SEPTEMBER 2026: Dara Laine (micro feature)

For Artists from Maryland's fourth digital microchapbook run, we're publishing an incredible micro-collection! Read Dara Laine's Forests in the Woodpile here (it's free to download!): https://artists-from-maryland.itch.io/forests-in-the-woodpile-by-dara-laine

Dara Laine (she/her) is a Baltimore-based poet, originally from Central New Jersey. She is the winner of the 2026 BLR Allman Prize for Poetry. Her poems appear in Westchester Review, Lindenwood Review, and Pine Hills Review.

"Silvery Now (Little Bluestem)" by Dara Laine, from Forests in the Woodpile

You didn’t need a reason to take me.

The leaves were already turning.
My hair—wild and silvery now.
“Doctor Strange,” you said.

You waited outside—
windows down,
reading DC comics
in the warm September breeze
of a local summer.

Little bluestem caught
the last of the light—
dull red, warm tan—
refusing to fall.

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