Included is a photo of Millais’ Ophelia, which in its original form was too festively colored to convey the tragedy, imho. I started writing this in my head and with my camera in 2017 . […]

Honored to be a finalist for my manuscript, Through the Body’s Bramble. Diode is one of my favorite publishers. Maybe a future book with them . . . Also had my 100th acceptance this week for a poem about my grandmother.

Honored to be in Kissing Dynamite’s 32nd “Burn” Issue. If you want to know what inclusivity in literature looks like, check them out. Also, check out my “Featured Poet” section from last year. Kissing Dynamite publishes internationally, with poets from as far away as Nigeria. Their issues are in PDF, so you can download them […]

Koss is winner of the 2021 Wergle Flomp Humor Award. Their poem, My Therapist Sez, originally published in Diode took first place in this year's contest.

Bending Genres just released their 22nd issue online with an eclectic mix of work. Happy to have a poem titled, “The Unbearable Inertia of Clothes” published. It includes divination, cane toads, the Tazmanian Devil, and musty clothes. Below is an excerpt, but read the entire thing (plus other interesting work) on their site.

Happy to have three poems in Anti-Heroin Chic today, one of my favorite journals that are building a publishing community around inclusivity and healing. These poems come with a content warning (abuse). What do Flint children, rockin’ motorcycle dude-dads, and white trash, small-town losers have in common? Well, this poet. Read them here and check […]

Thrilled to have a piece in the latest issue of San Pedro River Review, “The Opt-out Mother,” an austere piece about ubiquitous mother energy, loss, and well, I won’t spoil it for you. There are lots of great writers and photographers in here, including Marge Piercy. I hate to be swoony, but it’s kind of […]

Poetic commentary about cyberspace, social media, and its dehumanizing aspects--in Feral.

Honored to have poems today in Harpy Hybrid Review (plus some images and an Imayo broadside). There are other links, but for today, here is one, my usual square “album cover.” There’s lots of great writing in this issue (will add links later). These editors were some of the nicest to work with. They even […]

Looking forward to this new book by Lannie Stabile (a queer Michigan writer) called Good Morning to Everyone Except Men Who Name Their Dogs Zeus from Cephalopress Books.

Very honored to have two poems in Feral Poetry this month. One is a sort of zuihitsu abecedarian and the other is about suicide and shaming. Too much going on to make photos for now, unfortunately. Here are the links, however, and there’s lots of other interesting work. Feral is a newer feminist-leaning hip journal […]

Happy to have five poems in Dreich Magazine (I believe the official name is now the Dreich Quarterly Review). They have changed dramatically since sending them a year or so ago, but happy to have different versions of Max poems sprinkled like ashes throughout the galaxy. “Max’s Bedroom” is an American sonnet about the aftermath […]

Pleasantly surprised to find my poem, “My Therapist Sez” was featured on Diode Poetry’s main page (along with an excerpt. It may disappear by the time you find this, so here’s the link to the entire poem. Patty Paine has been good to me and Diode is publishing some really great work in the journal […]

"Koss published a Kafkaesque poem about the trauma of birth in Mom's Egg Review #19. If you dig cockroaches and queer cowgirls, this is for you."

Thrilled to have another piece in Bending Genres today. #CW suicide, sex, original sin, goats, dirty airedales. This is a big fat issue with lots of interesting writing. Reading tonight.

Pleased to have two pieces from One for Sorrow published in The Lumiere Review today. "Alternate Thanksgiving" is the first piece in the book. "Twelve Past Dead" appears in a different form (two consecutive poems) in the book.

Pleased to have a poem released on a strange and difficult day of beginnings and endings. This piece is ritualistic and I started it in a CA Conrad workshop, then “workshopped” it in Lynn Melnick’s 92Y workshop last fall/winter. It incorporates bits of the ritual into it. Does that make it meta-ritualistic? I don’t know, […]

Screwing around tonight with some paint and pens, which I then digitized. These are possible inclusions in the book–Magpies of sorts with asemic writing, Wuthering Heights page, and a mysterious black package . . . I like digitizing the work and replicating, changing, introducing new variables . . . Yes, I’m still a bit of […]

Rogue Agent has released issue 72, which includes poetry by: Jen Yáñez-AlanizCassandra GriffingKatie Darby MullinsMelissa Fite JohnsonAlix PerryINTERVIEW: Jessica AbughattasPaula EthansJustin VicariKossSara Luisa KirkAndrew Kozma What a great list of contributors. My somatic poem, “Shoulder Story” is a song to my deformed shoulder. I know I’m supposed to be writing erotic landscape poems as a […]

I don’t know how I missed this unless it got zapped in the mysterious WordPress crash of February, but my flash fiction/prose poem first published in Cincinnati Review’s Micro series was selected for the Best Small Fictions 2020 anthology. I received my copy a month ago, and it’s full of great writing including work by […]

We are quite slammed with snow today, but I thought I should take a minute and update this page as I’ve been enjoying a publishing windfall and thought I should share it with you. I received my contributor’s copy to Five Points recently. I have extra copies of the issue if you want to trade […]

Happy to be Kissing Dynamite’s Featured Poet on this new issue release day. They are one of my favorite inclusive press/journals.

Happy New Year! I hope you are experiencing some hope in the bizarre new one. I was quite happy to boot 2020 out the door. Despite the violence and threats in the US, I am harboring a small, inexplicable bit of hope. It seems to come by situating myself in a place of surrender to […]

As an artist, I have to admit feeling extra disappointed at getting rejected from ekphrastic magazines and calls. Was pleased to get chosen by guest editor, Trish Hopkinson for the Golden Walkman Magazine “In Response” theme. My piece is located at about 12:58. I have another art related poem in Filth that includes Andy Warhol […]

Very thrilled to have this poem published in Diode–the only poem in the galaxy that includes papaya salad, kundalini awakenings, and bad therapy. Lots of good writing in this issue and an interesting Diane Seuss conversation/interview where she aptly talks about the differences between poetry and art.

Was pleased to get this copy of Spillway #28 in the mail a couple days ago. Lots of good poetry on the inside . . . This is a dream poem from my forthcoming book, One for Sorrow. I’ve been told it’s cheap to write about dreams, but I rather think of dreams as poems […]

Be safe. Wear a Mask. I’m not kidding.