from APOSTROPHES by Anna Strong
Anna Strong from APOSTROPHES “Hockey” This poem will be mostly about force. With one finger on my knee my science teacher tells me I can skate better than half the guys on varsity and I should really try out for…
TURID by Rachel B. Glaser
Rachel B. GlaserTurid The girl was bored and wandered. She did not care if she was tagged, no one could force her to play. If she was It, she would not react, she would continue looking at the Wilsons’ plants,…
CROCODILE HANDS by Amber Lee Dodd
Amber Lee DoddCROCODILE HANDS Like blind men feeling for pictures Anna and Chloe had felt for differences in their matching faces. Eyes closed Anna could feel the little kink in the bridge of Chloe’s nose, a dimple when she smiled…
THE SONG IN A CLOUD by Kate LaDew
Kate LaDewTHE SONG IN A CLOUD Willard was always humming to himself. Whenever Tom saw him, he was humming and looking up and smiling and sometimes not smiling, sometimes looking even sad, but always humming. Tom thought Willard might be…
WASH, RINSE, REPEAT by Carly Greenberg
Carly GreenbergWASH, RINSE, REPEAT There are so many cycles to choose from. Bulky, delicate, perm press. The dial shifts from one setting to the other. Darks, whites, colors. It turns clock-wise and back. Hot, warm, cold. A tablet is loaded,…
BiPRODUCT by Leah Koontz
Leah KoontzBIPRODUCT: Drag, Societal Identity, and Gender Equality BiProduct is a project I embarked on which considers drag queens, art, female expectations, and the media. This series features four of my works which address gender roles, equality, and social construction.…
CAREFULLY WRAPPED FESTIVAL OF DISCOVERY by Rich Ives
Rich IvesCAREFULLY WRAPPED FESTIVAL OF DISCOVERY There was a sadness and hearts went in there where it was waiting a small boat on the riverriver of what’s next the rope you can’t see rope with a private moon at the…
MEMORIAL DAY by Luke Stromberg
Luke StrombergMEMORIAL DAY When you were a boy, did you dream that street And wonder where it was? Did you dream Of death in an exotic locale? Iraq— its bicycles and minarets. Its men And their sweat-shined, mustached faces On…
BEATING PLOUGHSHARES INTO iPODS by Anya Lichtenstein
Anya LichtensteinBEATING PLOUGHSHARES INTO iPODS As a Conserva-dox Jew by upbringing and agnostic by nature, I don’t know whether I believe in the afterlife. Sometimes I’m certain that we are all just worm food. Other days I can feel my…
JOURNALISM by John Carroll
John CarrollJOURNALISM No one in my family talks about Uncle Terry, or why there never was a funeral. We did have a wake. We gathered at his house. The priests came in turtlenecks and polo shirts. My mother hovered by…
IN VERY LITTLE TIME ON THE NILE by Christopher X. Shade
Christopher X. ShadeIN VERY LITTLE TIME ON THE NILE In the distance where the sky met the great desert hills, or mountains, or whatever the Egyptians called them—Howard had no map to reveal what those great masses of land might…
ON BEIGE by Prairie Markussen
Prairie MarkussenON BEIGE She is a palomino in the Nordic countries, her hair scorched to a glow. She is the Northern ice floe, the delicate drip, the dusted broccoli top that slips downward into the sensual sliver. She is the…
THE PAIN by Caleb True
Caleb TrueTHE PAIN I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. At the moment it was pain but sometimes it was just a sensation. I sat down at the edge of the sidewalk and leaned over to puke. Didn’t. I…
THE MODERNIST CABIN by Emily Steinberg
Emily SteinbergTHE MODERNIST CABIN I began creating graphic novels or illustrated stories in 2005. I realized that I not only wanted to make visual imagery, as I do in my paintings, but I wanted to tell stories as well. I…
THE LAW OF CONSTANT ANGLES by Jason Newport
Jason NewportTHE LAW OF CONSTANT ANGLES Illustrations by Sarah Andrew I prop one boot on the Mustang’s running board. The car creaks as I lean staring across its soiled white roof at the honey. Freezing November winds off Lake Michigan…
THE STRAIGHT WARP OF NECESSITY by Mark Mondalek
