Up the Staircase Quarterly
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upthestaircase.bsky.social
Up the Staircase Quarterly
@upthestaircase.bsky.social
900 followers 560 following 35 posts
An online journal of poetry & art.

posts by editor @aprilmbratten.bsky.social

Cover art by Lauren Rinaldi

http://www.upthestaircase.org
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upthestaircase.bsky.social
Up the Staircase Quarterly @upthestaircase.bsky.social · 12d
Issue 71 of Up the Staircase Quarterly is live! Cover art by Lauren Rinaldi.

Thanks so much to all of our contributors! You can read the issue at upthestaircase.org
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
glasspoetry.bsky.social
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
upthestaircase.bsky.social Up the Staircase Quarterly @upthestaircase.bsky.social · 12d
Issue 71 of Up the Staircase Quarterly is live! Cover art by Lauren Rinaldi.

Thanks so much to all of our contributors! You can read the issue at upthestaircase.org
November 1, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
chapp010.bsky.social
Thank you to Editor @aprilmbratten.bsky.social for selecting my poem - " 'Dans ces beiges très confortables.,' " written after Hélène Bessette's Ida ou le délire - to appear in Issue 71 of @upthestaircase.bsky.social. I'm honored to share these pages with so many wonderful poets and artists.
Carrie Chappell with Hélène Bessette's Ida ou le délire. Carrie Chappell's poem, 'Dans ces beiges très confortables.,' after Hélène Bessette's Ida ou le délire. Continuation of Carrie Chappell's poem, 'Dans ces beiges très confortables.,' after Hélène Bessette's Ida ou le délire. A page from Hélène Bessette's Ida ou le délire.
November 1, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
vikkicwrites.bsky.social
Grateful to have a new poem 'Childhood' included in Issue 71 of @upthestaircase.bsky.social alongside a wealth of talent!

Huge thank you to EIC @aprilmbratten.bsky.social for selecting my work ❤️
upthestaircase.org/vikki-c.html

(ALT TEXT included)

Check out the full issue at the link in replies.
Vikki C. | Childhood Mostly, I wasted it, in refuse sites bright with strangers’ belongings, throwaways and condemned vehicles. They are planning to turn the toxic lake into a freshwater reservoir. Permission granted the summer you left. They will name it Tranquility. Introduce lush colonies of fish to colour in the stenciled dark. Powdered pellets of sedatives skimming the water at dusk, to send those creatures to sleep—even as light radiation peaks. The glow must have been my mother visiting, as promised. She, another site of special scientific interest, treated too late. Each time those harsh rays shone through her like sabers, I innocently sketched them around another circle—to make a new sun. Below, an emerald landscape reaching to meet it, the sprinkler set to a gentle spray. My father walking through the rainbowed spectrum, as if returning. I would wait—longer than I counted—for his steps to draw near, for the key to turn in the lock, and amber to pour through the crack, illuminating the pairs of animal figures, who waited too. The ending was less than he remembers—a rearrangement of night and TV static, the bent August heat on oily kneecapped roads. Some alien waterlilies, like retired ballerinas, larger than a man’s fists, overtaking the sidewalks. Surviving, rootless. Like all other variables, the experts couldn't explain such condition. Water versus concrete. Truth versus playground. The vapour in those polished mason jars, never too tightly sealed.
November 1, 2025 at 3:19 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
Issue 71 of Up the Staircase Quarterly is live! Cover art by Lauren Rinaldi.

Thanks so much to all of our contributors! You can read the issue at upthestaircase.org
November 1, 2025 at 4:06 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
We are open for submissions of poetry and art until September 15th: www.upthestaircase.org/submit.html
a cartoon drawing of a person standing in a field of flowers
ALT: a cartoon drawing of a person standing in a field of flowers
media.tenor.com
August 13, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
duotrope.com
Up the Staircase Quarterly @upthestaircase.bsky.social (Poetry Art; non-paying) opened to submissions https://duotrope.com... #amwriting
Re-opening: Up the Staircase Quarterly
Up the Staircase Quarterly @upthestaircase.bsky.social (Poetry Art; non-paying) opened to submissions https://duotrope.com/magazine/up-the-staircase-quarterly-2990 #amwriting
duotrope.com
August 13, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
eleanorball.bsky.social
Day 2: “Last Night at Good Luck Bar” by Catherine Fletcher in @upthestaircase.bsky.social. I LOVE the “platonic love” theme of their recent issue! This poem feels so nostalgic and reminds me of nights out with my best friends. www.upthestaircase.org/catherine-fl...
Catherine Fletcher
Our boy-girl-boy trio huddles together, at a booth with half-full hurricanes. For you, I’ve crawled across our sprawly city to the junction where Sunset bends. I lean on my umbrella, and it pops...
www.upthestaircase.org
August 2, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
cattrax.bsky.social
I'm thrilled to have my poem "Last Night at Good Luck Bar" for my friends Jeff/ @jorgill.bsky.social & Tony in this stellar issue. Many thanks to editor April Bratten & the USQ team!
upthestaircase.bsky.social Up the Staircase Quarterly @upthestaircase.bsky.social · Aug 1
We decided to sweeten your Friday with our themed summer issue. Kindred: Poems on Platonic Love is now live!

