A new poem and recording by alumnus and former Beebe Fellow Matthew Olzmann (poetry, ’09) appears online at Fogged Clarity:
Meditation of a Foot Solidier Nearing Medusa’s Sculpture Garden
So these are the monuments.
And these are the faces of the inevitable.
And if I am made one of them, rendered
motionless, made
marble by the gorgon’s stare, then
help me celebrate the abrupt
tombstone my torso becomes.
…
Continue reading or listen online at Fogged Clarity.
A new poem and interview with alumnus Matthew Olzmann (poetry, ’09) appears online at the Best American Poetry blog:
The Skull of an Unidentified Dinosaur
does not belong to the dinosaur skeleton
to which it has been attached.
A man thought he made an amazing
discovery. Now, it’s a towering mistake,
one for which he’ll likely lose his job,
but only after taking this skyscraper
of bones—with its eye-sockets
like windows to hell—apart.
Femur by mandible, I know what it means
to watch your good fortune change its mind.
Like that time in college, when my friend’s
supermodel cousin invited us to a party
and accidentally kissed me in the dark.
She thought I was someone else—I have
no idea who—but the gist of the story
can be seen in her freaking out
when the light ruined everything.
…
Finish reading online.
The Interview, with Sally Wen Mao
SWM: Who are you? What are you all about?
MO: I like how Ocean Vuong answered this same question a couple days ago, saying, “Some days I feel like a human. Some days I feel more like a sound.” I like the flexibility of that answer, allowing for an identity in flux. For me too, it changes rapidly, from moment to moment. Right now, there’s a baseball game on the radio. I’m all about—this October—the Detroit Tigers winning the 2014 World Series. If this fails to happen, I’ll be all about them winning it in 2015. I’m easily distracted, and what I’m “all about” is constantly in motion. I’m all about the newborn lambs and piglets on the farm of the college where I teach. I’m all about the mountains that surround this place. In the autumn, when the leaves begin to fall, you can see houses behind the tree line that you didn’t know were there.
…
Continue reading the interview online.
A new poem by alumna Kelli J. Christenson (poetry, ’13) appears online at The Collagist:
Nycticorax nycticorax audubonparki
Night herons, come to me, for it is night and I
have a poem to be written;
come to me out of
the tree
whose secret you are, nine birds
at-a-glance invisible
in the leafed branches of a live oak.
Come tell me how it is that first I
did not see you, only heard you
…
Read more online.
A new poem and recording by alumnus Michael Collins (poetry, ’03) appears online at Kenning Journal:
Self Portrait As A Mobius Strip
It’s true: Soon as you discover the underground stream
you’ve been wading through while searching
for a restroom is really a river
of urine and shit, the irony’s often enough
to ruin your journey. Don’t worry,
you can’t smell in dreams. And it isn’t real
excrement, just an image. Grow whole
with what the upperworld rejects. In the darkness below
Avernum, in the cradle of the dead,
your old man awaits you with answers: A bride
with a smile like a Sibyline breeze, a new land
…
Finish reading online.
While the pre-late fee deadline has now passed, it has become abundantly clear that as our electronic communications have been evolving many alumni have missed some of the notices and some of the links. Accordingly, the Alumni Conference Committee is waving the late-registration fee. We still have several slots.
We have opportunities for Fiction and Poetry Workshops, Manuscript Review and Fiction Roundtable Groups for ms-length works seeking new eyes; we will have classes, caucuses, and panels (on James Salter; Sylvia Townsend Warner; Poetic Closure; Metaphor; Poem as Painting, Painting as Poem…more descriptions on their way) Can you even believe it?
Writing time, down time, hanging out with other Wallies time, breaking bread together, dancing.
If you’ve never been, we can all but guarantee that before the end of the first evening of readings you will have decided that you’re going to come back again. And again.
Please feel free to contact Peter Klank with any questions, but know that the absolute deadline is May 31 as we will need to give our host community numbers (and hearing even sooner will be much appreciated).
For contact information and registration links:
http://www.wwcmfa.org/alumni/conference-information/
See you soon.
Peter KlankFiction ’85
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:
…
Finish reading “Removal” 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.
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