The latest issue of Four Way Review includes work by faculty member Megan Staffel and alumna Mary Lou Buschi (poetry, ’04).

from Megan Staffel’s short story “Saturdays at the Philharmonic”:

Patsy Smith left Rochester, New York on a sunny Saturday morning intending to drive all the way to California. But after three and a half hours, crossing through an Indian reservation, she got lost. On a long, straight road, where there hadn’t been a route number for many miles, there was a sudden break in the forest and she saw a small building with cars and trucks parked in front. She turned in to ask directions.

Pulling the door open, she smelled beer. She saw men with their backs to her sitting at the end of a room on bar stools, and close by, a few small tables and chairs that were mostly empty. The door snapped shut behind her and in the sudden darkness all she could make out were the neon beer signs. She stood still, waiting until her eyes adjusted. It was nineteen sixty-eight. Patsy was sixteen. She had an old car, a hundred dollars, a pillow, a blanket, a pair of broken-in lace-up boots; that was the total of her possessions. But it was all she needed...[Keep Reading]…

from Mary Lou Buschi’s poem “Spell I”:

After Louise Glück

1.

Somewhere, my brother is traveling—
The right side of his head
a red-clawed tulip
swallowing the cold. …[Keep Reading]…