"the curse of my child who you will/ bury shallow in the ground without/ a second thought"
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Two Poems by Joel Anthony Harris
"America has never been a racist country ……………………………………… 15%"
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In the Crowd by Joe Bonomo
What does it mean to perform? I was onstage, and yet I wasn’t; I was playing to someone, and I was alone.
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The Food Taster by Matt Leibel
The food taster is fulfilled in her job in a way she knows most others are not. Something about this makes her uneasy. Something about this makes her ravenous for more.
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Crime Scene By J.R. Chapple
She’d been so good at laying still. Good at being frightened. During one of her early jobs, a gig where she’d started off alive, breathing long enough to be assaulted, the man had been so careful, making an effort to talk to her between takes
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A Normal Interview with Victoria Chang by Shelby Pinkham
The whole process was so joyful, and it always is, even when I'm writing about sad things. I think it’s joyful because the thing I’m making is actually helping me process my own experiences and perception.
Read MoreThis land is by Bill Marsh
Without trying, D and B are helping me understand the truth about forever—that it works both ways and travels the earth in all directions, thwarting all human attempts to move forward by going backwards.
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A Normal Interview with Alexandra Chang by Phoua Lee
I’m not interested in likability with characters. I am drawn to characters who are complex, contradictory, and very particular in the ways that they might exist in the world, and that they are capable of holding contradictory views. That is how I see people.
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The Opposite of Sorry by Gabe Montesanti
Not long before I started doing drag, I asked my friend Sai to teach me how to bind. “Sorry,” I said. “I know you’re busy. I just think I need your help.”
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Three Poems by Risë Kevalshar Collins
"don’t ya know i cried when you died / i say kinfolk you ain’t dead / in me you be alive awaitin ya second comin"
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The Scorpion by Leila Khaleghi
“Hello, old friend,” she whispered into the void. The fullness inside her swelled. She never imagined that she would have welcomed his well-armored companionship. But how different he seemed this time, a herald of harmony rather than hostility. A true friend. Oh, how good it was to see him.
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LGM-1 by Robert Paul Weston
From my window, I watched the pool’s plastic pit return to its former glory. Only when the refurbishment was complete, the pool refilled and made usable, did I discover Cathy existed, that the dull-but-probably-well-to-do couple next door had a daughter the same age as Gretchen Lowe.
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Two Poems by Vikesh Kapoor
"I care to understand,/ upon the backs/ of mother’s hands/ who cradle the scars of eastern sunrise,/"
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Turn Away by Stephanie La Rose
Permanently installed in my mortal mind’s corner sits Mrs. Eddy, ram-rod straight on her wooden chair, dark hair pleated, expression severe, Victorian jacket battened down, white ruff protruding round neck and wrists.
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Can Chimera Be Rescued? by Kristin Emanuel
Forget the original myth, its violence, its finality, your own complicity. What if--instead of dominion--this could be about tenderness?
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A Normal Interview with Éric Morales-Franceschini by Victoria Monsivaiz
My poetry is indeed heavily indebted to my studies in history, psychoanalysis, political economy, and critical social theory; but I find that, at times, only via poetry can I adequately express the gravity and intricacy of not just a given fact, but what I should (like to) do in light of that fact.
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Missive for a Departed Soul by Haya Abu Nasser
"I wander among abandoned houses,/ asking beggars and passersby near the rubble/ if they caught sight of a stray wish meandering around."
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The Velvet Air of Gaza: A Conversation with Three Palestinian Writers
I still think it is essential to at least sometimes focus on aspects of Palestinian culture and heritage outside of the conflict with Zionists. Doing this shows that we are not only defined by the current suffering and brutality; it is definitely part of the Palestinian experience, but it is not all of it.
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Minor Lightning by Victoria Barrett
We walk straight toward the things we want or need or have to reach, leaving a wake of our longing in the bare dirt behind us. We roll our eyes at the olds’ advice to slow down, to “savor,” such corny bullshit, we’ll slow down, maybe, when we arrive.
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The Smokers’ Daughter by Rosemary Harp
My mother lit her first cigarette on waking. My father smoked himself to sleep at night. They smoked as we carved pumpkins, sang Christmas carols around the piano, dipped eggs into bright dye. They smoked in our bedrooms while they read aloud to my brother and me. My mother, a skillful and innovative cook, especially for the time, smoked while making dinner every night, an ashtray balanced on the back end of the stove, lighting cigarette after cigarette on the gas burners under simmering pots.
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