New poems by alumnus Eric Piller (poetry, ’12) appear online in H_NGM_N:

Poem

The plague has visited and the festival begun; the city’s boarded up

my house. Now “door” and “window” repeat like a song

sung to me once by a nurse. I wait for a change

of the guard.

 

I’m not going to write about you.

I’m going to write about the weather.

Outside, it’s hot. Inside, it’s cool.

It’s humid, because I’m weeping!…

Continue reading online.

 

The Book of Ours

I love the steady

rhythm of analog clocks

but to buy an an-

alog clock today would

seem so quaint so

I bought an analog

clock and hid

the face under

electrical tape I am

gaslighting…

Continue reading online.

A new poem by alumnus Justin Bigos (poetry, ’08) appears online in H_NGM_N:

Yes & No

Yes to the wooden giraffe airmailed from Arizona

with a note from your mother-in-law saying no more

excuses to sleep unprotected by your spirit animal,

but no to a new kind of insomnia. Yes to most -philias

not in the dictionary, like car washes in the rain

and bakeries on fire, but no no no to looking at old photos

with a bottle of Maker’s. Yes to your wife drinking

beer in the shower, but don’t hop in and join her,

let her have this moment beautifully wet and alone,

you’re here in the kitchen sautéing spinach and garlic

if she needs you…

Continue reading online.

New poems by alumnus Brian Blanchfield (poetry, ’99) appear online in H_NGM_N:

Wheelwright & Smith

A wheelwright in the glen trains his young

son on the forge and the while cures his deer

meat at the spring. The water cold and swift

makes it last. Trains his son, that is,

 

to shape and cool the hitch. A hitch

is anything one carries from spring to hilltop

like a son, or is a hard bulb universal. There are both

meanings. A freight on wheels drags against the trail

but for the wheels. The trail can lead

over passes and dales full of dwellings

providence has had to ditch…

Finish reading “Wheelwright & Smith” online. 

 

By and By

At the end of the meadow riven

in the longest dream by the young lead

kicking the reeds with boots brazenly,

if we are to see his distance by then as a ray

extending still hours over years

we might admire the stage of it.

Finish reading online.

Two poems by alumna Faith Holsaert (fiction, ’82) appears online in Prime Number Magazine:

Removal
 
I.
She, the mountain.
She, the woman. Both.
Outside enters each.
Jenny Linds       pool halls     feist dogs
           the holler
draglined         mainlined
            rears twenty-two storeys
            shovels the over burden
            pops the mountain top

Finish reading “Removal” online.

Snow Day
 
inside drifts you go back to sleep
your children murmur on
beyond the wall
lying in bed you picture
      the waterfall road        a sheer drop of white
                 not even a track of your lover
                 not even a trace of your neighbor
Finish reading “Snow Day” online.

A new story by alumna Kimberly N. Frank (fiction, ’11) appears online in Blackbird:

Jersey Shore

No sign. A line of people and a ramp. The bouncer in a silver suit collects cash at the door. Ruby, Viv, and Boris descend down, down into the pulse throb beat where a full-fleshed woman in blue silk tap pants lifts up her thick legs, one at a time, slowly to the rhythm of the boom boom boom. Lying along a black leather bench, her breasts spilling from a tiny black satin bra like an offering. Ruby pretends not to be shocked, to be part of it all because that’s her plan and before the night is over she just might be spread on that very bench in her underwear lost in the music and who says that can’t happen? Boris stuffs his pocket with the change. “Holy Mary,” Viv whispers with cool peppermint breath. Her jet-black hair bound up in a tie, wisps of it falling all over her porcelain face. Ruby squeezes Viv’s hand. Shakes out her wheat-brown curls so they hang over one dark eyebrow and cornflower blue eye. “Let’s go,” she says and takes the first step.

Finish reading online.

A new poem by alumna Mary Jo Thompson (poetry, ’09) appears online at RHINO: 

Body Breakers

They do not perform the rite with gravity.
They talk and laugh as in any labor, the Tibetans

who help the soul to move from that uncertain
plane between this life and—what?

