An excerpt from the poem “Border,” by Sarah Pemberton Strong (poetry, ’15), published at The Nation:
Things different over there
the words for them different
the things themselves
all the same
she put her flesh
in the mouth of a coyote
so that he would take her
a cross
to mark the place
where someone
died trying
two white sticks
the ghost of cactus
and the clouds
back and forth […continue reading here]
An excerpt from “Ways to View Jean Miró’s Triptych Bleu, I, II, III,” one of three poems by Shannon K. Winston (poetry, ’18) published at The Los Angeles Review:
Start with the left
and you’ll see rain on
a windshield after a storm.
Begin with the right,
you’ll see only a kite string
drifting against the sky.
There are a thousand
ways to begin a story.
With the middle, perhaps,
is best: with a red sewing
needle stitching up black holes.
Or maybe they aren’t
holes, but pebbles
skimming the water
seconds before they sink. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from “I’m Never Told of Family Funerals” by Greg Rappleye (poetry, ’00), published at American Magazine:
Not since the wake when I was 9,
when I stole a cushion from Benny’s couch
and propped Aunt Rose high in her casket,
sliding a Pall Mall between her fingers
and a bourbon tight in her grasp,
all nestled among the amber decades of a cut-glass
rosary they’d looped through her veiny hands,
a relic she’d carried home from Lourdes
the summer after the Salk vaccine,
when the greater aunts said Surely now, the Blessed Virgin
would cure Aunt Rose of polio. No matter.
In the afterlife, I knew Aunt Rose would toss
away her brace, her crutches, and two-step
among the American Beauties; that not even Jesus
could begrudge her a celebratory smoke
and sip of whiskey, once he’d seen her dance. […continue reading here]
An excerpt from “The Fête du Miel” by Beverly Bie Brahic (poetry, ’06), from her collection, The Hotel Eden, and published by Carcanet:
When summer is over, the beekeepers
Sell their excess honey to the neighbours.
Is it the mythic precincts that gives
Its savour to the honey from these hives?
Or is it the pollution? Wishful thinking
The walls of our Garden. Blackbirds sing,
Bees suck where they will – on dog-pissed street trees
Exhaust-fuelled geraniums and ivies,
As on the blossoms of an apple tree
Coddled by a Carthusian in a monastery.
Last winter was so warm the bees thought
Summer never ended, the beekeepers write
On notices posted round the hives. ‘All winter
The bees were out foraging for nectar.
[…continue reading here]
An excerpt from Q & A with James Robert Herndon (fiction, ’11), published at The Astounding Analog Companion:
Analog Editor: What is the story behind this piece?
JRH: “Eulogy for an Immortal” came from a union of two things.
The first thing was that I had just discovered woodworking and loved it. For people who spend a lot of time in their heads, finding a tactile hobby you enjoy can be so pleasurable that it becomes all-consuming. There was a brief period in which I looked at almost everything through a woodworker’s lens. Could I build a chair even more comfortable than the one I was sitting in? Could I build new kitchen cabinets out of scrap materials? Could I build an addition to the house all by myself? A few months later, at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, I decided to write a story about a more extreme version of that mania and how it could affect other people. I had a long conversation with my classmate M. Huw Evans about whether or not it might be possible to make plastic using the approach described in the story, and if so, what the process would be. (Any chemistry errors are entirely my own.)
[…continue reading here]
An excerpt from “Take Your Eye” by Laura Moretz (fiction, ’15), published in The Forge.
Also, The Forge offers an “Author Interview” here.
We were walking along South Street after group therapy when Keith popped out his glass eye. I knew he had a glass eye, and that he could pop it out, but even if I’d said, “Sure, I’d like to see your eye,” which I hadn’t, I wasn’t quite ready to see that glass ball in his hand, the ball so much larger than the area shown by his lids.
“The blue almost matches your real eye,” was the best I came up with. It looked so clean, as though it had never been moist and trapped in his socket.
He shrugged. “Nobody looks that close.” He held it up, between finger and thumb.
“Look how the light goes through it,” I said.
He wrapped his palm around it.
Eclipse.