www.upthestaircase.org
August 3, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
rholanderpoet.bsky.social
I'm honored to have a poem for my friend Jerica up today in @upthestaircase.bsky.social in their 70th issue "Kindred: Poems on Platonic Love," celebrating friendship & community. Happy this poem found a home in this special issue & in good company. Gratitude, editors, & cheers to all contributors.
Rebecca Hart Olander
Thirty years since Jerica and I earned Monadnock’s rocky summit, popping blueberries into our mouths, sprawled in a dirty pile of newfound friends after a precollege trip. We were close to...
www.upthestaircase.org
August 1, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
rholanderpoet.bsky.social
Thank you to the editors for including my poem in this beautiful issue in such kindred company. ♥️ @upthestaircase.bsky.social
upthestaircase.bsky.social Up the Staircase Quarterly @upthestaircase.bsky.social · Aug 1
We decided to sweeten your Friday with our themed summer issue. Kindred: Poems on Platonic Love is now live!

www.upthestaircase.org
August 1, 2025 at 8:24 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
We decided to sweeten your Friday with our themed summer issue. Kindred: Poems on Platonic Love is now live!

www.upthestaircase.org
August 1, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
screendoorreview.bsky.social
Happy Pride Month! We got y'all a gift. It's Issue 20 & you'll love it. 🌈

www.screendoorreview.com/issue-20/
June 21, 2025 at 11:49 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
vismai.bsky.social
"If alive, then all alone and bleeding. If dead,
then freshly dead. If not alone, then swarmed

with ants and flies, thick flies like biting July
berries. If swarmed with maggots, biblical."

Dream of the Moose Calf, Zeke Shomler in @upthestaircase.bsky.social
www.upthestaircase.org/zeke-shomler...
Zeke Shomler
If alive, then all alone and bleeding. If dead, then freshly dead. If not alone, then swarmed   with ants and flies, thick flies like biting July berries. If swarmed with maggots, biblical. If...
www.upthestaircase.org
June 2, 2025 at 9:06 AM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
Celebrate friendship and community with Up the Staircase!

We are seeking poetry and art for our themed issue, Kindred: Poems on Platonic Love.

Deadline: July 1st

upthestaircase.org
May 24, 2025 at 7:10 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
We are seeking cover art submissions for our future issues!

Cover art can be of any genre or discipline and must contain a *staircase* somewhere in the work (but does not have to be the focal point).

Visit our guidelines for more information: www.upthestaircase.org/submit.html
Up the Staircase Quarterly
a journal of poetry and art
www.upthestaircase.org
May 23, 2025 at 1:36 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
Check out our guidelines to submit to our themed issue celebrating friendship, community, and platonic love: www.upthestaircase.org
May 8, 2025 at 2:23 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
Submissions are now open for our special issue Kindred: Poems on Platonic Love. Send us your work about friendship and community:

www.upthestaircase.org
a husky dog is looking at the camera with the words `` everybody has that one friend . ''
ALT: a husky dog is looking at the camera with the words `` everybody has that one friend . ''
media.tenor.com
May 6, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
rachelturney.bsky.social
#upthestaircase Read the latest from @upthestaircase.bsky.social

See my photo taken in Barga, Italy on the cover! #barga #italy #stonesteps
May 5, 2025 at 1:24 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
The new issue of Up the Staircase Quarterly is here 👀 www.upthestaircase.org
May 2, 2025 at 12:50 AM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
We are bringing our themed summer issues back ✨️

We will be looking for poetry and art submissions that highlight friendship and community for our August issue. Submissions open May 1st 👀
April 26, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
jillkitchen.bsky.social
Or this one from a couple of years ago in @upthestaircase.bsky.social (choosing these ones for you since you're an ecopoet!) www.upthestaircase.org/jill-kitchen...
Jill Kitchen
the finches are having an evening party in the tree. skateboards are cracking against sidewalk a block away while your son throws ladder balls and narrates   each move in the fading light by...
www.upthestaircase.org
April 4, 2025 at 1:47 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
Ready your poems. This summer we are bringing back our themed issues! On May 1st we will open to submissions for our Kindred Issue: Poems on Platonic Love.

More details soon.
March 21, 2025 at 1:50 PM
upthestaircase.bsky.social
Have some poems ready for submission? Tonight is the deadline to submit for our May issue:

www.upthestaircase.org
Up the Staircase Quarterly
a journal of poetry and art
www.upthestaircase.org
March 15, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Up the Staircase Quarterly
chiaradilello.bsky.social
I love you as in let's face down climate catastrophe together. ❤️🐟🦐
(poem pubbed last year by the lovely folks at @upthestaircase.bsky.social)
#lovepoem #poetrysky #valentines
Chiara Di Lello | Shrimp (A Love Poem) It sounds like bickering but I realize it’s not: the couple shuffles just ahead of us toward the seafood department one gesturing from captain’s seat behind the cart’s handlebar and one leaning into the cold case. Get some salmon, too. Where? Right there. Not the eight ounces, get the twelve, and it’s the loving exasperation, my sudden certainty that they’ve done this a thousand, ten thousand times that they’ve gone back and forth about whether to get the farmed shrimp or wild, which kind is the bad one and why pay more when we could just peel them ourselves? By the time we are their age there may not be any shrimp left tangoing in the trash-choked, superheated Pacific and this store might be transformed to warehouse FEMA supplies for climate refugees, our post-industrial town may be islanded by rising sea levels and our house might sink into the creek on the next lot but at least this is true: when I move to nudge you and quietly point out the couple I find your eyes and you are already looking at me, beaming as we look with full hearts at what we hope against all odds to become.
February 14, 2025 at 11:01 PM
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vismai.bsky.social
Sharing an old poem titled 'On Valentine's Day...' on Valentine's Day though it's not 'on' Valentine's Day :)

from Issue 64 of @upthestaircase.bsky.social
www.upthestaircase.org/vismai-rao-i...
February 14, 2025 at 4:43 PM