An excerpt from “Appalachians Run Amok” by Adrian Blevins (poetry, ’02), from her book, Appalachians Run Amok, and featured at Two Sylvias Press:

 

 

Appalachians Run Amok

Another thing the Appalachians don’t like to talk about
is the creepy extent to which they adore the way they talk
alone in the shower & just walking around in their bandanas
versus how much they obviously meanwhile sort of also
secretly hate the high notes of their own hill-kitschy prattle,
especially if we’re talking halfway psychedelic Appalachians
from mid-century America born in 1937 in Southwest Virginia,
& as it happens we are talking halfway psychedelic Appalachians
from mid-century America born in 1937 in Southwest Virginia
as we are talking as usual about my father who worked so hard
to assimilate & become a mutt when he traded in his wind-up radio
for certain unnamed urbanites & fake movie stars in the theatres
& bars of Richmond, Virginia, where Daddy went to college […continue reading here]

An excerpt from the poem “The Sand Dollar Inn” by Beverly Bie Brahic (poetry, ’06), from her new book, The Hotel Eden, as well as published in the current issue of Poetry Ireland, and available at Poetry Daily:

 

 

“The Sand Dollar Inn”

Here, engraved in someone else’s
name, is a bench where we can sit
and watch the waves go in and out.
Lean back, sop up the horizontal sun
trawling west across Georgia Strait.
Why don’t I leave you here?[…continue reading here]

An excerpt from the flash fiction story, “At First Blush,” by Peter Schireson (poetry, ’17) in Vestal Review:

 

 

“At First Blush”

At first, it’s a straightforward portrait, the subject viewed with detached scrutiny from the waist up. Adamantly upright posture, well-cut jacket, background in soft focus, all combine to give the portrait a photographic quality. Studied more closely, the image is less clear-cut. Viewed from one angle, the subject is a man, delicately traced in meditation. […continue reading here]

An excerpt from the poem, “The Salt,” by Peter Schireson (poetry, ’17), published at Construction Literary Magazine:

 

 

 

“The Salt”

I set out to attain nothing more
than myself, and before long,
had no money
and only one tooth,
the price I paid
to locate this exotic kingdom,
where mud-caked holy men
wander barefoot from place
to arduous place,
where the people need salt, (…continue reading here)

An excerpt from the poem, “Doubling Back,” by J.C. Todd (poetry, ’90), available at The Ekphrastic Review:

 

 

 

Doubling Back

Where is the sitter, the mirror? Outside the frame.
Unseen. So whose portrait does he paint, his father’s
or his own? Perhaps he glimpses the darkened edge
of what’s to come or the backlight of lineage

in this doubling, a portrait of a man painting a portrait
of the man who taught him to paint. He has finished
his own figure as reflection has shown him, form
and light confirmed by his sidelong look. A last touch,

the fine-haired brush feathers the beard of the father,
who peers sideways too, perhaps eyeing the mirrored
face of the one he created recreating him. Or is it
the artist who emerges from the canvas he has painted

on canvas, adding years with each stroke?
Does he glance over his shoulder to ask, Who is this,
coming up on me, aged? Not my future but
a foreshadow my father teaches me to see. […continue reading here]