The lead man cuts off the limbs
and hacks the torso to pieces, handing each

to his assistants who use rocks to pound the flesh
and organs together into a pulp they mix

with tsampa, barley flour moistened with yak milk,
before they invite vultures to feast.

Continue reading online. 

There has been some confusion about conference payment deadlines and after looking at the wwcmfa.org website I see the source and apologize for a jumble of a set-up. Today, May 3, is the deadline FOR PAYING WITH A *DEPOSIT* without incurring a late fee on ON SAID DEPOSIT. And there’s been some confusion around the deposit, too, which I will also own: paying with a $250 deposit has been offered historically as a way to spread out your expenses — pay a deposit first, and then have time before paying the balance later. It is not a deposit required to secure a slot!!! 
 
Given the confusion, forget any late fee on the deposit.
 
THE DEADLINE FOR PAYMENT FOR THE CONFERENCE (without incurring a late fee on the overall cost of the conference) IS MAY 17, whether electronically or post-marked snail mail. THE FINAL DEADLINE to secure a slot is MAY 31!!!
Please come! Please e-mail me with any questions or concerns, any time.
Peter Klank

A new poem by alumna and current Beebe Fellow Colleen Abel (poetry, ’04) appears online in the Superstition Review: 

Anachronism

You carry nine planets in a watering can
We’ve explained about Pluto      we even
watch a cartoon where the Big
Eight pariah their littlest
brother in a chorale of scowls

The planets sleep with us in the Big
Bed      they bathe     (Your book
tells you Saturn     swollen with helium
would float in Earth water     it does)

You say
You live on Earth     your father
lives on Earth     I live on Mars
and I feel it    breathing the dust

Finish reading online at Superstition Review. 

Registration and payment for this year’s Alumni Writing Conference is due by May 17! Sign-ups will be accepted beyond that date with a $100 late fee, but even then only until May 31. The Conference itself will be June 28 – July 5, or Short-Stay July 1 – July 5. All this is very soon.

There will first and foremost be a community of fellow Goddardites and Wallies: friends you already know and those you don’t yet, all of whom have shared that utterly unique milieu and accomplishment you’ve tried to describe to others (did they get it?).

There will be readings every evening by writers as accomplished and surprising as you might expect, and an audience for your reading, should you chose to give one (do) better than you’ll ever have elsewhere.

There will be workshops if you’ve got a piece you’d like new eyes on, or smaller Manuscript Reviews or Fiction Roundtables should you have book-length material ready for a last look or nudge by your peers. Classes, panels, caucuses, book groups: teach, lead, suggest, guide one. Looks pretty good on your CV, and by the way, you think you won’t get some new material?

Beautiful campus, good food (with a glass of wine, if you like) receptions, pool, gym, art museum, greenhouse, same damn library Emily used, great New England village across the street, July 4 fireworks over the trees.

By May 17: go to wwc.mfa.org – then to “Alumni,” then “Alumni Conference” for links to electronic registration and payment or hard copy and USPS address for payment.

See you soon.

An interview with alumna Anna Clark (fiction, ’07) about the upcoming book, A Detroit Anthology, appears online in the Metro Times. Interviewer Lee DeVito writes,

Anna Clark wears many hats. A freelance writer living in Detroit, her work has appeared in The New RepublicAmerican Prospect and Salon, among others. She’s a writer-in-residence for the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, a gig that sees her teaching creative writing at Detroit high schools, and she’s also a board member of Write a House, a residency program that aims to fill three houses in a neighborhood north of Hamtramck with writers. She also edited A Detroit Anthology — a collection of stories from the likes of Jalopnik’s Aaron Foley, noted sociologist Thomas Sugrue, and MT’s very own Larry Gabriel to name a few — which will be released by Rust Belt Chic on May 12.

Metro Times: What were you looking for in the submissions for A Detroit Anthology?

Anna Clark: My role was to solicit a really diverse and thoughtful collection of submissions. I spanned the city, certainly trying to encourage people I was fans of to submit, but also really getting a very broad network — and indeed, a lot of really amazing submissions came through that way. After spending a little time looking through them and seeing a few gaps that I thought were important to fill, I went out and recruited some other pieces that I thought made a more complete book.

Finish reading online.