A poem by J.C. Todd (poetry, ’90) appears in Cleaver Magazine:

 

THE DAY A LITTLE GLOOMY, SKY
by J. C. Todd

The day a little gloomy, sky
not exactly low but grackles
higher than they ought to be,

their oily, boat-wake tails
dragging worn-out clouds.
And that finch song, isn’t it garbled,

[. . . continue reading here.]

Two poems from A. Van Jordan (poetry, ’98) appear in Waxwing:

 

I’m Done Worrying About Barbed Wire And Borders

… and what I hear on the radio or read in the paper,

                  after I tear my doo-rag off my head and enjoy

my morning coffee like most Americans I know.

.

I just want to start my day, imagining

                all the people I see outside getting here for the first time,

trying to do their thing while I do mine.

 

But the news persists …

. . . continue reading here.

. . . read “Incidents From the Pool” here.

Selected poetry from Wilderness, by Jayne Benjulian (poetry, ’13), appears in Mudlark:

 

I Imagine Inoculation
A slight pricking of the skin and nothing
until bedtime when her arm was sore.

All next day she lay in bed,
drank tisane, something like tea

and broth, smelled like lemons.
Third day, no one knocked—

she walked in a park, far off
mountain called Louis

after the king, nurses in mist,
puddings of rice and plum,

. . . continue reading here.

 

A podcast of Emily Sinclair reading her essay, “Searching for the Duck Hole,” in The Colorado Review.

Click here for the audio of the podcast.

Part two of a story by Ian Randall Wilson (poetry, ’02; fiction, ’16) appears in Hollywood Dimentia:

 

Mishaps: Part Two

by Ian Randall Wilson

The second time, Jeffrey was taking the shortcut he took every morning to walk from the parking garage from his office at the Studio in the fewest steps possible. No shooting on the lot today because of a driving rainstorm. He had passed by three accidents on the freeway that delayed him. In Los Angeles, no one knew how to drive in a storm. He was in his black raincoat, his umbrella unfurled, and still he was taking on heavy water. [. . . continue reading Part Two here.]

. . . Part One appears here.

Part one of a story by Ian Randall Wilson (poetry, ’02; fiction, ’16) appears in Hollywood Dimentia:

 

Mishaps, Part One

by Ian Randall Wilson

He made his career at the movie studio. But not his life. Illustration by Thomas Warming.

The first time it was the sign along the wall of the Studio lot. Someone had pulled off the two small “e”s leaving “Ent rtainm nt”. Was it a dig at the kinds of films the Studio produced? Maybe it wasn’t even vandalism, just some yokel who had shown up and, after the decidedly inferior Studio tour compared to Universal or the fabulous back lot at Warners, concluded that a souvenir was required. They could go back to Paduca or Clover or Groversville, hold up the purloined letters and say, “Look what I got me,” basking in praise from their friends. [. . . continue reading Part One here]

 

A poem by Leslie Contreras Schwartz (poetry, 11) appears in Hermeneutic Chaos Journal:

 

A   L I T A N Y   A N D   S O N G

Outside
The birds sound
Like muffled cries

How many times
Can things be taken?

In the same breath
With viva la vida, viva

. . . continue reading here.

An essay by Scott Gould (fiction, ’06) appears in Lit Hub:

 

Not long after I finished a book of stories set in Kingstree, S.C., my hometown drowned. The stories in the collection Strangers to Temptation take place in that town and on the river that runs through it, during the 1970s—back when I was a kid. In the fall of 2015, Kingstree sank under the Black River’s muddy floodwaters. Turns out, the town is still struggling to return to the surface. I just didn’t realize how much until I went back for a visit.

You’ll find Kingstree just west-of-center in Williamsburg County. By most measures, Williamsburg County is the poorest county in the state. The county got a little poorer and a lot wetter when the hard rains came. During a five-day period in 2015, beginning late on October 1, Kingstree was sledgehammered with a deluge of biblical proportions. A low-pressure area lumbered in from the west. [. . . continue reading here.]