Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

The News

The story surges out, springs

             on tongues unsprung,

no scandalous tangent sufficient

             to stop the momentum

             of words let loose

by circumstance, by God,

             by how what goes unreported

becomes legendary, hideous,

             becomes its own crime.

No one knows what’s transpired

             since the news first broke,

all lines disconnected,

             all sentences muted,

the end of telegraphed thought:

             story that ends with STOP.

Wyn Cooper’s sixth book of poems, The Unraveling, will appear in 2026. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Poetry, as well as in 25 anthologies of contemporary poetry. His poems have been turned into songs by Sheryl Crow and Madison Smartt Bell, among others. His first novel, Way Out West, was published in 2022 by Concord Free Press. He lives in Vermont.

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx