Poems, Stories, etc.

Neile Graham's poetry is breathtaking and stern, abducting her audience into a realm of disturbing yet beautiful detail and experience.

—Bumbershoot Arts Festival Schedule

Poems currently available online

Forthcoming poems

  • "The Goddess of Bedtime Stories," "The Goddess of Mist (a Glosa)," and "The Night We Shut Out the Children" will appear in Polar Starlight
  • "The Gods of Production" will appear in Polar Borealis

Poems in print magazines and journals

  • "The Goddess of Apples" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 45 (2022)
  • "About God(s)(desses), Part 1," "About God(s)(desses), Part 2" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 38 (July 2018)
  • "Petraphilia" in Prairie Fire 39.2 (2018)
  • "You Put a Spell On Me," "Helen's Reverie and Then Some," "Cannibal Spirit Dance" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 34 (July 2016)
  • "Transformation Song" in The Malahat Review 189 (Winter 2014)
  • "Bean Nighe: The Washer At The Ford" in Not One of Us 51 (2014)
  • "Ksampguiyaeps Woman-Out-to-Sea," "Hermitage" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 29 (Fall 2013)
  • "The Green Green Rain" in Mythic Delirium 26 (2013)
  • "3 St. Ronan's Drive" in Queen's Quarterly 118:2 (Summer 2011)
  • "Put Out The Light" in Prairie Fire 32:1 (Spring 2011)
  • "Aged Black, Morning Green" in Canadian Literature 200 (Spring 2009)
  • "Machrie Moor" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 24 (Fall 2009)
  • "Atlantic Pacific," "Haida Gwaii Journal May 1982" in Dream Catcher 23 (2009)
  • "Thunderbird Comes From the Sunset" in The Malahat Review 165 (2008)
  • "Egg and Sky Skye and Eigg" in The Malahat Review 160 (2007)
  • "The Tattoos I Don't Have" and "Westness Walk" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 20 (2007)
  • "Lockerbie" in Full Unit Hookup 8 (2006)
  • "Giant's Graves Forest Trail1 Painted by Numbers" in The Malahat Review 155 (2006)
  • "Hunting The Lady Well" in Canadian Literature 186 (2005)
  • "1773" in LitRag 19 (2005)
  • "The Mainland Tour: Orkney" in Thin Air 0013 (2005)
  • "Westward Ever Dreaming" in Canadian Literature 178 (2003)
  • "Carnasserie Castle" in Grain 29:4 (2002)
  • "Wearing Nothing But The Midnight Sun" (Editor's Choice) in Arc 47 (2001)
  • "The Grey Cairns of Camster" in LitRag 11 (2001)
  • "Meditation at La Push" in Arc 45 (2000)
  • "Answers for the Phone Surveyor," "Consider Teiresias" in LitRag 8 (2000)
  • "The Fisher's Daughter" in Magazine of Speculative Poetry 4.4 (2000)
  • "Sea Glass From Execution Rock" in Seattle Neighborhood Arts Celebration program (February 12, 2000)
  • "The Walk She Takes," "What Comes of Winter" in TickleAce 37 (2000)
  • "Beneath the Sign Marked Maidens >9" (Editor's Choice) in Arc 43 (1999)
  • "Alchemical Daughter" in Contemporary Verse 2 22.1 (1999)
  • "Map of the Ancient World," "My Love Out Riding" in Star*Line 22.3 (1999)
  • "Delicate as the Shapes of Spirits" in Canadian Literature 159 (1998)
  • "Lucidity" (Editor's Choice) in Arc 41 (1998)