Mark MondalekTHE STRAIGHT WARP OF NECESSITY Seated on the examiners table, I hold a mouse pad-sized monitor in place over my left breast with assorted electrodes leeched upon my arms and chest and my pacemaker’s memory bank is successfully tapped…
OF SNAKES AND STONES by Jennifer Pullen
Jennifer PullenOF SNAKES AND STONES I Medusa still dreams of being beautiful. At night on her sheep skin-padded but still cold stone bed she remembers combing her hair, its dark sheen, the heavy still weight of it. She used to…
BEYOND THE BLUE RIDGE by Grace Maselli
Grace MaselliBEYOND THE BLUE RIDGE In spite of the anxiety that flares in my stomach, I get ready to move 300 miles away. The upcoming relocation fills my gut with disturbances—tiny cyclones whirring counterclockwise through the commonly known organ. These…
AFTER DINNER by Katherine Heiny
Katherine HeinyAFTER DINNER After dinner, Maya steered the minivan through the icy streets to their own house, Rhodes silent next to her in the passenger seat, Nash fussing in a low-level but constant way. When they got inside, Rhodes suddenly became…
RITHIKA MERCHANT, Works on Paper: Comparative Mythology
RITHIKA MERCHANT Works on Paper: Comparative Mythology I began working on a series of paintings dealing with Comparative Mythology about two years ago. My work explores the common thread that runs through different cultures and religions. Similar versions of many…
THIS FILM OF MY LIFE IF I’D PAID MORE ATTENTION TO FRENCH CINEMA by Brian Baumgart
Brian BaumgartTHIS FILM OF MY LIFE IF I’D PAID MORE ATTENTION TO FRENCH CINEMA Scene I: In the foreground she leans in, plucks her front teeth with her thumb, music like a finger piano, only echoed tones. A man with…
THE MODERNIST CABIN full size
THE TAO OF WORDS by Timothy Kercher
Timothy KercherTHE TAO OF WORDS To my daughter Buddha is a baby. Most everyone is a baby unless you are ma-ma or da-da or dog. Cows she knows, as they stand in high-mountain meadows in the Cimarron, laughter follows our…
TWO POEMS by M. A. Schaffner
M. A. SchaffnerTWO POEMS WE HAVE TO TALK Returning to this planet from the road I find the plate tectonics have become disturbingly unfamiliar. But you know how Teddy Bears come home to roost, and how it just becomes awkward…
SOLECISM by Rosebud Ben-Oni reviewed by Kenna O’Rourke
Poetry by Rosebud Ben-Oni, reviewed by Kenna O’RourkeSOLECISM (Virtual Artists Collective) It is not difficult to lose patience with the poems of Rosebud Ben-Oni’s Solecism: studded with cultural and personal reference, streets names, and regionalisms – not to mention the…
YOU’RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK by Tom Gauld reviewed by Rebecca Dubow
A Graphic Novel by Tom Gauld, reviewed by Rebecca DubowYOU’RE ALL JUST JEALOUS OF MY JETPACK (Drawn & Quarterly) Tom Gauld’s latest graphic novel, You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, is a hundred and eighty pages of cartoons about…
BOX SCORE by Kevin Varrone reviewed by Anna Strong
BOX SCORE
by Kevin Varrone
Digital Earthenware, available from iTunes
Reviewed by Anna Strong
Kevin Varrone’s Box Score: An Autobiography spans across form — from autobiography to history to visual art to the baseball rulebook to the prose poem — content, and reading experience. Presented as a highly interactive free iPad and (by early June 2013) iPhone app, Varrone’s text, which he calls an autobiography, does almost everything in its power to thwart that somewhat restrictive classification. “Box Score” is made of a series of prose poems, each of which invokes Philadelphia history, baseball history (e.g. the first night game ever played between the Phillies and the Reds) Philadelphia baseball, a speaker’s personal recollections (“police your area my dad would say as he smoothed dirt around the first base bag w/ his foot after a bad hop ate me up”), baseball terminology (page 78 is simply a line of a batter’s statistics: g: 1 ab: 0 r: 0 h: 0 2b: 0 3b: 0 hr: 0 avg: .000), found language (Harry Kalas’ famous “outta here” long ball call appears on page 73), and lyrical, evocative images that seem disembodied from — and beautifully juxtapose — the rest of the language (“I’d pick dandelions & snap their heads before they turned to wishes,” page 19).
