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.

At an intersection between fortune and misfortune

when traffic idles
for a red light,
a hand holds up
a cardboard flap
scribbled with child’s print.

When the light turns green,
behind locked doors,
blind eyes
go by, go by.

Those who read
out of work, a family to feed,
sit on their wallets
and stern judgments.

Now and again
a window rolls down.
Now and again
a hand extends to a hand.

Does it matter
what hunger
a handout will feed
to offer relief?

Tell me, who isn’t hurting?
Who isn’t escaping
from something?
Who isn’t a beggar
for a better life?


Jane Ellen Glasser’s poetry has appeared in journals such as Hudson Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Georgia Review. In the past, she reviewed poetry books for the Virginian-Pilot, edited poetry for the Ghent Quarterly and Lady Jane’s Miscellany, and co-founded the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review. A first collection of poetry, Naming the Darkness, with an introduction by W. D. Snodgrass, was issued by Road Publishers in 1991. She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry 2005 for Light Persists, and The Long Life won the Poetica Publishing Company Chapbook Contest in 2011. The Red Coat (2013), Cracks (2015), In the Shadow of Paradise (2017), and Selected Poems (2019) are available from FutureCycle Press. For more, see www.janeellenglasser.com.

I Meet My Child’s Birth Mother

My Partner Tells Me He Considers His Guns Every Time He Votes