  • "Reconstructing a Life," "On Skye," "Dwarfie Stane, Isle of Hoy" in PoetsWest 1:3 (1998)
  • "Ravenous" (Editor's Choice) in Arc 39 (1997)
  • "On Skye" in Museletter May (1995)
  • "Settled in Montana for Winter" in Toronto Star (December 9, 1995)
  • "Electra to Orestes: Against the Furies" in The Dalhousie Review 73.1 (1994)
  • "I was a Pagan Baby" in Earth's Daughters 42 (1994)
  • "The Game of Cards," "Loving The Green Man" in Poet Lore 89.1 (1994)
  • "The Tree in the World" in Arc 31 (1993)
  • "Tomb of the Eagles" in Prism 31.4 (1993)
  • "Story 1," "Woman at the Edge of the World" in University of Windsor Review 26.2 (1993)
  • "White Lies" in Canadian Literature 133 (1992)
  • "Fool's Gold on the Snow," "Tuppence in Pocket" in Grain 20.2 (1992)
  • "Four Crow Photographs," "The Lovers in Grey"in The Antigonish Review 85-86 (1991)
  • "Postcard of O'Keeffe," "Winter or Goodbye" in Arc 26 (1991)
  • "My Father Among the Mayans," "Sooke River Story" in NeWest Review 16.3 (1991)
  • "Sea Glass from Execution Rock," "Tam Lin" in Quarry 40.4 (1991)
  • "Midfire" in Primavera 14/15 (1991)
  • "Why I Would Think I am Leaving" in Poet Lore 85.3 (1990)
  • "Heat and the City," "Woman in Bath" in The New Quarterly 4.4 (1990)
  • "So We Know It's Not Just Us" in Canadian Literature 121 (1989)
  • "Hero at the Gates of Hell," "Shoah" in Contemporary Verse 2 12.1 (1989)
  • "My Grandmother's Photograph" in Dandelion 16.2 (1989)
  • "Berlin Dreams" in Queen's Quarterly 96.2 (1989)
  • "What is the Poison Named?" in The Dalhousie Review 67.4 (1988)
  • "Settled in Montana for Winter," "Sleeping with Lambs" in Descant 18.4 (1987)
  • "Parable of the Headwaters" in Mississippi Mud (1987)
  • "The Prophet as Traveller," "Salamander Pendant" in Canadian Literature 112 (1987)
  • "Lakeside Inventory" in Calyx 10.1 (1986)
  • "Map of Vancouver Island" in The Greenfield Review 13.3-4 (1986)
  • "Four Pole Crow Burial Scaffold; A Hillside in Spring" in Northern Lights II.3 (1986)
  • "The Master of Winter" in Wind 15.3 (1985)
  • "The Name of the Hunt" in Ariel 14.3 (1983)
  • "Anything You Say," "High Water," "Saltspring," "Swutlak Builds False Spring" in Canadian Literature 98 (1983)
  • "Aside," "Candle Making" in Prairie Fire 4.4 (1983)
  • "Cassandra," "Photograph" in The Antigonish Review 55 (1982)
  • "Heart of Stone" in CutBank 19 (1982)
  • "The Man's Dark Voice" in Dandelion 9.2 (1982)
  • "Journal in February" in Island 11 (1982)
  • "The Seasons Break Their Shapes," "`Sky Dark, Cloudless and Starless,'" "St. Maudlin (La Folle)" in The Malahat Review 61 (1982)
  • "December," "House with a Breeze," "The Manuscript" in Origins 12.3 (1982)
  • "In Reply to Your Letter" in The Wascana Review 17.1 (1982)
  • "Amazones & The Birdmen," "Naming," "The Stolen Bird" in WOT 4.1 (1982)
  • "Seven Robins," "How I'll Never Get Out," "Home Out of Place" in The Fiddlehead 128 (1981)
  • "Sky is That Moment" in From an Island (1980):
  • "As I'm Talking to You," "The End of the Long Season" in WOT 2.2 (1980)
  • "Voices from a New World" in From an Island (1979)

