Vallum Magazine

An Inked Shorthand of Marks

T.Liem: “The Whole Catastrophe” was a pleasure to read. With my pencil in hand, I was tracing ideas, underlining phrases, and noting recurring lines. There is also so much sound-joy in reading it aloud, hearing your patterns of assonance and slant rhyme. It is this musicality that lets readers draw themselves along the earth with your speaker. These are poems which also feel like invitations. Congratulations on this publication and thanks for taking the time to talk about it with me!

Jami Macarty: My pleasure, T.! The image of you reading with your “pencil in hand” makes me a happy poet. I love that you read the poems aloud, for aloud was part of their compositional process and that allowed you to hear the poems like ears hear birds, their words song. A “sound-joy”! Hurrah, your compound, your reading aloud, and your pencil! Thank you for the gift of your attention to my poems. I am excited for this chance to talk with you about The Whole Catastrophe.

DIGITAL BATH by William Grant | Poem in Re-view

Check out our Poem in Re-view section featuring the great poem “DIGITAL BATH” by William Grant.

Announcing the publication of A Mass Choir of Little Things by 2024 Vallum Chapbook Contest Winner, Ockert Greeff!

A Mass Choir of Little Things seems sculpted by decay. Poet and percussionist Ockert Greeff examines physical evidence of impending disaster and recent loss, from leftover clothes to leathery faces. Bodies and landscapes bear wounds of time and the promise of finality. In one poem, his mother giggles like a girl; in the next, she cannot recognize him. But Greeff’s sparse, vivid language also finds life within endings. He imagines his elderly mom as a baby turtle wading into the water; he chronicles organisms that persist. An orange pickup truck in the desert, a swimmer lifting his arms to the sky. Greeff’s preoccupation with “the dark mass that is taking us all” reveals a gentle attention to existence — the rhythms of a haircut, the silences of a funeral — figuring death as one part of the story.

SEPIA by Frances Boyle | Poem in Re-view

Check out our Poem in Re-view section featuring the great poem “SEPIA” by Frances Boyle.

ANNOUNCING NEW CHAPBOOK BY JAMI MACARTY:

“In Jami Macarty’s The Whole Catastrophe, every asterisk indicates something precious. Macarty uses the poetic form to create space for what is otherwise omitted: the fresh air outside car windows, the stars blotted out by city infrastructures, a friend gone too soon. Chronicling a road trip to the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, Macarty reflects on fragility, greed and the disasters we must withstand, from toxic feedlots to carbon monoxide poisoning.

POEMS FROM THE CROWD series

If you would like your work to be considered to appear in Vallum’s new digital series, submit your poem. Guidelines for the “POEMS FROM THE CROWD” Series Submissions are accepted from September 15, 2024 to January 15, 2025. There is no fee to submit your work. Submission Requirements: Poem: Submit one poem with a maximum […]

Announcing the winner of the 2024 Vallum Chapbook Award:

Ockert Greeff, for his chapbook: “A Mass Choir of Little Things” Excerpt from chapbook: * * * I let go of my yellow lunchbox Watch it swirl away in the dark water Past the boy who cannot give up He is swimming, lifting his arms up High out of the water, […]