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Koss Poetry & Art

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Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect – Now Shipping!

cover aerial view of book dancing backwards towards pluperfect by koss with brown tones and black wire and telephone pole with birds

Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect

by Koss

Diode Contest Winner and Lambda Literary Lammy Lesbian Poetry Finalist (2025)
Published by Diode Editions
Release date: October 2025
Now shipping!

Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is a poetic assemblage of a life sown outside the predictability of middle-class, straight America, one where the aftermath of repeated trauma and loss is allayed by unexpected moments of connection, empathy, and love.

Koss pens inventive textual routes through life transits, forging head-on through the debris with unflinching vision and grit in a timbre that shifts from existential dread to dark comedy. Part dirge and part survival story, Dancing Backwards transmutes the rubble of trauma, abandonment, grief, and suicide loss into a queer, hybrid elixir, their lived story worthy of telling.

PURCHASE a signed copy


Blog Posts

pink motorcycle boots with poetry title and text for Koss's, "Love Song for a Friend."

scissors & spackle poetry

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 […]

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repository poem in san pedro river review by koss

San Pedro River Review | Poetry Publication

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 […]

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Boats Against the Current promotional graphic, green, cream, for Koss poem

Boats Against the Current – Poetry – Koss

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 […]

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alien buddha zine #35 cover art

Alien Buddha – Publication

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 […]

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visual poem on crossword poem with greens, black, and water-soluble crayon

Done 2021 | Water-Soluble Crayon on Crossword Poem

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!

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harold and maude hearse on starlit sky with promotional poetry text

Moist Poetry Journal | Poem by Koss

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 […]

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Crossword Poem/Art by Koss graphite, drawing

Indecision | Koss | Crossword Art

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.

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Celestial Work | Koss | Crossword Poem

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

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crossword list poem with graphite washes and black wormy shapes

Calves, a Crossword Poem

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

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black snake illustration

Schuylkill Valley Journal | Dispatches | Publication

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 […]

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green background with boy slumped in chair painting and text from chiron review 124 poem by koss

Chiron Review 124 | Poetry

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 […]

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Gone Lawn | Koss | Zuihitsu Poem

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 […]

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