A Journal of Poetic Observations
Sparks of Calliope nominated six poems for inclusion in the 2025 Best of the Net Anthology, sponsored by Sundress Publications. Eligible poems appeared between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, and were previously unpublished.
Best of the Net 2025 Nominees
“Along the Shoulder” by Terence Culleton
“Dear Son” by Jacqueline Jules
“The Metaphor of Work” by Ali Rowland
“Anticipation” by Beate Sigriddaughter
If you would like to view our previous nominations, you can find them here.
Sorting through thirty years
of what to keep and what to toss,
I keep thinking of you, son,
three hundred miles away
in a busy house with three kids.
If I left all this for you,
you’d drive down without
your wife and sit for hours,
legs crossed on the carpet
sifting through receipts, searching
for items you remember, the faded
papers sticking to your fingers.
Your father was a hoarder, too.
All it took was a single photograph
hidden in a nest of dental bills
to declare a whole box must be saved.
Old maps from family trips,
my lesson plans from 1998,
a blue ribbon from a spelling bee.
You don’t need to haul them home,
store them in your attic the way
your father did when his mother died.
Each bag I remove from this house,
releases you from the grief of letting go.
She says she met her husband
because her poodle died.
A Miniature. Cancer. Nine years old.
Dead. So no need to rush home
to fasten his rhinestone leash for a walk.
Her poodle died, and she couldn’t face
not seeing his wiggling white butt
when she opened the door, not hearing
the click of his nails on the tile.
So she went to a bar with that group
from the office who gathered
every Friday night at five.
And Marvin was there. At the next table.
Somehow, their eyes met.
An ordinary tale, she admits,
before going on to say
they just moved to the suburbs
with a baby and two Beagle puppies.
Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, One Art, and Amethyst Review. She is also the author of two poetry books for young readers, Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence. (Albert Whitman, 2020) and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Visit her at www.jacquelinejules.com.
My mother taught me to stew fruit.
To core and peel. Add raisins.
A bit of brown sugar, cinnamon.
Simmer till soft.
For this family treat,
she used mostly blemished fruit,
apples and pears she deemed
perfectly good, save for a few
brown spots.
At my own counter,
paring knife in hand,
I remember Mom
in her green Formica kitchen
humming while she sliced
the bruises off battered fruit,
never doubting for a moment
she could make something sweet
with whatever was left.
We often spent Sunday afternoons
at scenic spots. We liked those sprawling
parks, created from old estates
with grand houses and grounds.
Now I leave you home when I drive away
with my neighbor Shelley, already widowed.
You couldn’t navigate this leaf-covered trail
with your cane. While I can still step quickly
uphill, over exposed tree roots.
Shelley, cheerful beside me, suggests a stop
after our walk at the market down the road,
the kind of place we would have visited
before your first trip to the ER.
Returning to the car,
I think of your stammering steps
from couch to table, the groaning
effort to sit back down in a chair,
and wish it wasn’t so painful
to mention how much we both miss
what we used to do together.
Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications including The Sunlight Press, Gyroscope Review, and One Art. She is also the author of two poetry books for young readers: Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence. (Albert Whitman, 2020) and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Visit www.jacquelinejules.com.
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