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Poetry lovers, today it's an honor to shine the spotlight on the talented and prolific Sheila Murphy. Please enjoy "Bee Breath" and "As the Decibels Meander Forth." Thank you, Sheila, for sharing your love of words with SHINE international poetry series!  Editor’s Note: According to online sources, a “breviary” is a liturgical book used in Christianity for praying the canonical hours, usually recited at seven fixed prayer times   Sheila E. Murphy. A Pushcart-nominated poet, Murphy’s most recent book publications: I Want to Be Your Radio (Unlikely Books, 2025), Escritoire (Lavender Ink, 2025), Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). Gertrude Stein Poetry Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Hay(ha)ku Book Prize for Reporting Live From You Know Where (Meritage Press, 2018). She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
Poetry lovers, today we're shining the spotlight on Italian writer, Vincenzo Cohen. Please enjoy his poem "The Palace" (from Cretan Sea) and "Spirit Rising" (from Army of Bodies). Thank you, Vincenzo, for sharing your gift of words with SHINE!   ARTIST STATEMENT My poems speak of biographical experiences and I use to write right away whenever I get the chance. I consider all art expressions I deal with closely connected since for me the creative process is a flow that sweeps towards different forms merging in a poetic vision of existence.
~~~ Prior publish credits include: Poesia, Collana Ominium, Susil Edizioni, Carbonia SU (IT), March 2022 The AutoEthnographer Literary & Arts Magazine, Armored Corps: The Spirit of Combativeness and Human Resilience, vol. 4, issue 3, Fort Lauderdale (US), September 2024 Welcome back, poetry lovers! Today at SHINE, I'm pleased to spotlight Nancy Byrne Iannucci, with a beautiful photo (by Emily Byrne Hickman) to boot! Please enjoy "Like Ghosts," "Unanswered Questions" (previously published by Poem Alone), and "Earth." Thank you, Nancy, and Emily, for sharing your talents with the SHINE international poetry community!  All Saints Church – Wribbenhall, Bewdley, England By Emma Byrne Hickman     Nancy Byrne Iannucci's poetry can be found in Thrush Poetry Journal, 34 Orchard, The Poetry Lighthouse, Eunoia, and Maudlin House, among others. She is the author of four chapbooks and a two-time Best of the Net Nominee. www.nancybyrneiannucci.com and on Instagram: @nancybyrneiannucci
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Emma Byrne Hickman is a nature photographer who resides in the countryside of England. Her photographs aim to capture moments of wonder and awe found in the natural world. Friends and poetry lovers, today I am absolutely delighted to shine the spotlight on Hawaii-based poet, Eric Paul Shaffer. Please enjoy Shaffer's moving poem "King Tide," written for his late brother, as well as (the perfectly reasonable!) "Why I Have No Tattoos" -- two poems which, through differing topics, convey the scope of Shaffer's work. Thank you, Eric, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series!    Photo by Mathew Ursua (http://blog.mathewursua.com/) Eric Paul Shaffer lives in what’s left of the Koʻolau Volcano on the fractured edge of the Nuʻuanu Landslide, Hawaiʻi’s largest local submarine landslide, covering hundreds of miles of seafloor and occurring more than a million years ago. Today, the caldera is peaceful enough for Shaffer, retired and full of words, to repeatedly write poems. Rejected by the most discriminating reviews, journals, and magazines on the planet, Shaffer’s ten books of poems include Second Nature; Free Speech; Green Leaves: Selected & New Poems; Even Further West; A Million-Dollar Bill; and Lāhaina Noon. Shaffer does not surf, yet lives on O‘ahu.
Today we're shining the spotlight on Texas-based poet Marty Shambles. Please enjoy his poem, "When I Was Too High To Smoke." Thank you, Marty, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series. Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend, and we'll be back next week with more new poems for NaPoMo! When I Was Too High To Smoke  Marty Shambles is a poetry editor and writer-in-residence at Blood+Honey. Published and produced playwright. Poet laureate of railroad tracks and greasy spoons. He lives in Texas and has a GED.
