An excerpt from “Ship of Fools: Surviving Fragment of Triptych” by Rose Auslander (poetry ’15) published by The Piltdown Review.

Ship of Fools: Surviving Fragment of Triptych

and what remains of us? A plateful of cherries
spilled, half-eaten, a breast forgotten, dangling

from a torn bodice, men bellowing drunk
nuns plucking lutes, blind to children
begging naked in the water and
the fool we raised on high to guide

our leaking vessel, canvas torn, paint
cracked with age or by his rage—

[…continue reading “Ship of Fools: Surviving Fragment of Triptych” at The Piltdown Review.]

An excerpt from “Greenhousing” by Sarah Audsley (poetry ’19), published by Tupelo Quarterly.

Greenhousing

I’ll push against—
                what did you say—any
                                edge. An orchid cannot
impregnate it-
                self. Stamen & pistil sound
like dirty words, but they’re necessary.
                I know how
                                to push
                against the glass. I was a seed.

[…continue reading “Greenhousing” at Tupelo Quarterly.]

An excerpt from “W A K E : A SLEEP IN FORTY-SOMETHING WINKS” by Jennifer Sperry Steinorth (poetry ’15), published by Connotation Press.


W A K E : A SLEEP IN FORTY-SOMETHING WINKS

Midway through our night’s sleep
I woke to find the dream lost
My body shaken from it— salt

 \ /

At the midpoint of the night we were allotted 

I found myself     in dark apartment

 \   / /

Half through rocky return journey
I woke beneath a skein of geese
three fleet deer mice scrambling o’er me

[…continue reading “W A K E : A SLEEP IN FORTY-SOMETHING WINKS” at Connotation Press.]

An excerpt from “Ode to My Father’s Failed Heart” by Maya Phillips (poetry ’17), selected by Rita Dove and published by The New York Times Magazine.

Ode to My Father’s Failed Heart

It’s okay. I, too, have failed
at the expected, have sputtered
and choked like a rusty valve
in water, have jumped into the pool
only to sink. Little engine, your flawed
machinery is nothing like love. You limp
at last call to the dance floor,
but feel no shame

[…continue reading “Ode to My Father’s Failed Heart” at The New York Times Magazine.]

An excerpt from “Fifty-seven-year-old Sharecropper Woman. Hinds County Mississippi” by Gail Peck (poetry ’87), published by The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

Fifty-seven-year-old Sharecropper Woman. Hinds County Mississippi

When there are no doctors
you do what you can, a dime with a hole
on a string tied around each ankle
to prevent headaches.
Her bare feet rest on the planks
of a porch, her feet so calloused
it’s hard to feel splinters.
How many miles have they walked among rows?

[…continue reading “Fifty-seven-year-old Sharecropper Woman. Hinds County Mississippi” at Dead Mule.]

An excerpt from “Woof” by Peter Schireson (poetry ’17), published by Vox Populi.

Woof

I take Buster out for his walk,

above us, wild geese

fly south, honking,

going nowhere, geese without edges, 

no longer geese.

[…continue reading “Woof” at Vox Populi.]

An excerpt from “Operation Babylift” by Tiana Nobile (poetry ’17), published by Kweli Journal.

Operation Babylift

“We bucket-brigade-loaded the children right up the stairs into the airplane.”
– Col. Bud Traynor, pilot

April 4, 1975

Skin still wet with mother’s
grief. I brought my baby
to them, I admit it.

Airlift Takes Off

Tucked in cardboard and stowed
two to each seat.

At 23,000 Feet Systems Fail

In the event of being born
in a country ravaged by war –

Explosion

[…continue reading “Operation Babylift” at Kweli Journal.]

Information and the links to register and pay are here: http://friendsofwriters.org/the-2019-alumni-conference/

Deadlines are short: Register today!

An excerpt from “If You Go to Bed Hungry” by Angela Narciso Torres (poetry ’09), published by Poetry.

If You Go to Bed Hungry

If you go to bed hungry, your soul will get up and steal cold rice from the pot.
Stop playing with fire before the moon rises or you’ll pee in your sleep.

Sweeping the floor after dark sweeps wealth and good fortune out the door.
Fork dropped: a gentleman will visit. Spoon: a bashful lady.

Bathing after you’ve cooked over a hot stove makes the veins swell.
For safe passage to the guest who leaves mid-meal: turn your plate.

[…continue reading “If You Go to Bed Hungry” at Poetry.]

An excerpt from “My Early Twenties” by Lesley Howard (fiction ’18), published by Narrative.

My Early Twenties

End of April, New York, my friend Liza picked me up for my Hardee’s morning shift, an act of deep love because I had to clock in at four thirty in the a.m. I said something about a best friend being better than a lover, and she squinted at me like it was a November afternoon when the sun slants in at that awful angle and the glare is blinding, regardless of sunglasses.

“You’re prickly,” she said. “Fight with David last night?”

We hadn’t fought but we hadn’t done anything else either. Liza reached for her ever-present coffee mug; it wasn’t there and she muttered, “Damn, where’d my mug go?” and turned around to ask her four-year-old daughter, nickname of Pixie, to ask if she had Mommy’s cup and that was all that was said about my mood, but she is a psychic, seriously, her own storefront and some A-list Broadway clients she’s protective of. And although she never says anything about what she can’t help but know, I go around knowing she knows and usually it’s not a problem because we are old friends, from Pixie’s age on, the kind of friend that’s essentially family. All to explain that we didn’t say anything, but I got out at the Hardee’s feeling like I’d already worked my shift and was dredged in butter and dusted in flour.

[…continue reading “My Early Twenties” at Narrative.]