poetry <3

I want to be / One notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial

♥ about me ♥

hello! i'm cindy gao. if you're reading this and somehow don't know me already (which is a wild and, honestly, unlikely possibility, but hi), i'm a junior at carnegie mellon university. i study behavioral economics and creative writing, and co-teach a student-run poetry workshop. i also brainrot about poetry a lot, so [gestures vaguely below].

a lot of the stuff i've written / published from high school is under the name "september lin." this is also me! it's just that in high school i had an overwhelming fear of the mortifying ordeal of being known and all that good stuff. welcome to the poetry section of my site :). this is all the work that exists in some form in the world or on the internet (doesn't belong to a litmag that's taken itself off the internet).

♥ other people's poetry that i enjoy ♥

• "monet refuses the operation"
• "ode to my alarm"
• "self-portrait against red wallpaper"

♥ featured poetry ♥

the latin name for the fox is vulpes vulpes. you always thought that sounded nice." - fifth wheel press - nominated for the 2025 best small fictions

i am insane about the last siblings in alice oseman's book radio silence.

"in the end, i want to die like the ocean" - the tide rises, the tide falls - maybe the real reincarnation was the friends we made along the way. anthologized in the pearl

"therefore i am" - beautiful mind issue of snowflake magazine - i think entirely too much about my own brain. "editor's pick" in the beautiful minds issue

♥ poetry that will someday exist ♥

ars poetica - debugging - blue marble review (forthcoming) everything is so horribly abstract.

how to make a decision about the future - blue marble review forthcoming yeah i mean job search who haha that would be crazy what haha.

♥ poetry that is somewhere in the literary ether????? ♥

this is the section of "i submit to small literary magazines and sometimes they have to disappear for a bit but they will theoretically exist at some point"

"the party city lady looks at me and goes ??? what" - new words {press} (forthcoming) - who up gendering around.

"walking to the 7-11 at 2 am , i think about jìng yè sī" - the borderline literary magazine (forthcoming) - pretty self-explanatory, i think. i have been going to the 7-11 a lot in college and also having many existential crises.

♥ poetry that currently exists ♥

in reverse chronological order of publication

• "the burning of the houses of lords and commons" - fifth wheel press (forthcoming) - i am insane about the jmw turner painting of the same name. this is also canonically an ars poetica.


• "ars poetica" - eunoia review - had a horrifying dream, went yo this fucks as a poetry premise though.


• seeing the eclipse in maine" - eunoia review - plus that one time i kissed my friend outside of the maine trip and fell into a dirtpatch.


• "ten candles" - oakland review - i love my friends. that's it, that's the whole thesis.


• "i lift my lids and all is born again" - oakland review - hey feeling better after being mentally ill for a long time feels kinda cool that's kinda nice.


• "COOPERATE / COOPERATE" - renaissance review - thought a payoff matrix would be a pretty cool poem format.


• "ode for the summer before a friend leaves for college" - blue daisies journal - what it says on the tin.


• "letters found in the patterns light makes when it gleams off the leaves of a poisonous plant" - issue 2 of lovers literary journal - i'm so normal about this is how you lose the time war, i promise


• "and they throw the matches down into the glitter" - ice lolly review - feat. misquoting of fall out boy. slaps roof of poem, this bad boy can fit so many puns.