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The Latest!
The Latest!
November 24, 2025
We are delighted to share that Penwood Review has nominated Michael Shoemaker’s poem "Layered Portrait – Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, Idaho" for the 2026 Pushcart Prize. His piece appears in our Spring 2025 issue and stands out for its clarity, focus, and quiet emotional strength. Michael’s work brings place and spirit into sharp, thoughtful balance, and this poem leaves an impression that stays with you long after you finish reading.
Please join us in celebrating Michael and his exceptional contribution to our Spring issue. Click here for more information on how to order your own copy.
November 24, 2025
The Fall 2025 issue has been mailed out! Look for your copies to arrive soon. If you would like to subscribe or order single copies (authors get one extra free copy of the issue in which their work appears), click here for more info.
March 26, 2025
The Spring 2025 issue has been mailed out! Look for your copies to arrive soon. If you would like to subscribe or order single copies (authors get one extra free copy of the issue in which their work appears), click here for more info.
November 19, 2024
The Fall 2024 issue has been mailed out! Look for your copies to arrive soon. If you would like to subscribe or order single copies (authors get one extra free copy of the issue in which their work appears), click here for more info.
May 8, 2024
The Spring 2024 issue has been mailed out! Look for your copies to arrive soon. If you would like to subscribe or order single copies (authors get one extra free copy of the issue in which their work appears), click here for more info.
October 13, 2023
The Fall 2023 issue has been mailed out! Look for your copies to arrive soon. If you would like to subscribe or order single copies (authors get one extra free copy of the issue in which their work appears), click here for more info.
October 1, 2023
The new email address for placing subscriptions or orders through PayPal.com is now contact@penwoodreview.com.
September 9, 2023
Rocky Mountain Reflections by Michael Shoemaker is now available!
Michael Shoemaker’s first collection of poetry is a celebration of poetry, photography, articles, and short stories of the Rocky Mountain West. With joy, humor, and beauty he sends you on your own unique journey to discover nature, relationships with others, and God. With publications in over 40 journals, magazines, and newspapers we hope you will enjoy what others have found that is interesting and uplifting in his style of poetry and photography panorama.
Here is what others are saying about this book.
With both camera and turn of phrase, Michael deftly manages to surprise and delight with his first and hopefully one of many poetry/photography books. The interplay between poetry and photography is both interesting and appealing. This book will make a fine gift for family, friends, and anyone who loves beauty.
- Dave Marston, publisher, Writers on the Range
After slowly absorbing the book, “Rocky Mountain Reflections”, I can say that readers will be transported to mountains and grounded in dirt. Mr. Shoemaker will encourage you to wonder, while respecting heedlessness, as well. You will move your own mountains after breathing in Mr. Shoemaker's exquisite style of writing and matching beautiful photography, which will stun all of your senses.
- Darlene A. Groomes, Ph.D., LPC, CRC
The poetry collected in “Rocky Mountain Reflections”, makes mesmerizing use of alliteration, often luring the reader like a lullaby. Shoemaker's imagery-driven verses paint a vivid picture in the mind.
- Skylar Burris, editor of Ancient Paths Literary Magazine
If you like your prose, poetry, and photographs to concern themselves with the spiritual, the human, and the environmental, then Michael Shoemaker’s first collection “Rocky Mountain Reflections” will be just the book for you. The poems and the prose show the author’s genuine love and compassion for other people and a timely awareness of the environmental issues affecting the planet as we move ever closer to the eleventh hour. For the most part, the photographs show exactly what we will be losing if we don’t deal with our hubris and start to think in the long term instead of closing our eyes to our short-term obsession with profit and perpetual growth. It is a book that both touches the heart and engages the intellect. It is a collection that will be a welcome addition to anyone’s bookshelf - buy it.
- Mervyn Linford, poet, author, editor of Littoral Magazine and publisher of Littoral Press
You can purchase a copy at https://poetschoice.in/beta/product/rocky-mountain-reflections/ for $25.
