Says the River to Her Patriarchy
to explain how a tributary becomes a river there isn’t a way but for the tributary to deny it— I deny the very river I deny the paying of tribute grow up, say the men in my life … Continued
to explain how a tributary becomes a river there isn’t a way but for the tributary to deny it— I deny the very river I deny the paying of tribute grow up, say the men in my life … Continued
(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press/Leapfolio 2020) In a slim paperbound volume, which sports a pale blossom on its rain-colored cover — reminiscent of Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” — poet and oncologist Matthew Mumber’s thirty-nine poems offer a … Continued
(Kenmore, NY: BlazeVOX Books 2019) Wade Stevenson’s Going Head to Head is a book-length poem that takes the head as its central theme and uses it as a way to explore various states of being — from the metaphysical to … Continued
(Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State Poetry Center 2020) Lauren Shapiro’s second poetry collection, Arena, deals with a father’s attempted suicide and its traumatic aftereffects. These poems move back and forth between lyric and prose modes as the speaker seeks to bring … Continued
For Willa Frierson, the whole family, the Kenyon Review’s Young Writers Workshop, and for Gambier, Ohio: the most magical town in the world. Because I came home I became estranged / but in a soft way, like how … Continued
When I got out of the military, I stayed on in Albuquerque, renting a house month-to-month from a woman who’d recently been moved to a nursing home. I slept during the day and got a job working nights … Continued
Authors Katie Nolan and H.L. Hix, both philosophers, speak here about their recent releases, The Gospel according to H.L. Hix (Broadstone Books) and Confessions of a Hobo’s Daughter. Through a conversation that took place during this past election season, they touch on care … Continued
(McLean, IL: Dalkey Archive Press 2020) Toward. The word looks odd by itself, untethered from what’s behind, not yet having arrived at that which lies ahead. This untethered state is often mistakenly attributed to poetry and poets — it’s accompanied … Continued
The hunters at the gas station under the fluorescent lights. The man in front of me lets me go because I’m a woman, it’s long been a ruling that women and children go first. Waxing towards full duchess, … Continued
(Seattle, WA: Red Mountain Press, 2020) Donald Platt’s new poetry collection One Illuminated Letter of Being is a tribute to his dead mother Martha, whom he desperately wants back. Closure is a myth; we are unending, ever-evolving, always reshaping the … Continued
I’m thirteen and I look like a child bride in my Confirmation dress. I receive the sacrament by an old Pastor who’s also my math teacher and it’s titillating the way he grazes my tongue with the wafer. … Continued
On my way up north I stop to fill the Honda up. I like to time the emptiness so I can fill it at my favorite place: a Chevron with a taqueria in the minimart where the Honda … Continued
The Boardwalk lit up in constellations of tilt-o-whirls and loop-o-planes, and I can’t find a word to express loneliness that brilliant and hard-won. I have a stillness in me that’s yellow-paged and bramble-lashed. I think the word I … Continued
In the summer of 2020, Clifford Garstang, author of House of the Ancients and Other Stories, and Terese Svoboda, author of Great American Desert, interviewed each other via email about their most recent releases of story collections. This is a transcript … Continued
Joe’s eleven-year-old daughter wrote a children’s book and got it published. It was about a little girl eating a jar of cookies while her parents slept. Scholastic loved it. Joe was upset because he had also written a … Continued
There are enough people suffering, I mean really suffering, that it warrants a special kind of restaurant. You go in, order whatever you want, eat as much as you want. Then you go up front and check out … Continued
I wrote a book called The Book of Disorder I wrote a book called The Atlas of Tics I’m famous in supraliminal circles I wrote a book called The History of the Sponge It has devolving syntax I … Continued
(Los Angeles, CA: Unnamed Press 2020) Dark. Delicious. Smart and deeply literary. A novel of sublime prose and piquant wit, A Certain Hunger, by Chelsea G. Summers, is part psychological thriller, part unapologetic tale of sexual desire from a woman … Continued
The Guatemalan Civil War was still raging and the green berets were running the town, spraying the good buildings with bullets. The good buildings with the good designs by white city planners now riddled with holes and breathing … Continued
I’m having trouble writing poetry he wrote trouble being a poetry writer I don’t know I … Continued
Path Today: Fresh Path: Another Kind of Path: Current Path: High School Path: Path of Discernment: Public Speaking Path: Path to The Podium: Monday Morning Path: Path of Least Resistance: Back At It: Path: Sometimes a Path is … Continued
Translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley (Sheffield, UK: And Other Stories, 2020) Early in Swedish author Andrzej Tichý’s fifth novel, Wretchedness, this reader had the sinking feeling that the narrative would be a latter-day, sentimental retrospective on drug addiction and … Continued
TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH BY DAVID BRUNSON When I think of freedom I think of Isla, my mare, And I think of a photo of my grandmother, Gorgeous at seventeen. She remembers, in those days, When a man told her … Continued
TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH BY DAVID BRUNSON I joined the socialist party at 16. That is I lived through the flowering of a failed state before losing my virginity. We watered the votes with our voices, The revolution was our … Continued
Miranda awoke to an empty house—blankets flat beside her, air cold and breathless. Downstairs, the sheets Lucas had used were piled neatly on the couch, a note at their center: Next time, come to the city! She found … Continued
I gained twenty pounds this year from eating strictly bananas and avocados. My thighs dimple in the bathtub, and a sheen of moisture coats the mauve and powder-blue octagonal tiles beside me. The bathwater is lukewarm now. The … Continued
Translated from French by Adriana Hunter (New York: Other Press, 2020) Written in poetic, gorgeously sparse prose, Pauline Delabroy-Allard’s debut novel, They Say Sarah, captures the intensity of two women’s violent and obsessive love affair. Structured in two parts, … Continued
Weave a new tale for the clever queen. By day she weaves the shroud; by night she … Continued
He crows to prepare our yards with his presence, and he orders the space between us. He stands it up straight. Inside his own sound, he is the world itself, not of it. He populates our yards with … Continued
Ernest Hemingway met F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in 1925 when they were all living in Paris. The Great Gatsby had just come out and, according to Fitzgerald, “was not selling well but had very fine reviews.” Hemingway pursued the … Continued