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.
Jen Ryan Onken lives and teaches in southern Maine. Recent poems have appeared in Deep Water, Zocalo Public Square, The Night Heron Barks, and LEON Literary Review. Her chapbook, Medea at the Laundromat, was a 2020 finalist for the Larry Levis Post-Grad Prize at Warren Wilson's Program for Writers, where she recently completed her MFA. Jen was the Maine Poet's Society winner of their 2019 prize for previously unpublished poets.
You on the telephone—I’m ready to throw myself off a bridge. I’m losing it. The snowmelt stretches out from gray to blue. I know this tender bridge with its white limpets and cement. The way your toes grip the edge so hard it hurts. The grassy bank all bare despite the leftover snow. Bald eagles and their awful noise. What could inoculate against this? The tidy nest waiting in the eaves, the vernal pools, the purple tulips swelling underground. The dog sniffing out the breathing moles. Sister, shall we sink by land or sea? Nothing floats. We laugh because all our brothers do is beat us up at Hearts. They ignore our parents. They’re always fucking around on boats.
Jen Ryan Onken lives and teaches in southern Maine. Recent poems have appeared on Maine Public Radio, The Night Heron Barks, and Love's Executive Order. She was the Maine Poet's Society winner of their 2019 prize for previously unpublished poets. Her micro chapbook, That First Toss, was a finalist for the 2019 Washburn Prize at Harbor Review. Jen recently completed her MFA from Warren Wilson's Program for Writers.
