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05 Oct Good Thing by Rachelle Toarmino

Posted at 09:00h in Poem of the Week, Publications by
We’re a crowd again
for the love of it
no use for measure
making out your breath
in the midnight here
so sweet like flint
I cash in like whatever
heart the poem’s for
I hope it does go on
or the honeyed throat
what goes with it knows
this is the tradition
I don’t wonder what
makes a good thing
can’t get over you
that you said time
means so much to me
all bright and first-person
the effect being to slip
into something less
particular sound of
whelmed for once
but I get out of hand
getting myself
out of your handsWhat would I say of you
if I had to
say it all again

About the Poet

Rachelle Toarmino 2025 credit Joshua Thermidor

photo credit: Joshua Thermidor

Rachelle Toarmino is a poet from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collections Hell Yeah (Third Man Books, 2025) and That Ex (Big Lucks Books, 2020), as well as several chapbooks, most recently My Science (Sixth Finch Books, 2025), winner of the 2024 Sixth Finch Chapbook Contest. She is the founding editor-in-chief of the literary publishing project Peach Mag and the creator and lead instructor of Beauty School, an independent poetry school.

Her work has appeared in Poets.org, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Southeast Review, The Slowdown, and Omnidawn, which awarded her its 2024 Single Poem Broadside Prize. She earned her MFA in poetry at UMass Amherst, where she received an Academy of American Poets Prize.

This poem appears in her new collection Hell Yeah published by Third Man Books.

Related Event

  • On Friday, October 10th at 7:00 p.m., Rachelle Toarmino will celebrate the publication of her second book of poems, Hell Yeah (Third Man Books), at its release party at the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (30D Essex Street). She will be joined by Buffalo-based musician Little Cake, who will be debuting songs that borrow lyrics from Toarmino’s poetry. Together, they will also be joined by a group of local writers and visual artists—Aidan Ryan, Avye Alexandres, Dana Murray Tyrrell, Diego Espíritu, Gardner Astalos, Joel Brenden, Joshua Thermidor, Laura Marris, Noah Falck, Sarah Jane Barry, Talia Ryan, and others—in a “Community Science Fair,” or a series of interactive art stations inspired by scientific theories, topics, and themes. Books will be available for sale and cake will be served for free.

 

The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.

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