Wilding

Shara McCallum

Machetazo!, Bony Ramírez & Blonde Dreams, Alison Saar

you can take the girl out of the wildernessyou can strand her bewilder her for a timeyou can even hang her upside downin your rickety attempt to shake loosethe source of her power but you won’t everdisentangle the wilding from herthe force of a thousand suns unfurlingand hurling her toward the groundyou won’t be able to erase the tracesof salt lacing her ravenous dreamsoh you can try unwebbing her feetbut the lizard in her will keep sunningitself as the day is long and at nightfallwill crawl up your walls lurkingat the corners of your visiongoading you on while she thwartsyour every endeavor abandoningher tail anything required of herto keep eluding your capture

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Headshot of Shara McCallum

From Jamaica and born to a Jamaican father and Venezuelan mother, Shara McCallum is the author of seven books of poetry, published in the US & UK, including Behold (forthcoming, 2026). Recognition for her work includes a Guggenheim Fellowship, Musgrave Medal, NEA Poetry Fellowship, Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and OCM Bocas Caribbean Poetry Prize. McCallum teaches at Penn State University and from 2021-22 served as the Penn State Laureate.

Cover of Pleiades

Pleiades

44.2

Warrensburg, Missouri

University of Central Missouri

Editors
Jenny Molberg
Erin Adair-Hodges
Phong Nguyen

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Pleiades is a literary biannual featuring poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews by authors from around the world. Past contributors include winners of the Nobel, Ruth Lilly, Pulitzer, Bollingen, Prix de la Liberté, and Neustadt Prizes, recipients of Guggenheim, Whiting, National Book Critics Circle and National Book Awards, and many writers seeing their work in print for the first time. The Pleiades Book Review (PBR) is a literary supplement to the magazine that features both essay reviews and shorter reviews of books released primarily by independent publishers.

Pleiades Press also publishes a book a year through the Unsung Masters Series, each volume of which focuses on an important writer who has been unjustly neglected.

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