Couldn't make AWP, so I brought Party Favors to read at @notatawp.bsky.social along with another misfit.
Curious to know if anyone at AWP is handing out doorknobs this year?
love it, even!
We name all the fish Byron,
so when he dies,
it’s always Byron,
dying again.
ove the strange tenderness of this Tricia Bogle poem
https://www.havehashad.com/0gqd6
March 4, 2026 that’s just the house settling Ben Starr That’s what I say anytime our home’s thick groan inches its way down the hall. It means the wooden pegs are conforming to their chiseled mortices. It means the roof is done pawing at the sky. But if you know this house then you know about Greg. Hip height, lives in the crawl space, eyes like little jade coals. Been here longer than we have. I come with the house, he used to say, laughing. I didn’t find it funny, but humor is so subjective. He's scared away dozens of prior tenants, his voice pitched high like the end of an aborted dream. Wasn’t trying to, just found something he’s good at and stuck with it. Like my dad and his second family. Sometimes on Sundays when the kids have gone to their mother’s, I invite Greg upstairs to eat chocolate ice cream out of bowls shaped like half moons while we watch the Bears game. He gets so excited when they score. He likes to nuzzle his beveled head, pock-marked as a snail's tongue, into the
"But if you know this house then you know about Greg. Hip height, lives in the crawl space, eyes like little jade coals. Been here longer than we have. I come with the house, he used to say, laughing."
🔥 today from Ben Starr
https://www.havehashad.com/v3j78
Bummed not to be headed to AWP in Baltimore this week but gonna read this little guy from @havehashad.com tonight at wild & wonderful words here in wintry Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada www.havehashad.com/hadposts/bud...
Thank you to everyone who sent work in for the Repetition call @havehashad.com. That was fun. I'm going to have a beer and some pizza now. Several heartbreak rejections, and almost everything was interesting.
"Something deep in her bones
tells her the ocean she is swimming in
isn’t really hers. She is only as strong
as her pod..."
quick little piece of wonder today from Hannah Kanfer!
https://www.havehashad.com/yb3g9
19 spots left.
2/3 full...
this call, and thus this link, will be live in just a little over an hour...
havehashad.submittable.com/submit/34848...
We (HAD) won't officially be doing or hosting or even really "at" AWP, but I (Aaron) will be doing all this crap and also will just generally wandering the bookfair lots, and would love chat if you've been in (or just enjoy) the journal!
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
always a treat to get to feature Richie Zaborowske! and I keep saying this, but a treat every day to revisit these "magic and beauty and wonder" acceptances!
"I knew even before I saw his name scrawled on the side which one was Oliver’s."
https://www.havehashad.com/lyckr
get a load of this
another stunner from @iamchrisscott.bsky.social ✨
“We shielded our eyes and looked into the cloudless blue sky above us trying to figure out where it came from, how it got here, who sent it back and why.”
"It was such a charmed encounter, how me and the dragon first met. For half of my life I was alone and then one day the dragon showed up at my door at dawn and it was friendship at first ride."
— Ioanna Mavrou
magic & beauty & wonder & friendship & joy!
https://www.havehashad.com/1qapb
cover letter Thank you for taking the time to read my submission. I’ve been interested in HAD for like...ever. Included is my poem, "bro." which I have always considered a love poem about the magic, beauty, and wonder of friendship. And yes, that is maybe the cheesiest sentence I have ever written.
formatting stuff from the "magic & beauty & wonder" call, and love this cover letter from it
Wanna tell us something, just for funsies? (one more reminder: this is NOT for submissions) maybe we don't match in our aesthetics (lol) much, but i love that you always challenge me and i grow somehow through these challenges. i won't miss any submission call until i'll get what i want from you (and then i'll continue to do it)
love this kind note that came in with a tip ❤️💀
Repetitions Theme: Repetitions March 3rd, 6 a.m. PST, capped at 222 submissions For this call, I'm looking for prose that uses repetition to get at what it's going for. This could be repetition of sounds, phrases, images, a piece of the subject matter—or whatever. Some examples of what I'm trying to get you to go for would be Nam Troag Tran’s “Dolphin Linguistics,” Lydia Davis’ “A Mown Lawn,” Joe Brainard’s “I Remember,” Raymond Queneau’s “Exercises in Style,” Loorie Moore's “Real Estate,” Sharon Kivland's "Nana by Emile Zola digested according to light and lighting effects, including metaphor," or Donald Barthelme's “The Balloon.” Subtler repetition than demonstrated by these is ok (but just ok.) Any kind of prose is fine including prose poems. You may consider the usual word count cutoff for HAD (~750-1000) to be relaxed given the nature of this call. Though you should still be kinda in the spirit of. I'm looking forward to seeing what you send me. — Joshua Hebburn
Next call coming soon, from our fave and yours, Joshua Hebburn!
Theme: Repetitions
March 3rd, 6 a.m. PST, capped at 222 submissions
This could be repetition of sounds, phrases, images, a piece of the subject matter—or whatever. Any kind of prose is fine including prose poems.
February 28, 2026 Birds & Fish Mal Virich i am a salmon snatched up in an eagle’s claw; no more helpless to the current circumstance as i was helpless to follow my instincts against the current. but i wasn’t always prey—there was a day when i, eagle, was cussed out by prometheus, but how could he blame me anymore than i, my eagle? i’ve been shark, songbird, house sparrow crashed into glass windows, goldfish won at carnival games—don’t you see it? when the eagle tears into me, remember that i will wake up tomorrow.
I keep forgetting what I accepted during the last "magic & beauty & wonder" themed call, which means posting these to social every day brings such a surprise treat of magic & beauty & wonder!
like today from Mal Virich:
https://www.havehashad.com/c0dfk
Obsessed with this
An incredible streak that will not end!!
Thrilled to be back in the pages of @havehashad.com today with a short one, about two brothers who find one of the Voyager probe golden records in their grandfather's field. Hope you like it.
swear i posted this earlier today, but it just... mysteriously vanished??
Chris Scott on just an incredible streak of dropping heaters
"My brother and I found a golden record in our grandpa’s field. One of the golden records, the ones that had been sent into deep space on the Voyager probes half a century ago."
https://www.havehashad.com/vz2e6
Olzmann is such a treasure.
Here's another absolute banger of a love poem, from our archives:
Thanks to @aaronburch.bsky.social for writing a beautiful little book and celebrating with a call for beautiful little stories!
New Jess Dawn banger today!
"Airport’s more like a bus station with a bar inside. Big place, high ceilings, big windows looking out over the runway that could be a parking lot. Bar’s bigger than the rest of the airport."
https://www.havehashad.com/9vqmp
Thank you to @havehashad.com for giving this piece such a great home. And for my first ☠️.
I’ve been honoured with a 3rd skull! Hope you enjoy this small story about a special moment. ❤️💀💀💀