It was no small thing that I let Keith drive me from Greensboro to our monthly group therapy for depressives who are also in AA. I had a rule about letting a man drive me anywhere since the last bad affair. I stayed out of their cars and their beds. But Keith was not a romantic prospect, and we could joke about the situation we were in. “We’re a glum lot,” he’d say about the depressives group in a monotone, and I chuckled.
The streetlights were starting to pop on along South Street. Keith had a distinctive way of walking—lumbering you could call it. He was so big, his fat fell under the Big Guy umbrella, as in, he was a big guy, so he was allowed to be fat. He talked about losing weight in a wishful way.
A few hundred feet before we reached the car, he stopped dead in front of a steak house. I could smell the seared meat. “Let’s eat.” He turned away from me to pop his eye back in.
[…continue reading here]
An excerpt from “Boys with swords” by Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet (poetry, ’05), published at Guesthouse:
in the forest. One is wood,
flames painted
to the hilt. Dry October,
sparks
of the papery eucalyptus.
One of them swings,
one of them ducks.
Wood on wood,
fracture in the line of fire.
It feels good
[…continue reading here]
An excerpt from “ONE DAY ONE FLOWER” by Patrick Donnelly (poetry, ’13), published at Guesthouse:
Glimpsed through an open door,
a simple summon,
hard to describe what was seen.
Then we lost the bar for a week, searched
many nights on the block where
it ought to have been. Kyoto, years ago.
When it appeared again, we said this is it.
Is it? Yes,
here
we are.
Chalkboard drawing of a goblet saying,
“Why not have some wine?”
Like Brigadoon turning up
only when it wishes to, or Frost’s Grail,
“Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it.”
The master nodding as we entered.
[…continue reading here]
An excerpt from an interview with Tommye Blount (poetry, ’13), published at Four Way Review:
FWR: How do you protect your time and foster your writing?
TB: Like many poets now, and throughout history, I work a demanding weekday job, so writing can sometimes feel nearly impossible for me. With that said, I do dedicate early Saturday and Sunday mornings (or any off days) as “writing” time. Writing is in quotes, because in these sessions, I make no promises to myself that I have to write anything at all—and, to be frank, sometimes I don’t write. There may be times where I do nothing but read essays or books by other poets or fiction writers. (Oh! One of my obsessions as of late are essays on fashion—have you read The Battle of Versailles by Robin Givhan?) If you were to pop in on me, you might even see me looking at YouTube videos of other artists—either performing or talking about their disciplines. Where I am getting at is this: the act of writing for me encompasses a lot more than the physical act of writing.
Right now, I am in New York for a theater run—something I do often. Yes, I am gaga over musicals and plays, and get gooseflesh anytime someone starts talking about Audra McDonald, but all of this too is a part of my process. Watching other artistic disciplines feeds me. Not so much the subject matter of their work—although that is fair game for me as well—but I am more interested in their materials. For the past couple of years, I have been going to Stratford, Ontario, home of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival. Here, the plays and musicals are performed in repertory—so many shows are going on at once. You will see one actor playing two, or three, different roles in different shows. I love this, because to me, and my poet brain, it always leads me to rhyme and the shapes of rhyme. When I am watching occurrences like this happening, something seemingly minor to most of the audience, I am thinking how can I translate this into a poem. Of course, I can’t ever pull it off when I mean to pull it off—I’m too slow for that. Ha! It takes a while for the idea to sink into my body and, it always seems, out of nowhere I pull it off without thinking about it—or maybe I am thinking about it? I don’t know.
[…continue reading here]
An excerpt from “CASTRATO” by Annie Kim (poetry, ’09), published at Four Way Review:
I want to be a boy, you tell the man
who analyzes you. Free of desire.
He nods, light flashing
off his thin gold spectacles.
No one called the singing boys
castrati to their face. So evirato,
meaning one unmanned,
musico: one making music.
Boys aren’t free
of desire, of course—
Though not by ordinary means—
fingers pressing keyboard, lips
against a cold silver mouthpiece.
No, the singer’s body turned
to supple balsam, stretched
over the years until it forms
that frame beloved by engineers—
strength, endurance, range—
[…continue reading here]
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