Happy National Poetry Month! To get things started here at SHINE, it's a pleasure to put the spotlight, once again, on Michael Igoe with his poem, "Other End of the Day," previously published in D.O.R. (Deadly Orgone Radiation) Issue 6 available on Amazon. Please enjoy! Thank you, Michael, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series!   Michael Igoe, city boy, neurodiverse, whose work appears in journals and anthologies (available at amazon.com, lulu,com, barnesandnoble.com). Editor's Choice Award National Library of Poetry(Owing Mills MD) 1997. Best of the Net Nomination 2023. poetry-in-motion.org
Hi there, poetry fans and thanks for stopping by! SHINE poetry welcomes back poet John Grey with two moving poems: The Boys After School, and Second Chance. Thank you, John, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series! As a PSA: SHINE Spotlights are a going to be a bit spotty (see what I did there?!) this week and next, but but don't worry, SHINE has plenty of great writers lined up for National Poetry Month...right around the corner! The Boys After School Second Chance  John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, Trampoline and Flights. Latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters, and Between Two Fires are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review, and Willow Review.
As we approach the weekend, SHINE has one more Spotlight for this week...two poems by the prolific A.M. Hayden! Please enjoy, "At the Frankenmuth Dog Bowl Events, I See Racing and Dock Dive Dogs," which is part of a larger poem published in VIPF Boundless Anthology, (also) March 2026; and "When My Husband Put Vin Into AI." Thank you, A.M., for once again sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series!    A.M. Hayden served as Poet Laureate for Sinclair College from 2021-2025 and is a Tenured Professor of Humanities, Philosophy, and World Religions, receiving the League for Innovation Teaching Excellence Award (2020) and the Distinguished Faculty Scholars Award (2024). She has two full length poetry collections (American Saunter: Poems of the U.S. and Old World Wings: Poems of Europe) and one chapbook (How to Tie Tobacco), published by FlowerSong Press and Wild Ink Publishing. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and a River Heron Editors' Choice Winner, she lives on a windy farm with her family and many rescues including a blind, three-legged dog named Vinny Valentine and a three-legged goat named Old Man Jenkins.
Welcome back, poetry lovers, and thanks for stopping by, where today we're shining the spotlight on India-based poet C. Oulens with "Birefringence" and "Of Real Reflections." Thank you, C. Oulens, for sharing your work with SHINE! Birefringence Of Real Reflections  C. Oulens is an upcoming poet from India. An ex-academic and a nature lover with interest in human psychology, she writes at the intersection of emotions, relationships, and conflicts with the natural & built environment. Her poetry engages with radical questions on individual and society, suffused with sentience, wit and satire. She's the first prize recipient of the “3rd Annual Poe-It Like Poe 2025” poetry contest for her poem “Seen Unseen”. Her works have been published in The Broken Spine anthologies, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Candyman’s Trumpet, The Starbeck Orion, FromOneLine, Verseve, SciFanSat, and in haiku journals including Pan Haiku Review, 575 Haiku Journal, Poetry Pea, Haiku Pause, The Solitary Daisy, Folk Ku, Failed Haiku, and Heterodox Haiku. She writes on Bsky as owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social
Happy St. Patrick's Day to those who celebrate! I hope everyone's wearing their green today (or maybe some orange?!). In that vein, today we're shining the spotlight on "Dress Code," an evocative poem by American writer Jessica Edmond. Thank you, Jessica, for sharing your love of words with SHINE international poetry series! Dress Code  Jessica Edmond is a writer whose work grows out of memory, endurance, and the quiet aftermath of lived experience. She has written across poetry, creative nonfiction, essays, and children’s literature, often returning to questions of power, intimacy, and how people carry what they survive. Her writing has been shaped by illness, faith, loss, and the long work of learning how to name things accurately. She lives in Northwest Arkansas and believes language matters most when it refuses to smooth what happened.
This Friday at SHINE, we're putting the spotlight on a young writer from the American Upper Midwest, Cece Warg, who brings us two imaginative poems: "faerie" and "Emotion Senses." Thank you, Cece, for thinking of SHINE as a home for your words! faerieThe way it was brought about into words From the poet, the dreamer, the writer It was whispered from the beaks of the birds How she, the girl, saw the world was brighter For us it is boring, and old, and bleak Where we leaped over muddy old water She jumped and she splashed and she played in the creek She was pretty and swam like an otter At night, when nobody saw, she unfurled Her pixie wings were gossamer and silk Her hair was bronze, and she had it curled Her alabaster skin was white as milk She was a faerie, though nobody knew She looked like an angel the way she flew Emotion SensesLove It smells like sweet perfume and musky cologne It tastes like cherry lip gloss It sounds like a sigh and a giggle It feels like the satisfaction of finishing a loved book It is the color of pink lemonade in the summer It looks like grasped hands and arms around waists It happens when eyes meet across the sand Love is the wildness of late nights and the calm of the mornings  Cece Warg is from small-town North Dakota. She has lived there her entire life and is new to writing poetry. She loves reading any books she can get her hands on, but specifically romance, science fiction, and fantasy.