Poems in anthologies

  • The 2022 Rhysling Anthology (USA: Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, 2022): "Blood Spells"
  • "The Forester's Stratagem" in Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin, eds. R.B. Lemberg and Lisa M. Bradley (Seattle: Aqueduct Press, 2021)
  • The 2018 Rhysling Anthology (USA: Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, 2018): "The Alchemy of Arsenic"
  • The 2017 Rhysling Anthology (USA: Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, 2017): "Feles Alieni Vere Sunt"
  • With Lyre and Bow: A Devotional in Honor of Apollo (Bibliotheca Alexandrina: 2016): "Daphne"
  • Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing 2014 (Toronto, ON: Chizine Press, 2016): "Chant For Summer Darkness in Northwest Climes," "The God of Lost Things," "The Lark, The Peat, The Star and Our Time"
  • Strange Horizons: Favorites of the Last Fifteen Years (Strange Horizons, 2015): "Dsonoqua on Lewis, The Outer Hebrides"
  • The 2015 Rhysling Anthology (USA: Science Fiction Poetry Association, 2015): "The Alchemy"
  • Imaginarium 3: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (Toronto, ON: Chizine Press/Tightrope Books, 2105): "Ksampguiyaeps Woman-Out-to-Sea"
  • The 2012 Rhysling Anthology (USA: Science Fiction Poetry Association, 2012): "The Bean-Sidhe Calls in Owl-Light"; "The Ones Outside Your Door"
  • Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (Toronto, ON: Chizine Press/Tightrope Books, 2012): "The Bean-Sidhe Calls in Owl-Light"; "The Ones Outside Your Door"
  • The Moment of Change (Seattle, WA: Aqueduct Press, 2012): "Dsonoqua Daughters"
  • Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv (Granada Hill, CA: Red Hen Press, 2008): "On Skye"
  • Arms Like Ladders: The Eloquent She. Poems from The Feminist Caucus (Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 2007): "Dsonoqua Daughters"
  • The Long Journey: Pacific Northwest Poets (Oregon: University of Oregon Press, 2006): "Graves and Churchyards Cairns and Cairns," "The Walk She Takes"
  • And No One Knows The Blood We Share: Poems from the Feminist Caucus (Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 2005): "On Skye"
  • Anthology One (Delaware: The Alsop Review Press, 2004): "Graves and Churchyards Cairns and Cairns," "The Walk She Takes," "Wearing Nothing But The Midnight Sun"
  • New Life in Dark Seas: Brick Books 25 (London, Ontario: Brick Books, 2000): "Sea Glass From Execution Rock"
  • Pontoon 4 (Seattle, WA: Floating Bridge Press, 2000): "Kilmichael Glassary"
  • We All Begin in a Little Magazine: Arc and the Promise of Canada's Poets, 1978 to 1998 (Ottawa, Ontario: Carleton University Press/Arc, 1998): "The Tree in the World"
  • Vintage 95 (Kingston, Ontario: Quarry, 1996): "On Skye," "Walking the Land's Edge, Orkney"
  • Vintage 93 (Kingston, Ontario: Quarry, 1994): "September, New York," "Tomb of the Eagles"
  • Vintage 92 (Victoria, B.C./Toronto: Sono Nis Press/League of Canadian Poets, 1993): "Gravestones at Elgin Cathedral"
  • A Discord of Flags: Canadian Poets Write About the Gulf War (Toronto: A Discord of Flags, 1992): "There As Here There Are No Doors"
  • Something More Than Words (Victoria: Reference West, 1991): "Alban Eiler: A Calling-On Song"
  • More Garden Varieties Two (Toronto: Aya/Mercury/League of Canadian Poets, 1990): "Storyteller Talking at the End of Her Days," "Washing at Sunset"
  • 1984 Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, ed. Alan Pater (Hollywood: Monitor Book Company, 1984): "Photograph"
  • The Parthenon Poetry Anthology ed. Angelo Aaron Schmuller (Rockaway, NY: Parthenon Publishing, 1981): "Seven Robins"
  • Student Oracle, ed. Noel Hudson-Jones and Julian Ross (Nelson, B.C.: David Thompson University Centre, 1979): "Cremation," "River"

Short stories

  • Odyssey 7 (1998): "Ars Poetica"
  • Odyssey 1 (1997): "Furious"

Essays, articles, reviews

  • "Introduction" in Pocket Workshop, ed. Tod McCoy and M. Huw Evans (Seattle: Hydra House, forthcoming February 2021.
  • "The Work of a Workshop" in Uncanny 21 (2018).
  • "John Barton" in The Malahat Review At Fifty: Canada's Iconic Literary Journal, ed. John Barton (Victoria, BC: University of Victoria Libraries, 2018)
  • "Diversity At Clarion West" in The WisCon Chronicles (Vol 9): Intersections and Alliances ed. Mary Anne Mohanraj (Seattle: Aqueduct Press, 2015).
  • "Urban Designs" in The Urban/Rural Experience ed. Maya Bannerman. Living Archives of the Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets (Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 1996). Later republished online in The Salmon Bay Review.
  • "Poetry as DNA" in Reinventing Memory ed. Anne Burke. Living Archives of the Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets (Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 1994). Later republished online in The Salmon Bay Review, then in Imprints and Casualties ed. Anne Burke. (Fredericton, New Brunswick: Broken Jaw Press, 2000): "Poetry as DNA"
  • "Incense: Robin Skelton's 'Burning Sticks, Mallorca,'" Arc 44 (2000)
  • Blind Criticism of "Untitled" (muse)Letters (Spring 1997)
  • Review of Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver, Calyx 14.1 (1992)
  • Review of Speaking in Tongues by Maura Simon, Calyx 14.1 (1992)
  • "A Desert Full of Glass," review of A Nostalgist's Map of America by Agha Shahid Ali, Poet Lore 87:1 (1992)
  • "Going the Distance," a bookstore review by Nelly & Fred, Upstream (Winter 1992)
  • Review of The Green Dream by Olga Cabral, Calyx 13.3 (1991-92)
  • Review of Powers of Congress by Alice Fulton, Calyx 13.3 (1991-92)
  • "Food for Body and Mind," a bookstore review by Nelly & Fred, Upstream (Summer/Fall 1991)
  • "Victoria(n) Bookstores," a bookstore review by Nelly & Fred, Upstream (Spring 1991)
  • Review of Magpie on the Gallows by Madeline DeFrees, Calyx 11.1 (1987)
  • Review of Cascades by Pamela Stewart, Calyx 11.1 (1987)
  • "Missoula," article (with James Gurley), Northwest Illustrated Artpaper 1.6 (June 1986)
  • Review of Erosion by Jorie Graham, CutBank 23 (1985)