A poem by Ian Randall Wilson (poetry, ‘02; fiction, ’16) appears in Topology Magazine:

This Will Be The Last Time

the cat lies on my lap while my father
is still alive. No use forgiving
rock for being rock or white clouds
always passing over or even
wind, its restless blow, but I can forgive
prayer and those bastard children

continue reading here.

A poem by Dilruba Ahmed (poetry, ‘09) appears in Drunken Boat:

Your Questions, Answered

Rest at ease.  All of the answers
to any concerns you may have raised
have been quietly prepared in advance
for your convenience.  As for your final
question, nobody knows.  Rest assured
we’ve pursued every possible
possibility and yielded no returns.

… continue reading here.

A poem by Ian Randall Wilson (poetry, ‘02; fiction ’16) appears in Live Nude Poems.

 

Unsleeping

A cloud passes overhead
bringing 30 seconds
of exceptional rain.
Not enough to raise
the failing reservoirs
more than an eighth of an inch.

The cat prowls
the hallway’s outer borders
looking for some
kind of prey.

… Continue reading here.

Two poems by Ian Randall Wilson (poetry, ’02; fiction, ’16) appears in The American Journal of Poetry:

 

 

“The Interference of the Women”

We gather against volition

on the town’s single hill.

The waters are rising

everyone smells salt.

The priest did not have time to dress

and is disheveled as are the rest of us.

… Continue reading both poems here.

A story by  Katherine Rooks (fiction, ‘16) appears in The Masters Review:

“Mix and Match” by Katherine Rooks

I hear the distinct rustling of someone attempting to be quiet. I don’t need to see over the lumps of laundry padded around me to know that it’s Calvin; he’s only eleven, and at eleven it’s impossible to be quiet even when you’re trying so so hard and not even breathing. He’s prowling the perimeter of my room, scanning the floor with those blue eyes of his that are still too large for his face. Guaranteed, he’s looking for socks, but he won’t find any on the floor. I had Greg move all the laundry onto the bed before he left this morning because I was feeling well enough to try to sort, fold and match a few things. I’m less picky now. I used to be emphatic that socks had to be matched with their exact partner, but now I think in approximations: more black than blue, more sport than dress, roughly the same size. Even with those relaxed standards, the task still overwhelms me. The net result is that I’m living under a pile of laundry.

Continue reading here.

A poem by Jennifer Sperry Steinorth (poetry, ’15) appears in Boxcar Poetry Review:

Dear Robber

Robert Frost is hard for me to get
excited about. Sacrilege you say?
But I need him now. In order to write—
don’t know what— not sure how. He loved him.
My father-in-law. Robert Frost. The world
he wrote about. Educated on site.

Continue reading here.

A story with audio recording by Abby Horowitz (fiction, ’15) appears in Superstition [Review]:

“I Want Her To Burn Me Forever”

I once had a friend who believed in happy endings.

In the weeks before his wedding, the woman he was going to marry kept tapping at her chest with one pretty finger and warning him, Don’t forget, it’s pretty dark in there.

And my friend the groom would put his ear to her chest for a listen, saying: Just some regular thumps, same as the rest of us.

[Continue reading here.]

A series of poems from alum Hannah Fries’ (poetry, ’10) new book, Sea Paintings: Winslow Homer, appears at Terrain.org:

The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog

The artist’s mother, hours before he’s born,
stands before her easel in a wide, white,
streaked pinafore, a weather-beaten sail,
brush suspended briefly, midair. Outside
the window, the sun finds its way through
and the child inside her stirs, as if to sense
already his form within its envelope

Continue reading this poem and the rest of the series online

Alum Hannah Fries’ (poetry, ’10) first book of poetry, Little Terrarium, is out now from Hedgerow Books / Levellers Press. Of the book, Maurice Manning wrote: “A mind and a mind’s eye for art are evident on every page of this fine book. Beyond the beautiful, however, these poems also register a sharp regard for the natural world, for our hands-on knowledge of it, and for the plain fact that we are alive at a time when the natural world is most threatened. That is a practical predicament, but it is also a moral reality. To face the practical is a matter of will; to embrace the moral, as this book makes clear, is a matter of love. The love on these pages is human and searching—such is the love we need for art and the love we seek for wisdom.

Alum Victoria Mlyniec (fiction, ’09) won the 2016 Able Muse Write Prize for Fiction, judged by Stuart Dybek. Here is what Stuart Dybek has to say about Victoria’s winning story: “Passerthrough” is an artfully constructed story that within a few pages switches point of view, employs flashback in order to counterpoint past and present narratives, and introduces three convincing characters.” “Passerthrough” will be published in the Winter 2016 issue of Able Muse, print edition.

Alum Robert Rorke’s  (fiction, ’10) story “The Christmas Pyramid” was a finalist in the Boulevard Emerging Writers Fiction Contest

Alum Elisabeth Lewis Corley (poetry, ’10) had poems titled “New Eumenides,” “Full Military Honors, “ and “That Moment When You Want the Radio” published in New Haven Review print edition, July 2016

Alum Scott Challener (poetry, ’08) has three poems in the most recent issue (#9) of Lana Turner Journal: “Snowbound,” “Ghosts and Indices,” and “Route.”

A novel excerpt by alum Christine Fadden (fiction, ’09), which won the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival Fiction Prize in 2014, made the Cobalt Review’s 2016 Earl Weaver Baseball Writing Prize finalist’s list: Cobalt Review 2016 Baseball Issue

 

A poem by alum Joseph J. Capista (poetry, ’16) appears at Poetry Daily:

Just look: the egret’s white
Reflects so like a cloud

Pursuing other clouds,
Which blow just like the white

Of wind-borne sand that winds
As if it were the wave

Atumble, breaking crest
All fracture like those shells

Continue reading online. “Telescope” is also featured in print in AGNI 84.