This poem imagines the exchange on audiotapes from “the wife” to “the blind man” in the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. The story is typically taught and discussed as if the blind man’s relationship with the wife was entirely platonic … Continued
(San Francisco, CA: Outpost19. 2020) Imagine the world going silent. All cars and buses, trains, subways, and planes stop in their lanes and patterns. Tiny particles drifting quietly through the air slowly and then pause, waiting. Even you are still. … Continued
The first invitation led to the roulette invasion. These words echo in nightmare after nightmare. Luckily, the invasion was a success. Success—as is well known—does not preclude the ransacking of sleep. The Hired Chair accepted the invitation and … Continued
I close the shutters, leave a wink of light to keep from burning down my paper house. The seams are creased. I move about in my tattered plight slowly. Elbow on the table, skin puckered makes a kissing … Continued
(Edmonds, WA: Ravenna Press 2021) Raven with huge paws and a brown snout. Boots with an active tongue and a fluffy tail. Bird the husky mix who “sings.” Spiff. Doodle. Elle. These are but a few of the delightful dog … 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
After a briefly too-long period of agonizing over the matter, I’ve concluded that it’s impossible to artistically justify why we, at TLR, wanted to do a John le Carré issue, and nearly impossible to summarize how the magazine you’re reading … Continued
The husband of one of our editors was pursuing a doctorate in Game Theory when I first arrived at the magazine six years ago. I thought then I had never heard of a more evocative subject for advanced … Continued
In the Glutton’s kitchen, there is no food. There is a giant refrigerator, but it’s empty. There are cabinets and cupboards, of course, but where the food should be, there’s nothing, not even a cobweb. The plates are … Continued
Women’s Studies when I was in college was a fairly straightforward, interdepartmental major that, at my school, emphasized continental literary theory and its blunter-edged cousin, identity politics, as well as (interestingly enough) health care from a social-historical perspective. Other colleges, … 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 and Confessions of a Hobo’s Daughter. Through a conversation that took place during this past election season, they touch on care and … 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