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Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

I decided to try some actual revision exercises instead of just staring at a poem and asking it to get better. The results were gratifying.

November 4, 2025 at 6:48 PM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

I am honored to have a poem accepted by southeastreview.bsky.social this week.

Southeast Review (@southeastreview.bsky.social)

https://linktr.ee/southeast_review Est. in 1979 as Sundog 🍊 Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Book Reviews, Interviews, & Art.

southeastreview.bsky.social

November 4, 2025 at 4:32 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

I just found out I was a semi-finalist for the 2025 Richard Snyder Book Prize.

Congrats to K.T. and Michael! I can't wait to read their books.

Ashland Poetry Press @ashlandpoetrypress.bsky.social · Sep 1

We're thrilled to announce @ktlandon.bsky.social Abide as 2025 Richard Snyder Book Prize winner and Michael Lawson's Proof as Editor's Choice

Full announcement (with finalists and semifinalists): ashlandpoetrypress.com/2025-richard...

#poetry, #poetrycommunity, #poetrycontest, #prizeannouncement

September 2, 2025 at 2:57 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

Here's my other poem, "Another Morning Poem," published in the latest Southern Poetry Review. Some days you just feel better...

Another Morning Poem
With the sun a spot of yellow through
the frosted window, I awoke not
quite thrilled by the strangeness,
like the day after a move. Just
hours ago, the last hollow brick
wall of grief collapsed, that levy
of sadness burst. No telling
how—unseen erosion, the hidden drip
of chaos toward a tipping point,
the wind that carries the weight
of the straw that breaks everything
eventually? And I won’t tell what
it was about. You'd only say
so little? or that again?

I’ll just tell you I stood again, showered,
got dressed. The kettle whistled. Breakfast
tea steeped in something different, toast spread
with jam. I walked outside and into something alive.
The sun a spot of yellow through the frosted winter sky.
Breath refusing to ghost, glasses unfogged.

I was struck by the first real snow
of January making good
on a threat the sky held
over us for weeks—flakes broken,
melted, and frozen back in
on themselves, hard
so they sounded when they hit.
It's true, and like so much that is

true, almost completely meaningless.

August 23, 2025 at 1:10 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

My poem "Shape of a Day" will soon be On the Seawall (www.ronslate.com)!

On the Seawall – a community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by Ron Slate

www.ronslate.com

August 23, 2025 at 1:05 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

Here's my poem The Same Dog from the latest Southern Poetry Review. The Roman poet Horace is credited with using a dog as a metaphor for depression, but this is likely a mistranslation.

The Same Dog

I listen to the same dog
every night though I never
see it in the light. Neighbors
deny it’s theirs or even
hearing it. You know, I say, mostly
after sundown, sometimes early
morning? Part growl, part bark?
No, they say, no idea what you’re
talking about. Animal control
no longer responds.

On calm evenings, it seems
a distant howl. In the storm,
I hear its whine right under
my window between crashes
of thunder. Nights aren’t sleepless but
I dream of nails pounding
in irregular rhythms, horns
on beasts that shouldn’t
have horns, tails on people
who shouldn’t have tails. Eyes
everywhere.

Then one night (around mid-summer
when it never really gets dark, the light
only dims and simmers): the barking,
the growling, a whimper, silence.

August 20, 2025 at 4:12 PM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

Just got the latest issue of Southern Poetry Review. SPR was one of the first journals I saw at the local B&N when I began taking poetry seriously. Full of poetry, and with those B&W covers, it became my idea of what a poetry journal was and should be. I’m thrilled to have two poems in the issue.

The Cover of Southern Poetry Review featuring a black and white photo of the head and mane of a carousel horse titled Horse Through A Window by Brett Taylor.

August 4, 2025 at 4:40 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

Great reading and interesting discussion. Dawn's book is fantastic!

Match Factory Editions @matchfactoryeds.bsky.social · Jul 12

Brenda Cardenas and Roberto Harrison drove up from Milwaukee to support Dawn Tefft's book launch. 🥹 Here is the vid: youtu.be/iJWVy3yIJvo?...