August 16, 2023
The new email address for The Penwood Review is now contact@penwoodreview.com.
April 15, 2023
The Spring 2023 issue has been released! Order your copy today!
March 3, 2023
March 3, 2023
I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember by Matthew J. Andrews
I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember by Matthew J. Andrews
“From the beauty of the first poem, to the brilliance of the final line, Matthew J. Andrews’ I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember shepherds the reader through a landscape of familiar stories, but deftly removes the scales from eyes whose spiritual ancestry has become rote. Each poem echoes with elemental refrains—the waves, the soil, the flames, the spirit—and in doing so, lay bare the fragility of the human condition as we wrestle with the numinous. They remind us of what we are made and all that we could become if we are “determined, / for once, to be faithful to something.” The insights in this work will leave the reader breathless, pensive, challenged, jealous, and mindful of how good poetry can be good theology.
“From the beauty of the first poem, to the brilliance of the final line, Matthew J. Andrews’ I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember shepherds the reader through a landscape of familiar stories, but deftly removes the scales from eyes whose spiritual ancestry has become rote. Each poem echoes with elemental refrains—the waves, the soil, the flames, the spirit—and in doing so, lay bare the fragility of the human condition as we wrestle with the numinous. They remind us of what we are made and all that we could become if we are “determined, / for once, to be faithful to something.” The insights in this work will leave the reader breathless, pensive, challenged, jealous, and mindful of how good poetry can be good theology.
–Matthew E. Henry, author of Teaching While Black and Dust & Ashes
–Matthew E. Henry, author of Teaching While Black and Dust & Ashes
“Matthew J. Andrews writes like a curious exile. He plants one foot in this lowly world but stands tiptoe on the other, reaching up to seize the flickering promises of a life still to come. Describing all the tenderness, claustrophobia, hope and lovely strangeness of our being, Andrews’ poems undress their readers through a generous act of understanding realized one line at a time.”
“Matthew J. Andrews writes like a curious exile. He plants one foot in this lowly world but stands tiptoe on the other, reaching up to seize the flickering promises of a life still to come. Describing all the tenderness, claustrophobia, hope and lovely strangeness of our being, Andrews’ poems undress their readers through a generous act of understanding realized one line at a time.”
–Aarik Danielsen, arts journalist and Fathom Magazine columnist
–Aarik Danielsen, arts journalist and Fathom Magazine columnist
“At once restrained and grand, practical and transcendent, gritty and gentle, Matthew J. Andrews’ I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember is an ambitious and sweeping literary feat, recounting the Scriptural narrative through the eyes of those who lived it while remaining refreshingly contemporary. Andrews is a poet to be read, watched, and imitated, as well as a minister to be comforted by.”
“At once restrained and grand, practical and transcendent, gritty and gentle, Matthew J. Andrews’ I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember is an ambitious and sweeping literary feat, recounting the Scriptural narrative through the eyes of those who lived it while remaining refreshingly contemporary. Andrews is a poet to be read, watched, and imitated, as well as a minister to be comforted by.”
–Riley Bounds, Editor of Solum Press and author of Hands of Years
–Riley Bounds, Editor of Solum Press and author of Hands of Years
November 6, 2022
November 6, 2022
Wholly God's by Philip Kolin now available!
Wholly God's by Philip Kolin now available!
Philip Kolin's new book of poems, Wholly God's, which was reviewed in our recent issue by David Tisdale is now available from Wind & Water Press, P. O. Box 5276, Conneaut Lake, PA 16316. Alas, since Wind & Water is not on Amazon, orders ($8.99 per copy) should be sent directly to the address above.
Philip Kolin's new book of poems, Wholly God's, which was reviewed in our recent issue by David Tisdale is now available from Wind & Water Press, P. O. Box 5276, Conneaut Lake, PA 16316. Alas, since Wind & Water is not on Amazon, orders ($8.99 per copy) should be sent directly to the address above.
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