poems (Copy) — katie berta

from collective

Arkansas International. "[“Clean up your life”]."

Bennington Review. "[I was bored of the brunch of it]" & "[Someone told you what you were at one time]."

Black Warrior Review. “[The body of the body lives beyond the body].”

Cherry Tree. “[I if obvious to others].”

The Cincinnati Review. “[To be a child again].”

Denver Quarterly. “[If constrained].”

DMQ Review. “[Having been mothered, didn’t I tell myself ‘never motherhood’].”

Guesthouse. “[What is uncondescendingly mutual]” & “[I will not be absorbed].”

The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review. “[Every day one burden is to convince yourself to live and not jump into traffic],” “[Lesson of my childhood],” & “[No one saw you before this].”

Hiram Poetry Review. “[God do I have a heart full of rage]” & “[In biology class, I was the one who dissected the fetal pig.]”

Juked. “[I am a body—I am].”

The Moth. “[I am a child and things aren’t going well.]”

Ninth Letter. "[I, if here on earth]."

New Letters. “[Nobody’s favorite]” & “[Mouth-bound and sent out from my parents’ house].”

The Pinch. “[Baby is alone in the house again].”

Ploughshares. “[It is like a long tunnel].”

Poetry Daily. “[It is like a long tunnel]” (originally published in Ploughshares).

The Rupture. “[Set off like a ball rolling down a hill].”

Southeast Review. “[Wanting to be a servant of no one and wanting to compel service from no one]” & “[Dreaming of being singular].”

Southern Indiana Review. "[Someone is pulsing up from inside of you]" & “[And, having been considered only locally a sinner]."

wildness. “[I am an I, but also I am a we].”

The Yale Review. “[Valuing sincerity most of all].”

Yemassee (now Cola Literary Review). “[The first morning I wake up in my apartment].”

from retribution forthcoming

Aperçus Quarterly. “Cave”

Bayou Magazine. “Batter My Heart You No-Personed God.”

Blackbird. “Dream Catalogue” & “My City is Also a City.”

Forklift, Ohio. “When You Thought You Were Better.”

Green Mountains Review. “On the Way to King Lear We See a Motorcyclist Who Has Died.”

Grist. “The Women I Thought Of As Popular In High School Are Having Babies Who Die.”

Hobart. “Everything We Eat Used To Be Alive, Or Still Is.”

Identity Theory. “Twitter is Abject,” “A Magazine Article is Trying to Convince Me That the Bags Under My Eyes Equal Cell Death,” & “Trucking Toward Oblivion Engaged in Microscopic Pursuits.”

Indiana Review. “Google Search Results.”

The Iowa Review. (Iowa Review Awards Runner-up) “Sometimes I Feel Exactly Like Satan,” “Getting Down on Your Knees Really Works,” “I Said Yes To Make Sure He Used A Condom,” “Birthday,” & “Because I Want To Die, I Go to Nordstrom Rack”

Jet Fuel Review. “What the Machines Feel.”

The Journal. “When I See Pictures of My Nieces Playing in the Snow.”

Lake Effect. “Remembering That Time In My Life When I Used To Think A Lot About Innocence.”

The Laurel Review. “Meat.”

The Massachusetts Review. “The Rattlesnakes They Keep in the Life Sciences Building Remind Me of My Dog.”

Post Road. “When I Ask Myself Wiltingly ‘To What Has My Life Been Reduced?’ This Is The Answer” & “After I Was Raped The Second Time I Lost 40 Pounds.”

Prairie Schooner. “My Therapist is Teaching Me.”

Redivider. “‘There is a me under this me who wishes to do lovely in this magnificent’” & “I Do Still Like a Microwave Dinner.”

The Rumpus. “How Is a River Like a Woman the Poets Want to Know” & “Like That.”

Salt Hill. “Upon Hearing About the Student Arrested at the Gun Shop.”

Sixth Finch. “I Don’t Like It When You Spray the House with Ant Poison” & “I Am Trying to Drink More Water.”

Sixth Finch. “Will I Survive This New Season?”

Sixth Finch. “I Lived in a Beautiful Place.”

SWWIM Every Day. “I Realized Skincare Would Not Save My Life.”

Verse Daily. “After I Was Raped The Second Time I Lost 40 Pounds” (reprinted).

Washington Square Review. “Cosmopolitan.”