Let's Chat About Parenting, Poetry & Resistance: Dawn Tefft w/Brenda Cárdenas & Roberto Harrison

YouTube video by Match Factory Editions

youtu.be

July 12, 2025 at 5:40 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

Just finished Dawn Tefft’s Once Upon a Riot from matchfactoryeds.bsky.social‬ . It’s amazing. Acutely aware of our current historical moment but full of intimate humanity. Incredible stuff!!matchfactoryeditions.com/books/Once-U...77

Once Upon a Riot by Dawn Tefft | Books | Match Factory Editions

Once Upon a Riot explores resistance, parenthood, and beauty amid oppression, weaving protests, labor strikes, pop culture, and personal history into poetry.

matchfactoryeditions.com

June 30, 2025 at 1:28 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

I’m re-reading Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. She discusses the significance of the edges in words and desire. This poem from Poetry Daily keeps coming to mind: poems.com/poem/sapphic....

Sapphic Dream by Mag Gabbert
(words at the end of lines are split between lines. For example, "hotel" is split between "hot" and "-el"
we’ve made the hot
-el room hum
-id from
our show
-er
you: lost
in a sea
-rch for me
-teors
as I was
-h as
-hore
—unraveling hem
-isphere, come
-t, light as a ball
-erina’s spin
-e—
once again im
-mersed in
the cove
-rs, then on
-ce again again
-st our sin
-k

in my heave
-n my
-th
this
port
-rait of
a decade
-nce: you
as we
both rot
-ate
the tow
-els get so
-aked, so we
-t
—make
me a vow
-el—
tell me no
-w those must
be us
-eless

June 29, 2025 at 2:37 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

New work up at the always cool Packingtown Review: www.packingtownreview.com/issues/23/ra...

"Eyewitness Testimony" by Joseph Radke | Packingtown Review - A journal of literature and the arts

Poetry:

www.packingtownreview.com

June 21, 2025 at 1:49 AM

Reposted by Joseph Radke

Litbowl

@litbowl.bsky.social

Thanks to my hippie parents, I've always loved celebrating the solstices. Here's a poem for the longest day of the year.

From Louise Glück's Collected Poems: bookshop.org/a/862/9780374534097

#books #solstice #writing

June 20, 2025 at 2:10 PM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

I've been getting “encouraging” rejections (“admire your work,” “generated interest from our editors,” “please send more soon”) from some pretty good journals (Southern Review, Meridian, Adroit, Image). I must be doing something right. And something wrong.

June 10, 2025 at 8:00 PM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

Lawlss Coffee in Appleton is closed. A sad moment for the coffee and arts scene in Appleton. Lawlss was a supporter of and gathering place for local artists and writers. Thanks Stefan for great coffee and memories!

www.postcrescent.com/story/money/...

www.postcrescent.com

May 20, 2025 at 5:44 PM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

My poem in the latest issue of Bellevue Literary Review arrived last week. Great issue. Thanks to BLR!

Cover of Bellevue Literary Review Issue 48 displaying Las Tralaveritas 2015 by Aliza Nisenbaum next to the text of the poem:
WHEN YOUR BACKACHE RETURNS
Joseph Radke

The doctor, like a tour guide, pointed

to your X-ray and described points of interest—

the intervertebral space variability, features

of the sagittal and coronal plane. Like a weatherman,

he detailed the current conditions with broad

hand gestures and scientific confidence—

degrees of idiopathic curvature, the tilt

of various vertebrae. He gave the prognosis

like a forecast—no curvature progression,

your spine a stationary front. He prescribes

Ibuprofen, as much as you can tolerate, a heel

lift for one shoe. All like he’s done this

a thousand times before, which of course he has.

We hide so much from one another,

try to smooth out the imperfections

and dress up our faults. Yet, there you

were, the inside of you in the high-contrast

black & white. I was shocked to see

beyond what I could touch, what I liked

so much, to the little twist, one source

of your pain. That night, when the dull

ache kept you awake, I touched the surface.

May 4, 2025 at 4:29 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

These rush hours never fail to make me smile.

Chris and his farmily of forever friends @caenhillcc.bsky.social · May 3

Greetings and good morning it’s the Saturday farm rush hour with toast

May 4, 2025 at 12:37 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

The audio file is up my poem at Bicoastal Review(www.bicoastalreview.com/josephradke). It turned out really well. Many thanks to Sarah Callinan (sarahcallinan.com) for the second voice in the reading.

Sarah Callinan

sarahcallinan.com

April 28, 2025 at 3:26 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

My friend Meredith Mason has her first book out. If you have a kid, parent, or job (or know someone who does), you really should read this book. Link the reply.

April 28, 2025 at 1:54 AM

Joseph Radke

@josephradke.com

'I'm mad about all of it': 2,500 people lined College Avenue to protest President Trump, Musk

Appleton, Wisconsin

www.postcrescent.com/story/news/l...