HOLLY LYN WALRATH
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"You Crave Poison" - HWA Poetry Showcase V. IX, October 2022

​The gash of your mouth opens
wide around the cold
porcelain of the condemned--
the lonely, the wasteful, the lavish
like a kitten dead in the road
all things are wanting to you



​"Water Drawn from a Stone" - Not One of Us, Issue #71, July 2022

My father is calling me again in the middle of the night, in the space for dreams. I answer and although he cannot form words—just heavy syllables like stones he cannot get his teeth around, not small pebbles but large, coarse stones wet with the sound of his disease—I hear him nevertheless. Is he trying to find out if I am alright or if he is alright?

​
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“Literature for Ukraine” published in Houston Arts Journal
​March 10, 2022

"I kept thinking about the video of the Ukrainian woman, who told Russian soldiers to put sunflower seeds in their pockets so when they die on Ukrainian soil, a flower will grow. “Put the sunflower seeds in your pockets, please. You will die down here with the seeds. You came to my land. Do you understand? You are occupiers. You are enemies.”

I think this woman struck me and many others as very brave. But the idea of sunflowers – the national flower of Ukraine – growing from the corpses of soldiers is a complex and heartbreaking image. War obliterates both sides, on a human level."

2021

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Eye to the Telescope, Issue 42, October 2021, "The Sea" - A Keen for the Sea King's Daughter
"The princess is dead--
She’s laid up in the castle chapel,
hair bound in ruddy sailor’s knots
dress the color of morning tide
skin as pale and fae as starlight
—and the waves are rising on the shore."


Barely South Review, Vol 12.2, Spring 2021 - Sacrum

Researchers comment on how this is more valuable to childbearing. Because even our bones are made for what men want. Because as hard as we try to be sacred, they can always use us for sacrifice...
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Mithila Review, Issue 15 (March 19, 2021) - We're Refugees Who Found Love Searching for Atlantis 

With Italian translation by Marco Raimondo. Italian version first appeared in Numinose Lapidi (2020, Kipple Press) 

The ocean is a vessel cast in the heat of the stars
We walked there in the twilight and sang skysongs
Our bodies were translucent and full of darkness
How we carried our homeland in our bones

2020​

  • Liminality: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry (Issue #23 – Spring 2020): Daughters Saving Mothers
  • Eye to the Telescope (Issue 36, April 2020, House & Home, edited by Emma J. Gibbon): Now the Patient Recounts the Houses in Her Mind
  • Liminality: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry (Issue #24 - Summer 2020): Acacia
  • Star*Line (Issue 43.3, Summer 2020): Dear Future
  • Twisted Moon Mag (Issue 5, August 2020): We Hold Up Eternity​
  • Liminality (Issue #25, Autumn 2020): Divergent and Rotten to the Core​​
  • Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Sep/Oct): Yes, Antimatter Is Real
  • Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Nov/Dec): So Many Blank Moons 
  • Pork Belly Press (Love Me, Love My Belly Zine No.5): It's Never Going to Stop ​


​2019

​

  • Kaleidotrope (Winter 2019) - "All the Glory of Her Earthly Shell" ​
  • The Knicknackery Issue 6 (February 2019) - Bayou Dream
  • Dreams & Nightmares Magazine (Issue #111, January 2019)  - An Unknowing Breach of the Law 
  • The Avenue: Issue V: Music (April 2019) - Chopin Falls in Love with the Night (1827-1846)
  • Space & Time Magazine #133 (April 2019) - The Space Between Us
  • Not One of Us #61 (April 2019) - ​A Book Is a Tomb and Words Are Souls 
  • Mirror Dance Issue 44 (Spring 2019) - Farewell Dead Men​
  • Apparition Lit #8 (October 2019) - Belly of the Beast​
  • The 2019 Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association Contest
    • Winner: Short Form Category: The Fox and the Forest (Erasure of Ray Bradbury) 
    • Winner: Long Form Category: The Mining Town


​2018


​

  • Texas Poetry Calendar 2019 (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2018) - Dear Childhood
  • Dreams & Nightmares Magazine (Issue #110, November 2018) - How We Got Here
  • ​Star*Line 41.4 (October 2018) - A Terrible Meat Eating God​
    • Reprinted in Blood Bath Lit Zine (November 2018)
  • ​Terse Journal (Oct. 3, 2018) - What it Feels Like to Play Video Games as a Woman
  • ARTHouston Magazine Issue#7 (September 2018) - Erasure (after Ralph Waldo Emerson)  ​
  • Liminality Issue #17 (Autumn 2018) - Dead-Eye Girl ​
    • Nominated for a 2019 Rhysling Award (Order the anthology here)
  • ​Nice Cage (Issue 006, Climate Change And/Or Die, Summer/Spring 2018) - Boll Heart, And Farther Death Goes, A Deep Enough Abyss
  • Really System(Issue 19: Stymy a Seller, Summer 2018)- Orbital Debris
  • Isacoustic (July 30, 2018) - When Darkness Leaves and Diary Outside of April​
  • Undead: A Poetry Anthology of Ghouls, Ghosts, and More (Apex Book Company, July 17, 2018) - Sea Fog ​​
  • Storyscape (Issue 20, July 2018) - A Woman (erasure of William Faulkner) and She was a Nice Little Nothing (erasure of Jack Kerouac) ​
  • Ekphrastic Review - Anvil Crawler, First appeared in ARTHouston Magazine Issue#5, Also published in Dreamlike Art & Deviations, ​(Ekprhastic inspired by the artwork of John Bernhard.)
  • Isacoustic, April 14, 2018 -  espejitos (excerpt from Glimmerglass Girl) - Available for purchase in isacoustic* volume fourth (July 2018) ​



