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Canal

April 28, 2014

After the photograph Manatee Drive 02 by Isabella Hayeur, 2011 No one who has ever seen a body of water has not imagined drowning. Surface divides my eye and my breath holds me. The underskin of the canal grows … Continued

Country: A Mix Tape

April 26, 2014

Christine Schutt

We didn’t spend enough time with any of our friends who are dead when they were alive, we never are good enough and we never can be the old declaration god is love. —Barry Hannah Before he used the … Continued

horizontal transmission ||| from 3:AM

April 25, 2014

Rebecca Hattersley

Like lavender she is suited to extreme conditions, expert drainage and the appreciation of a romantic’s nose. She considers a rose to be a tentative gesture: petticoats of veiled ham to crispy blisters in approximately seven days. Sorry I can’t be … Continued

Suffering Love: Three Memoirs Personalized

April 24, 2014

Jena Salon

Books Discussed: Bonnie J. Rough’s Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA (Counterpoint Press, 2010); Roland Barthes’s Mourning Diary, translated and with an Afterword by Richard Howard (Hill and Wang, 2012); Roger Rosenblatt’s, Making Toast (Ecco, 2010) It was six months, almost to the day, from … Continued

The Total Number Of Things That Matter Is On The Rise ||| from Phantom Limb

April 22, 2014

Wendy Xu

Someone right now is a nervous wreck biking against the dark ribbon of a highway like some kind of quiet disaster. What is up with everyone’s apartment infested by bees? Why did you instead gently ease the door back into … Continued

A Review of Nest of Worlds by Marek S. Huberath

April 17, 2014

Cory Johnston

Translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel (Brooklyn, NY: Restless Books, 2014) When Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity in 1905, perhaps the most jarring conclusion drawn from his new vision of the universe was that time itself … Continued

You’re An Ugly Crier ||| from The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review

April 15, 2014

Megan Giddings

*** Megan Giddings is currently an MFA student at Indiana University. She was a 2013-2014 Kathy Fish Fellow and Writer-in-Residence at SmokeLong Quarterly. Her work has been or will soon be featured in The Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Journal, … Continued

Friday Night Lights

April 14, 2014

Clay Matthews

Upstairs the child rattles her crib against the wall. I trim my nails and think about the future. Some rockabilly song plays on the radio, the voice of someone announcing a football game coming down the road. Now that I’m … Continued

A Review of People on Sunday by Geoffrey G. O’Brien

April 11, 2014

Heather Lang

(Seattle and New York: Wave Books, 2013.) I can’t put O’Brien’s newest poetry collection down. By this I do not mean that I am propelled through People on Sunday until the end, but rather, that I am compelled to read … Continued

The Day ||| from Revolver

April 8, 2014

D. Foy

In the morning, in the hazy light, you make bologna sandwiches on white bread with mustard and American cheese, then wait out the time before the turntable listening to rock and roll. Then the time comes, and you step into … Continued

Driftless Elegy

April 6, 2014

Mark Wunderlich

The bridge over the Mississippi is shut, the traffic diverted to Wabasha while authorities investigate the undergirding which is corroded and in danger of collapse. Work has slowed on both sides of the river while an enterprising man with a … Continued

This Is Not a Personal Poem

April 4, 2014

Alex Dimitrov

This is not a personal poem. I don’t write about my life. I don’t have a life. I don’t have sex. I have not experienced death. Don’t take this personally but I don’t have any feelings either. The feelings I … Continued

Robert Polito Discusses His Poetry Collection, “Hollywood & God”

April 2, 2014

Alan Gilbert

Discussed: Hollywood & God, The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 2009 As Director of the Writing Program at The New School* in Manhattan, Robert Polito frequently conducts public discussions with various invited writers and scholars. I’ve attended a number of … Continued

Something Is Wrong With Harry

March 28, 2014

Jody Azzouni

Harry is gardening. Flowers, he tells me. For the dog. Dogs need flowers too. Really, I tell him. Harry doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m being sarcastic, that I’m making a joke at his expense. I’ve been practicing deadpan for … Continued

A Review of All Dogs Are Blue by Rodrigo de Souza Leão

March 27, 2014

Daniella Bondar

Translated from Portuguese by Zoë Perry and Stefan Tobler (High Wycomb, UK: And Other Stories, 2013) Reading Rodrigo de Souza Leão’s All Dogs Are Blue is like taking an acid-fueled journey into a mystified reality. The novel is about everything … Continued

