Excerpt: Chris Fink
From Farmer’s Almanac Farmer and Farmer’s Radio Farmer isn’t one of those farmers who seems only on the exterior to be simple. Farmer is, though, a farmer, your typical hayseed. Here is his secret: Farmer has lived with women only long enough to know that he cannot live without them. Here is our secret: Farmer … Read more
(Archive) Excerpt: Marilyn McCabe
From Perpetual Motion from “Considering Magritte” 1. (with a grain of Sel)f-Portrait A gaping hole where face should be an unripe apple a void at the caged gut disguised by a bird. If I were to open my eyes you’d see only sky. What a body wants: a good hat to keep it all in, … Read more
(Archive) Excerpt: Jen Karetnick
From Landscaping for Wildlife Love Poem for the Purple Gallinule From ficus to sawgrass, spatterdock to mangrove, with the fidgety gravity of a balloon losing helium, the purple gallinule skips over the skin of the glades, freckle to sunspot like the sheen on the surface of oil upon water. His mate is somewhere nearby. Or … Read more
Excerpt: Chris Ross
From Born & Raised Turf’s Funeral The next morning I found my sister Billie sitting in the kitchen painting her toenails. Cathy called—she said. We’re burying Turf today at her house. You’re coming. I told Billie—But I have a swimming lesson at the Y. Billie blew on her toes. I don’t think you’ll drown if … Read more
Excerpt: Matt Mauch
From If You’re Lucky Is A Theory of Mine Let’s be sedentary in honor of our friends the half-buried plants If not completely so, if we’re little green chlorophyll factories, but are unrooted, like moss, may we never be placed in a moving van, by movers, in a move across the land. May we never … Read more
Excerpt: Susana H. Case
From Elvis Presley’s Hips & Mick Jagger’s Lips There’s Someone in My Head but It’s Not Me That December, everywhere in Rajasthan, in Uttar Pradesh, instead of Ravi Shankar, I hear Dark Side of The Moon, a buzzing from the touristic ruck that Pink Floyd will perform impromptu on the beach, New Year’s Eve, which … Read more
Excerpt: Owen Egerton
From Everyone Says That at the End of the World Mingus Would Approve Rica arrived at Mundi House hours before opening. She sat on a bench outside and watched the sky move from black to blue through all the watercolor hues of dawn. The sky looked unhealthy, fragile, like a child that might not last … Read more
Excerpt: Susana H. Case, Monica Wendel, & Amber West
From Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence Heat Susana H. Case Desert washes make me think of dead girls in shallow graves—lost—bereft of splendor their sun-blonded heads turned to roughened dust. Was this where Evil buried bodies back in ’66—would he go out this far or are they harshly covered over now with sprawl—the … Read more
Excerpt: Moshe Dor
From Scorched by the Sun: Poems by Moshe Dor Silence We grew up on silence. Because of the oath sworn over the gun, an orphan candle flickering in the dark. Because we were a new generation, praised for holding back, clenched mouths, keeping emotions under wraps. Reared on lofty sentiments we created ourselves out of … Read more
Excerpt: Dave Barry
From The Better Bombshell Let’s begin with what men do not look for in a woman. (NOTE: I am using the word “men” in the sense of “all of mankind,” which for the purposes of this essay I am defining as “various guys I have known.”) Number one is shoes. I’m not saying shoes are … Read more