​2017


​

  • Grievous Angel, October 12, 2017 - Confessions of a Supermassive Black Hole
    • Reprinted in Audio on the Simultaneous Times Podcast 
  • Nonbinary Review, Issue#15 (November) - We Have Always Lived (Erasure of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle
    • ​​Available in Kindle format on Amazon
  • ​Dreams & Nightmares Magazine, Sept 2017 - "The Hearts of Robots"​
  • ​​My poem "Lace at the Throat" won 3rd place in the Dwarf Category in the SFPA contest. "Witches" received an honorable mention in the long poem category.
    • ​​This poem is reprinted in the SFPA Dwarf Stars Award Anthology, where it will be eligible for the award for the best speculative poem of 1-10 lines published in 2017. 
  • ​Liminality Magazine (Issue #13, Autumn 2017) - How I Lost My Chastity​
  • ​​Alyss Magazine (September 24, 2017) - Dear John Cusack
  • Houston Chronicle (September 9, 2017): After Harvey: Poems from the Flood) - Hazard Pay
  • Strange Horizons (August 7th, 2017) - Bird House
    • Listen to "Bird House" on the Strange Horizons Poetry Podcast
    • Read a review of "Bird House" at Quick Sip Reviews
  • ​Eye to the Telescope (Issue 25: July 2017, Theme: Garbage) - Dear Shotgun City
  • ​Mithila Review (Issue 8) - My City of Ruin in The Santa Monica Prophecies: A Collaborative Triptych
    • Reviewed at Quick Sip Reviews.
    • Purchase this issue on Amazon.
  • Mithila Review (Issue 8) - Two Visual Poems - Lunar Girl Drinks Poetry from the Stars & Reflection ​
    • Listen to recordings of my poems from this issue: ​
      • The Santa Monica Prophecies - My City of Ruin
      • Lunar Girl Drinks Poetry from the Stars
      • Reflection
  • By & By Poetry (Issue 7) - Grayslick
  • Abyss & Apex (Issue 62: 2nd Quarter 2017) - Spring Will Come Again
    • Appears in The Best of Abyss & Apex: Volume 3
  • Liminality (Issue #11: Spring 2017) - Pine Song, Robin Song, Star Song
  • Crab Fat Magazine (March 2017) - Of Whales in Paint and Other Poems
  • ​The Fem (1/11/17) - Lolita and City Visible (Erasures of Nabokov and Rushdie)
  • Unlost Journal (Issue 8, Jan. 8, 2017) - Man, Erased (An Erasure of Pessoa)
  • Kaleidotrope, (Winter 2017) - Ship of Jinn

2016

​

  • Ghost Proposal, Dec. 2016 - Loomings
  • Eastext (October 2016) - Without People & Out of the Labyrinth​
    • ​Read more at Arts & Culture Texas
    • ​Read more at Free Press Houston
    • Read an excerpt of my poetry at Literal Magazine
  • Eye to the Telescope (Issue 22: October 2016, Theme: Ghosts) - Hart Island
    • ​Read Editor Shannon Connor Winward's thoughts on picking poems for this issue, ​which includes a lovely write-up of my work here.
    • ​Reviewed in Spectral Realms No. 6 
  • Star*Line (Issue 39.4: Fall 2016) - Cetecean Prosthesis
  • ​​Liminality Magazine (Issue 9: Autumn 2016) - For Lonnie
    • ​*Nominated for the 2016 SFPA Rhysling Award*
  • Literary Orphans (Issue 26: Shirley) - Peony Red
  • Sixfold Journal (Summer 2016) - A Tourist of Sorts and Other Poems
  • ​​Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry (June 2016) - Night Raven
  • Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry (May 2016) - Woven
  • ​Abyss & Apex (Issue 58: 2nd Quarter 2016) - Revolution
    • ​​*Nominated for the 2016 SFPA Rhysling Award*
  • Penumbra, 2016 - "Bearing the Light" ​
  • ​Sixfold Literary Journal (Poetry Winter 2015/2016) - "Behind the Glass," "Housewife," "She Learns How to Disappear," "Two Young Wives," and "Aerie." ​
  • Page & Spine (March 11, 2016) - "Sheaves of Wheat," and "Break of Day." ​
  • ​​Silver Blade Issue 29 (Winter 2016) - "Powder Keg"

2015
​

  • Vine Leaves #16 (October 2015) - "A Red Sky." 
  • Our Space: Shorts & Poetry from the Houston Community (2015) "Morning Song." Edited by Writespace staff and volunteers. 

forthcoming
​

  • Kaleidotrope (2024) - "Here Be Dragons" and "The Will of the Whisps Mother" 
© COPYRIGHT 2022. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
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