My first punch-weak-boned, hateful little beast. Its ancestors—those fistfights erupting from the snow between the older boys in the after school program, T-shirts and shorts in twenty-four degrees, red faces, ruddy knuckles. My first punch born to a warmer climate—fifth-grade spring, my best buddy Jeff with a new iPod Touch I watched him play while […]
James King
James King is a poet from New Hampshire, transplanted to the Carolinas. His poems have appeared in Bear Review, Exposition Review, Chautauqua, Anti-Heroin Chic, Humana Obscura, and others. James is the recipient of the 2020 Academy of American Poets Prize from Dartmouth College, a finalist in the 2023 NC State Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Wilmington, NC, where he works as an editor and the coordinator for the UNCW Young Writers Workshop. He can be found on Instagram @jamn_king and on his website Jamesedwardking.net.