- Carol Barrett – Esther Talks to Her Unborn Child
Poet Carol Barrett's poem is spoken in the voice of biblical Queen Esther, from the Tanakh or Old Testament Book of Esther.
- Guadalupe Salgado Partida – Nearing Heaven
Guadalupe Salgado Partida, with her poem "Nearing Heaven", tilts our eyes skyward, just as the eyes of the poem's narrator when she asks her father about God.
- Laura Johnson – To the Daughter I Never Had
Iowa poet Laura Johnson's "To the Daughter I Never Had" is a heart-rending work of what could have been, of loss, absence, and missed opportunities.
- Gina Ferrara – Along Its Course
New Orleans poet Gina Ferrara writes a poem of awareness, inevitability, permanence, and nature, the lines of which are gathered around the shores of a sluggish river.
- Anya Smith – Mountain Messaged Erotica
Anya Smith's three-part sequence poem, "Mountain Messaged Erotica", is narrative rife with outdoorsy rustic goodness and passion.