MISS PLASTIQUE by Lynn Levin reviewed by Michelle Reale
Poetry by Lynn Levin, reviewed by Michelle RealeMISS PLASTIQUE (Ragged Sky Press) I should have know from the cover of Lynn Levin’s book that I would be able to connect with the poems inside on a very visceral level: that…
MOODS by Rachel B. Glaser, reviewed by Kenna O’Rourke
Poetry by Rachel B. Glaser, reviewed by Kenna O’RourkeMOODS (Factory Hollow Press) MOODS seems innocent enough at first glance: thin and neatly printed, the poems average about two short pages in length, while the cover art – bare-breasted women combing…
POEMS FOR THE WRITING by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin reviewed by Shinelle L. Espaillat
Poetry Prompts by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin, reviewed by Shinelle L. EspaillatPOEMS FOR THE WRITING: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press) PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS In the poetry workshop, we encourage writers to explore their individual potentials, to experiment, and to eschew…
MY BEAUTIFUL BUS by Jacques Jouet, translated by Eric Lamb reviewed by Michelle Fost
A Novel by Jacques Jouet, translated by Eric Lamb, reviewed by Michelle Fost MY BEAUTIFUL BUS (Dalkey Archive Press) Jacques Jouet’s My Beautiful Bus reminded me of an observation by a former teacher of mine, playwright Romulus Linney. In 2011,…
THE OLDEST MOM IN THE ROOM by Sarah Buttenwieser
Sarah ButtenwieserTHE OLDEST MOM IN THE ROOM The other day, I took my antsy four-year-old, Saskia, to the Y for Tumble and Play. The gym, outfitted with toddler-friendly stations—a gently sloping soft ramp here, another odd-shaped cushion-slash-mat there, a low,…
BETWEEN THE FRAMES by Kristen Martin
Kristen MartinBETWEEN THE FRAMES My parents never owned their own video camera—in the 1990s, it was the sort of luxury item (like a snow blower) that could be borrowed from a relative or neighbor when needed. With my Uncle Joe’s…
OUT OF THE BLUE by Renée K. Nicholson
Renée K. NicholsonOUT OF THE BLUE Shorthand we just called it “Bluebird,” but technically the role was Princess Florina. Hers is the tale of a maiden who wanted to learn to fly, and about the prince, disguised as the blue…
GONE by Miriam Sagan
Miriam SaganGONE After photographs by Nell Dickerson This needs narrative– Who left, and why, And who came back– The photograph The house completely covered in vines, Or vines in the shape of a house. I once lived Where creeper pried…
WORKS ON PAPER, by Ira Joel Haber
Ira Joel Haber WORKS ON PAPER I have always made art including drawings and works on paper. This selection is from 1972 to 2013 and is a good sample of the themes, images and mediums that have always interested me…
WILLIAM SULIT, Chicken Dance
William Sulit & Beth KephartCHICKEN DANCE, DIGITAL 3-D DESIGN A conversation between a writer wife and her artist husband, in a quest to understand Important Subject: A chicken BK: You spend hours in your garage studio (among the ghosts of…
IN HEAVEN by Rachel B. Glaser
Rachel B. GlaserIN HEAVEN they could have lived in clouds but so missed houses that they actually built some they missed roads though in life, roads hadn’t really appealed to them in a nostalgic, industrious phase they assembled a touristy…
BIRTHPLACE OF A NATION by Kevin Varrone
Kevin VarroneBIRTHPLACE OF A NATION Joe saw your number at Silk City while going crazy in the men’s room. Joe saw your number on the sin wall and understood the irritating itch on his bearish toes to be his own…
