The first time I saw them, more than a decade ago now, they were standing in a circle behind the sun’s shadow.
Four Poems | mónica teresa ortiz
mónica teresa ortiz was born and raised in Texas. The author of muted blood, published by Black Radish Books in 2018, and winner of the inaugural Host Publications Chapbook Prize, autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist, published in 2019, ortiz currently lives in the Texas Panhandle. Allyson Joan Erwin is an […]
The Bathroom | Kira Obolensky
It seems hard to believe that she, Darla, has met a Viscount through an online dating service, but he (his name she reminds herself is “Rupert”) has confirmed that yes, indeed, he does have a title. He did so with a self-deprecating shrug as if to say it was entirely out of his hands.
Three Poems | Suzanne S. Rancourt
Suzanne S. Rancourt, Abenaki/Huron descent, has authored two books: Billboard in the Clouds, Curbstone Press / NU Press 2nd print, received the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas First Book Award. murmurs at the gate, Unsolicited Press, released May 2019. Ms. Rancourt is a multi-modal EXAT and CASAC with an […]
Canada | Erika Veurink
1. Drawn on the back of an uncorrected proof of Aaron Kunin’s Love Three is a grid-like arrangement of thirty-six circles. Thirty-five of them are penciled in like test answers. The rows of spheres slant left. They are the hours I have waited to see him. I turn the book […]
Open Window at 3PM When I Was Seven | Maya Salameh
Maya Salameh is a poet fellow of the William Male Foundation and Leonard Slade Endowment. Syrian by way of San Diego, she has performed her writing at venues including the Obama White House, Carnegie Hall, and her parents’ kitchen. Her poems have appeared in The Greensboro Review, Asian American Writer’s […]
We Are All Tomorrowpeople: A Review of Samuel Amadon’s “Listener”
Forthcoming from Solid Objects on September 28, Samuel Amadon’s Listener is a prosodic exercise in how far the poetic “I” can stretch when the object takes on the power of the subject. This process both begins and ends with an evocation of the epic tradition that is anything but naïve […]
Anxious Fish | Ysabelle Cheung
In the market near your flat, the fish are still partially alive when you buy them. The yellow-aproned woman calls you over, gesturing to the croaker, the red snapper—“so fresh! I’ll give it to you for 35 dollars!”—with blood on their gelatinous eyes, their snouts, leaking or twitching all over […]
Police State | Drew Richardson
I have always used art to express my personal struggles as a young, gay, neuro-atypical black artist, and to understand myself as an individual who is continuously being molded by my environment. Growing up as a black person in an environment with a high crime rate, being constantly reminded of […]
But There’s Music in the Trader Joe’s Parking Lot | Ali Littman
“There are a few starlings in there adding to the syncopation,” a woman said to me in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. Her safari hat slipped down the back of her head. Her white hair flashed a beat of purple. Her zinc sunscreen beamed in patches next to her nose and beneath her ear lobe. A zucchini rested at the top of her grocery bag, which she lowered to the pavement, to slide her hat back over her head. She needed a proper look at the tree.
Freezer Burn | Eva Fitzsimons
When I was twenty years old, I left a kitchen knife in the baby’s crib. It was a good knife, that meat cleaver. I miss it. Nice and sharp. It would cut right through flesh and fat or gristle and bone without a lot of sawing. Movie night with the […]
Captive Studies | Max King Cap
“Each painting is a crude diary of marking time, of hoping and losing hope, of standing still while the world carries on; punctuated by violence, bureaucratic indifference, and thwarted desire.”
Three Poems | Glenn Morazzini
Glenn Morazzini’s poems have won the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, an Amy Clampitt Residency Fellowship, Maine Arts Commission Literary Fellowship and have been published in Poetry, Rattle, and other journals.
An Interview | Shaqayeq Ahmadian on The Continuum of Life
I first became familiar with Shaqayeq Ahmadian’s work after I found her page on Instagram one night in 2018. Since then, I have followed her development as an artist and we have become friends, bonding over the experience of being young women working in creative fields; however, because she lives […]
Four Poems | Cleo Abramian
“to admit / the pink wind / is your finger / in my mouth / is not a display / of longing / it’s an exercise / in painting a pearl”
Two Poems | Ayesha Raees
“in every in-between / I was born ready / yet I have still afforded
to lose / over not having / a house / a man / a body / a life”
Our Spring 2020 Issue Is Live
When you place an order for Issue 35, 100% of reader donations will support Equality For Flatbush and The Okra Project. Help us amplify anti-racist efforts and change our institutions.
An Interview | Emily Neuberger on the Golden Age of Musical Theater
Growing up between Lake Forest, Illinois, and Long Island, New York, debut novelist Emily Neuberger dreamt of the Broadway stage. She began voice lessons early, at age twelve, and, throughout her adolescence, starred in numerous community and regional productions. She went on to study musical theater at NYU, along with […]
Troupe 98 | Paige Zubel
hi hello my name is sarah yes there are three other girls in my troupe named sarah yes I hate it yes I know hate is a very strong word would you like to buy troupe 98 candy from me so I can win the big blue excaliber mountain bike would you like to buy something?
My Name is Arnold | Wynne Hungerford
Beginnings I came into this world in 1947, Austria. My upbringing was typical of the time and place, although perhaps my parents were stricter than others because my father was the local chief of police. Whenever I disobeyed my parents, the consequence was always the same. I was forced to […]
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