The Patron Saints ||| from decomP magazinE

March 25, 2014

Kimberly Ann Southwick

news from an island: twelve thousand people are unaccounted for, probably underwater. they are bodies and bones and sunk, probably, somewhere. there are superstitions about rivers, loaves of bread and a dollop of silver. there are rumors that can raise … Continued

Field Guide to Prose Poetry and The Art of the Poetic Line

March 21, 2014

Renée Ashley

WORKS DISCUSSED: The Art of the Poetic Line by James Longenbach, St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2008 and The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice, edited by Gary L. McDowell and F. Daniel … Continued

Silt ||| from Post Road Magazine

March 18, 2014

Alex Lemon

In the dark, I count fingers, Watch lightning spider Over the mountain’s toothy peaks. All the while, the cupola grows Cloudy with accidents— Dark blossoms sticky and wet, Clinging shadowy with reincarnation. Yesterday eight and now, eleven, Memories distilled, frayed. … Continued

A Review of The Next Monsters by Julie Doxsee

March 13, 2014

Alex Crowley

(New York, NY: Black Ocean, 2013) As a well-bred, attention-deficient, “multitasking” reader, I always have at least two books open, bookmarked, and in progress at any given moment. It’s not simply about having variety, or feeding different parts of the … Continued

Icarus ||| from Witness

March 11, 2014

Kirstin Allio

Our parents were looking for an end-run around human suffering. We left our worldly home on a foggy early morning, low clouds that smelled like seawater. “Zendo-by-the-Sea,” said our dad, Ray, trying to catch my sister and me in the … Continued

The Drift of the World

March 9, 2014

Daniel Wolff

I thought you were an anchor in the drift of the world; but no: there isn’t an anchor anywhere. —William Bronk You aren’t forgotten. How could so much of us ever be? When you left this life, an anchor … Continued

Why Nobody Reads William Bronk

March 8, 2014

Daniel Wolff

First, it’s hard. Take the opening line from the opening poem of Bronk’s 1993 collection, The Mild Day. “It’s like going to Africa to live.” What? What’s like that? You can scan the rest of the short poem and never … Continued

A Review of The Sad Passions by Veronica Gonzales Peña

March 6, 2014

Gloria Beth Amodeo

(Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2013) What are The Sad Passions? Something about the cover struck me as kindred at first sight. A Francesca Woodman photograph of a woman hanging by her fingers in a doorway, face covered in hair. The scene is incipient, set … Continued

Bar Stares ||| from Thieves Jargon

March 4, 2014

Tim Waldron

Before you open your eyes you crave mercy. You are cold and uncomfortable, nothing feels right. Your roommate yells at you, his words make little sense. Naked, curled in a ball under the dinning room table you open your eyes. … Continued

The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal

February 27, 2014

Jessie Vail Aufiery

Translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor (New York City, NY: New Vessel Press, 2013) The Missing Year, the first novel by Argentinian writer Pedro Mairal to be translated (excellently, by Nick Caistor) into English, is a slim 118 pages, beautifully … Continued

Epistolary Poem for Reader, Brother, Grandmother, Men (Or, When I Say I Want To Spit You Up) ||| from Painted Bride Quarterly

February 25, 2014

Morgan Parker

I’m thinking, what would happen if I started masturbating on this subway car? It’s late. An African man next to me is reading the president’s book. Drinks tonight with an older poet who told me that Winnie the Pooh is … Continued

A Review of Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows A Tail by Kelly Luce

February 20, 2014

Dianca London Potts

(New York, NY: A Strange Object, 2013) Continuing in the tradition of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s dark fairytales, the jaded yet occasionally hopeful romanticism of Miranda July, and the magical realism of Karen Russell and Ramona Ausubel, newcomer Kelly Luce crafts narratives … Continued

That the Soul Discharges Her Passions upon False Objects

February 19, 2014

Okla Elliott

The amorous part that is in us, for want of a legitimate object, rather than lie idle, does after that manner forge and create one false and frivolous. —Montaigne, from his essay with more or less the same title as this poem … Continued

America is Me and Andy ||| from Word Riot

February 18, 2014

Adam Wilson

I’m done being friends with dreadlocked white guys. But try telling Andy, the only person ever to make a homosexual pass at me. In fairness to Andy, it was Halloween, I was dressed as Lara Croft, and I do have slim wrists and … Continued

Ghost

February 14, 2014

Stephen O'Connor

“There’s a ghost in this house,” says Monica. “Stop it,” says Nell, holding her palm up flat. Just outside the window, beside a low, bare hemlock branch, a ghost is listening. Most people imagine ghosts as the leftovers of … Continued

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