(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2020) One night after three am, Carol Ann Davis holds her sleeping seven-year-old boy, Luke, as he shutters and mumbles from night terrors, “My boy wakes repeating I don’t know I don’t know.” After he … Continued
(Kingston, WA, Two Sylvias Press, 2019) The clusterfuck that is the year 2020 continues, unabated, and I again am reaching for poetry. I suppose poetry is a de facto litmus test for my fractured attention. If I can read a … Continued
To put off doing what I need to, I plan a trip to Detroit with my mom. I spend hours looking at every Airbnb in the city, thinking of all the empty houses. There’s the ones that burned … Continued
A professor once wrote me that to write of fruit or flowers or dreams, no matter how deftly, is the lowest form of metaphor, after processions. Years later, on the subject again, she that time indicted horses as … Continued
(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2019) You don’t so much open this book as you step into it. In this pocket-size creation from Tupelo Press, featuring the arresting illustrations of Lavinia Hanachiuc, Katie Farris seduces us into an uncanny dimension … Continued
The lady upstairs is yelling at her kids. I mean, really yelling. The high whine of these kids’ voices and the pitter-patter lightness of their footsteps suggest the oldest can’t be older than ten—or at least not … Continued
The pleasures of the streets, perfumed with hazelnuts and cheese, medieval rivers, edges reduced to ice. Of walking irregular stones, past the silent, frustrated dead, in black shoes with laces. As we pass, my eyes meet his (same sad longing) … Continued
With purpose, you pull up the blinds. Light enters the room like a feeling violating a man. Sitting up in a bed built for a husband and a wife, I think for a second nature has taken us … Continued
(Frankfurt, KY: Broadstone Books, 2019) There certainly is a need for fantasy in our culture. Fantasy novels, sci-fi novels, manga, anime, adult fantasy fiction and films, fan fiction — the list runs like a stream into an ever-growing groundswell of … Continued
For many years, I did not drink beer and then, suddenly, I did. Before that, before I drank beer, I drank wine. For many years when I was asked at a party, at a gathering, at an event, … Continued
So here’s our firstborn. Another child, and another. Here’s a six pack of dark beer shoved through a basement window. Here’s the Montreal bistro I proposed in, that we returned to every year until we didn’t. Here’s the … Continued
(Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2020) Sejal Shah and I have two things in common. We both grew up in the New York/New Jersey area and pursued writing in college. This is about the extent of the similarities between … Continued
They’ll be here soon. I’m not denying that fact. But knowing and accepting are not one and the same. I accept myself, sometimes. I’ll never be more than a fan, but that’s okay, because I’m a good fan. For example, … Continued
translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson for the castaways of the Ker Anna For the first time, we were naked. Who taught us to fall from the tree? What power had we wasted? To which blood founding our … Continued
aux naufragés du Ker Anna Pour la première fois, nous étions nus. Qui nous apprit à tomber de l’arbre ? Quel pouvoir avions-nous perdu ? A quel sang édifiant les palabres ? Combien d’oiseaux seront éperdus au bastingage de … Continued
(Seattle, WA: Wave Books: 2019) Earlier this year, @KylePlantEmoji tweeted: Fun fact: some people have an internal narrative and some don’t. As in, some people’s thoughts are like sentences they “hear,” and some people just have abstract non-verbal thoughts, and … Continued
That night, as Sam slept, Daisy snuck out and drove out of town, the sky clear, the moon half-empty. Ahead of her the tail lights of a semi-trailer. She watched for the gleam of green deer eyes on the shoulder. … Continued
Translated from Italian by Stiliana Milkova the philosophy student dreams she has insomnia her hair grows at night spilling from her bed even-numbered strands sprout into serpents’ heads odd-numbered strands splice into steel scissors serpents and scissors battle while … Continued
(Brooklyn, NY: 7.13 Books, 2020) Over the last few months, our sense of reality has dramatically changed. The world first shifted with a global pandemic, followed by tremors of protest against police brutality and racial injustice which jolted many out … Continued
Once upon a time, I wasn’t a good little girl. Momma only had a few rules for my sister, Jane, and me. Rule number one: Always have each other’s backs. Rule number two: Do our … Continued
(Vine Leaves Press, 2019) Million Dollar Red is a Dickensian tale, a tough story about a tender girl. It is presented as a memoir though the first name of the author is Gleah and the protagonist’s name is Linda, but, … Continued
Mary worked night shifts because of the babies. At night, when the lights were dimmed in the hospital nursery, she could hold and rock the newborns. During the hubbub of the day, when administrators roamed the halls … Continued
For Marina My friend tells me my courage is my vulnerability, that in my overthrow of self lies refinement. What part un-hindering & what part exchange? Is it courage that extends the detangling of days? Maybe so. … Continued
(Pittsburgh, PA: Autumn House Press, 2019) The desert: a place of strange, spiked plants and long, sandy distances. Even today in the age of air conditioners and running water, it’s not exactly a place that welcomes human life. It is … Continued
You know what … I was proved fucking right. That’s what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, ‘There she goes again.’ But I was proved fucking right.—Judith Miller [Chalabi] published three mathematics papers between 1973 and 1980, in … Continued
Flouncing when she trots, Perked, cocked, flopped, Flattened, swiveled at Prompts of joy or itch Or curiosity, velvet Flaps opening on secret Zones of sound more Precious than what’s Hidden inside any silken Purse—awareness’s soft Synecdoches, alert just … Continued
After V.W. & H.D.T. How I wish someone would draft These lines for me. Perhaps I could Revise, develop, finish them, but Then whom would I owe, and what Would be demanded? Someone Young, I suppose—amused or kind Or shrewd, … Continued
Later, in the dream of having bought a rambling seaside house, in which just a few rooms had been finished—furnished, decorated— while others remained box-cluttered, empty of design or even purpose, I find a man I know … Continued
(New York: Knopf, 2020) “Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicenter, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns. This moment is the absent mother’s.” Thus remarks the narrator in the opening pages of Irish author Maggie … Continued
One night I walk to a bookstore five blocks from my house. The weather is perfect, cool and dry. The Big Dipper fills the canvas of a clear night. I am on my phone renting equipment for work when I … Continued