Two poems, “The Bug” and “The Tongue,” by alumnus Tommye Blount (poetry, ’13) appear at Poetry Foundation:
The Bug
lands on my pretty man’s forearm. Harmless,
it isn’t deadly at all; makes his muscle flutter
— the one that gets his hand to hold mine, or
ball into a fist, or handle a gun. It’s a ladybug,
Continue reading online…
An interview with alumnus Nathan McClain (poetry, ’13) appears at The Collagist:
Can you tell me a little bit about the origins of “Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi”?
Well, the cause of the poem (if we’re considering the poem itself as an effect) was an excursion to the Huntington Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, CA. I’d met an attractive woman, who also seemed attracted to me, and we took this trip together—as friends. As you might imagine, there was good amount of tension and anxiety between us as we moved through the gardens. As a result, my early drafts of this poem, originally a triptych, attempted to explore the sense of anxiety between two people who could potentially become lovers.
Continue reading online…
A story by alumnus Rolf Yngve (fiction, ’12) appears at Review Americana:
That they would name our ship USS Jack Lewis stems from the fact that there had once been a true, human Jack Lewis who was the Platoon Corpsman for Company A, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines during the last days of the Vietnam War. One night while encamped near Da Nang, Petty Officer Second Class Lewis found himself next to a live Chinese grenade after a major league pitch by a Viet Cong—which was unusual because most of the Viet Cong had been wiped out during the Tet Offensive three years earlier. Four Marines were also hunkered down with him in their sandbag parapet. They had been alerted to activity, but no one expected anyone to be able to heave a grenade all the way over the sandbags from outside the wire. But there it was, in the mud somewhere, sputtering. Petty Officer Lewis, as related in his citation, “in complete disregard for his own safety” then did throw himself upon the grenade and “smothered the explosion with his own body.” In so doing, Petty Officer Lewis saved the four Marines and earned the decoration known as the Navy Cross.
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A poem by alumnus Reginald Dwayne Betts (poetry, ’10) appears at Kweli:
I. Micah Michael Zamir Betts
November’s flame in that year of hard sunsets,
of winter’s plangency & days where sleeplessness
& cognac ran together.
All our thoughts were beginnings,
and you were the roundness
that grew to a moon
above your mother’s hips.
Continue reading online…
A poem by alumna Rose McLarney (poetry, ’10) appears at Poem-a-Day:
We rinse the glasses
from which we will drink
affordable whiskey
with scotch or absinthe,
my love and I, the less than
a swallow left of good
Continue reading online…
Friends of Writers congratulates alumna Alicia Jo Rabins (poetry, ’09), who has been awarded the 2015 APR/Honickman First Book Prize for her manuscript Malkhut. More information can be found here.
The first of a three part essay by alumna Erin Stalcup (fiction, ’04) appears at Bending Genre:
I am bitextual.
I write fiction and nonfiction. But mostly fiction. So I enter into Bending Genre wondering how to apply its lessons and conundrums to my own writing, how my fiction can get bent.
There are lots of facts in my fiction. Did you know that Einstein had a daughter? He never saw her after she was two years old, and none of us know what happened to her. So I speculate. Did you know that Isaac Newton didn’t only name gravity (I claim you can’t discover what is already there, and yes I apply that logic to the continent I live on), he also invented calculus? Did you know Isaac Newton believed counterfeiters should be hanged?
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Two poems by alumna Rebecca Foust (poetry, ’10) appear at the Cortland Review:
Blazon
—In the Syntax of Heraldry
Azure, a bend Or, sunset against sky.
Party per pale argent and vert, a tree
counterchanged by twilight. Cyan,
the sea-flooded dune, tincture of silver,
the sand your hair combed by ebb tide.
Continue reading online…
The poem “Five Queer Spells Written on Black Oil Sunflower Seeds, during a Time When Many Spells Were Being Inscribed on Unusual Objects” by alumni Patrick Donnelly (poetry, ’03) appears at the Cortland Review:
1.
seed of love
clot of blood
swell & split
your hard hood
Continue reading online…
A poem by alumna Glenis Redmond (poetry, ’11) appears at Drunken Boat:
First time I see a jar rise up,
I be midwifed into life.
Understood how these pots and I be kin
— dismissed to what’s under foot.
I learned to turn and turn —
people the world with pots.
Continue reading or watch a video of Glenis Redmond’s reading online…
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