HEAT by Marybeth Rua Larsen
Marybeth Rua-LarsenHEAT for the first thirteen days of August. I’m swimming in lemons, squeezed within an inch of their lives, waterlogged, pressed to the bottom by ice. My lips curl around the straw, suck down the pits in waves of…
IN A DRY MONTH by John Timpane
John TimpaneIN A DRY MONTH Time says have to, time says go to a green place, a space, a peace beyond the outskirts of earshot and streetlight mind of barnacle-bearded whale rears, geysers shattered water, sounds a mile past the…
from FLIGHT OF AUGUST by Lawrence Eby
Lawrence Ebyfrom FLIGHT OF AUGUST 6. A desk melts into the tile floor, the windows cracked and browning. A forest of homes caught fire to dry cold, lightning struck Joshua tree, build the fire, son build the fire, son chilled…
ELEANOR LEONNE BENNETT, Photographs
Eleanor Leonne Bennett PHOTOGRAPHS This series of images were all taken at the Michael Allcroft Antiques shop in Disley, Cheshire. I was born on the Cheshire-Derbyshire border and have lived there all my life. I love to take photographs in museums and…
ALBINO by Deborah Burnham
Deborah BurnhamALBINO We slung harsh words like stones: we spat at the white-haired boy and called him freak. We couldn’t see his long hair glowing like an opal in the dark waves of children flowing through the schoolyard. Someone should…
JAM by Kelly McQuain
Kelly McQuainJAM At dusk, they come haunting to slake their hunger: doe and fawn threading autumn brush. Down hillside, through hollow, they search for fallen apples—rotten spoils of the abandoned orchard Mom’s lived by since Dad passed on. The deer…
THE DILETTANTE’S DEVOTIONAL by Lise Funderburg
I stayed up 'til 1:00 AM a few weeks ago, and where was the party? At my desk, with everything but the keyboard covered in postage stamps. Polish stamps, Poczta Polska, all issued between 1928 and 1969. Musty old stamps honoring tanks and trade union congresses, marking six-year plans and newspaper tricentennials and the 1000-year anniversary of the country itself. Clumps of stamps memorializing uprisings in Silesia, the recovery of territories, and planes, lots of planes, carrying mail or flying over cities. New steelworks, new electric plants, well-muscled and barefoot coal miners, studious children, Curie and Kopernik and korfball, Chopin and Paderewski, Stalin and Hitler, zoo animals and butterflies. Not one stamp memorialized or honored or even acknowledged Catholicism.
TINY MAGICS by Angel Hogan
Angel HoganTINY MAGICS Sometimes it is an outrage. When Mila considers the chances and possibilities in this world, the fine lines and gaping canyons between what is good or not, the distances between blessed and cursed, she is outraged enough to…
A SIGHTING by Charles Rafferty
Charles RaffertyA SIGHTING My friend was on the subway in New York when he noticed a man get on, walk down the aisle, and take his place two rows forward of where he sat. This new passenger was our old…
CLOSING THE CURTAINS by Ann De Forest
Ann de ForestCLOSING THE CURTAINS 1. Daughter A little girl sits alone in her room at night, reading. The lights are on. The curtains are open. She feels safe inside her room, inside her book. She knows what lies outside in the dark. She doesn’t even…
WHY NOT THROW KISSES? by Michelle Fost
Michelle FostWHY NOT THROW KISSES? My parents thought it hilarious when I sent them giddy kisses from behind the glass at JFK. I saw them standing there, gesturing with their hands lifting off their mouths into the air in my direction. I…