International Poetry Review: The Work of Staying, Volume 49, 2026

The poems gathered in this issue of International Poetry Review confront a struggle over meaning: who assigns it and what meaning is imposed on experience. These diverse voices speak of memory, loss, and endurance, insisting on the right to speak plainly when language proves unstable or inadequate. They evoke the fleeting textures of childhood, the rituals of daily life, the scars of survival, and the quiet persistence of labor, grief, and love. What unites them is not a single message but a shared refusal to simplify experience. At a moment when language is often used to obscure rather than reveal, these poems preserve the fragile act of attention, reminding us that to listen closely and to name what is lived remains a profound form of care.