SWWIM sustains and celebrates women poets by connecting creatives across generations and by curating a living archive of contemporary poetry, while solidifying Miami as a nexus for the literary arts.

First and Second Sounds of the Heart by Eli

Listen: the chest under the stethoscope is like your brother

or your child calling your name in a crowd,

the professor tells his nursing students.

 

A man I met once touched my scars

saying, your body has little punk songs inside.

 

Amid the noise of blood and breath

a stranger’s heart cries out to you

like your own flesh if you learned to listen.


Eli is a Chicago poet with a BA in German studies from Oberlin college and contributions in a 2007 translation of Thomas Brasch's collection of poems, "Was Ich Mir Wünsche" ("What I Wish For Myself") from German into English. Their poems have appeared in Rising Phoenix Review and Vagabond City Lit.

Sweater Weather by Joni Renee

The Morning After Sexual Assault/Chapel by Ahja Fox