Joseph Radke
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josephradke.com
Joseph Radke
@josephradke.com
530 followers 620 following 140 posts
Re-emerging poet. None of my e's are silent!
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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
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
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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
josephradke.com
Here's a sample from Once Upon a Riot by Dawn Tefft.
Groceries. Beer. Liquor. Lottery. My date studies geography, but not boring geography, hot geography. The kind where they figure the ratio of Jesus to horses. There’s always a ratio. Jesus to horses. Highschools to Speedways. Liquor to lottery. All landscape makes me sad. There are always people picnicking near the pond at the end of the park, and all I can think is it’s too far to walk just to sit on a blanket. The people reading in chairs tire me too — How do they manage to be so relaxed? Does it require a lifetime of practice? — while the whiteness of vans in the sun echoes through the parking lot. Those lines in the lawn become wavy near the lot. As if to make a point. And yet, patterns are neither just plans nor just accidents. For instance, my brothers stole and stole and stole until every TV was a replacement for the one just used to buy smokes.
June 30, 2025 at 1:29 AM
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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
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Of course there's always this....
June 1, 2025 at 1:14 AM
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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. Bellevue Literary Review, Issue 48 — Spring 2025
May 4, 2025 at 4:31 AM
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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
josephradke.com
This is always my response to pictures of Trillium. From The Wild Iris by Louise Glück.
Trillium When I woke up I was in a forest. The dark seemed natural, the sky through the pine trees thick with many lights. I knew nothing; I could do nothing but see. And as I watched, all the lights of heaven faded to make a single thing, a fire burning through the cool firs. Then it wasn’t possible any longer to stare at heaven and not be destroyed. Are there souls that need death’s presence, as I require protection? I think if I speak long enough I will answer that question, I will see whatever they see, a ladder reaching through the firs, whatever calls them to exchange their lives— Think what I understand already. I woke up ignorant in a forest; only a moment ago, I didn’t know my voice if one were given to me would be so full of grief, my sentences like cries strung together. I didn’t even know I felt grief until that word came, until I felt rain streaming from me.
April 28, 2025 at 7:06 PM
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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
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My friend Austin Segrest has a new book out from Unbound Edition Press.
Buy it.
Read it.
Thank me later.
Groom by Austin Segrest. Mustard yellow and brown cover. "Segrest... explores the line between damage and desire, affection and manipulation." Mark Wunderlich
April 3, 2025 at 3:52 AM
josephradke.com
On Wednesday night, I'll participate in my first poetry reading since 2010.

whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice

— Louise Glück
Poster for reading 3/12/25 @ 6 PM at 918 N. Oneida Street, Appleton, WI
March 10, 2025 at 2:30 AM
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I'll be reading as part of the new Breathing Room Poetry Series in Appleton, WI. 6 PM on Mach 12th.
Poster with cute character walking their dog. Breathing Room Poetry Series. Joseph Radke, Grace Rebekah Wiersma, Walden Holden. 6pm March 12 918 N. Oneida Street, Appleton, WI Sponsored by fsm and Only Child
February 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
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The poem that's currently haunting me... (originally in yalereview.bsky.social)
In Those Years Adrienne Rich In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life and yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore, through the rags of fog where we stood, saying I
February 23, 2025 at 12:59 AM
josephradke.com
I put together a series of small poems called "excerpts from a Calendar of Nights We Didn't Meet." Not sure how they fit in my book manuscript. Here are some recently published in Permafrost. I love the presentation!
January 26, 2025 at 5:05 PM
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My latest poem is online at The Shore (theshorepoetry.bsky.social). So here is an excerpt from my latest print publication. Check out Permafrost 45.2 for the complete excerpt #1.

I love the presentation of the poem on the page. Thanks to the Permafrost staff!
January 26, 2025 at 4:49 AM