Poetry fans, thanks for stopping by SHINE for your poetry fix today, where we're shining the spotlight on MFA Candidate Ben Nardolilli. Please enjoy his two poems "Building Codes" and "Assertive Rhythms." Thank you, Ben, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series. Building Codes Assertive Rhythms
Welcome back, poetry fans! Today we're shining the spotlight on a duo of UK-based poets, Ella B. Winters and Betty Powdrill who have collaborated to write the poems: "Dinner Theatre" and "Today Is A Good Day." Thank you, Ella and Betty, for these delightful pieces. Dinner Theatre Today Is A Good Day  Ella B. Winters Ella B. Winters (she/they) is a social worker, researcher, and writer. A double immigrant, she is currently living on the South-East coast of England. Her poetry often explores themes of identity, memory and belonging. It has been published or is forthcoming in The Aftershock Review, Full House, Black Iris, Wildscape, Outskirts and elsewhere, and was twice nominated for the Pushcart prize. She is an associate editor at Shadow & Sax. Instagram: @ella.b.winters and Bluesky: @ella-b-winters.bsky.social  Betty Powdrill Betty Powdrill is a poet based in Yorkshire, England. A sucker for compassion, noticing the tiny moments and buying more notebooks than she’ll ever be able to fill, she drafts in pencil - messy and urgent - then presses her words into permanence on her vintage typewriter. Her poetry has been published in Page Gallery Journal, Flare Magazine, Shadow and Sax and Azarão Lit Journal, amongst others. Instagram: @betty.p.poetry
Welcome back, poetry community. Today we're shining the spotlight on three poems by the talented Sean Wang. Please enjoy: Quarry Ledger, Salt-Stained Post, and Fuse Box Easter. Thank you, Sean, for sharing your work with SHINE international poetry series! Quarry Ledger Salt-Stained Post Fuse Box Easter  Sean Wang is a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominated poet and PhD candidate. His poems appear or are forthcoming in West Trade Review, ONE ART, wildscape. literary journal, among others. He can be found on Instagram at @sean_wang1997.
Today, SHINE welcomes back UK-based poet Strider Marcus Jones, with three new poems: The Patterns, The Sun Drips Down, and This Now My Thoughts. It's a joy to read his work. Thanks, Strider, for sharing! The Patternssomewhere in everywhere everybody happens in the patterns, like flocks of rocks gathered to the lobby of Saturn's rings, graded and sorted into ugly and beautiful useful things; all something out of nothing but not absolute nothing: it seems matter that Mad Hatter and plectrums of light make tunes of self similarity settle and fight repeating this same existence without remembered resistance. The Sun Drips Downi don't feel like a stranger in your ease as i come to know your fast and slow above, below waves and seas roving like a ranger. a draft through the floor moves the closed to door, spills wax, wafts candlelight, and in music more slight behind words said becomes a squeezed breeze- that warms in and out where all love's doubt left and fled. as the shades of strings we shed, uncoil and leave our head, the sun drips down ultraviolet turning brown the sated flesh, whose oliveness soon condenses, freeing long suppressed senses to understand each other's expectation knowing love is more than our creation. This Now My Thoughtsthis now my thoughts open at the image of your name won't be revealing the secrets they explain- do you do the same on these out walks remembering the rain drop fractals on us feeling. back we go again, without preachers or bad teachers, harvest high with hope just us and frayed strands of poetry and bands on this bridge of notes our mind spans. in give we've got the bloom of this plot in garden to river shaping start and stop the melting clock of body quake then quiver through the Dreamtime day night and soul spirit lit by landscape light. we climb the Orange Rock to revert back far but have no Gaelic croft to live in who we are. it has changed hands until the purpose of these lands shoots dissenting music out of birds and sucks all truth from ancient words so existence is another language.  Strider Marcus Jones is a poet, law graduate, and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal; a member of The Poetry Society, nominated for the Pushcart Prize x4 and Best of the Net x3. His five published books of poetry (https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/) reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.
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SHINE - International Poetry Series
Click here for submissions and more
From the international poetry community, we have a "luxury of stars," as Sylvia Plath might say, and it is SHINE's honor to provide a home for their words with the online Spotlight series as well as SHINE Quarterly. Click on the logo above to learn more. And...keep writing, keep shining!
In poetry, Samantha Terrell, EIC SYLVIA PLATH
Stars Over the Dordogne Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy
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