Matt Jones
Maria Pinto was born in Jamaica and grew up in South Florida. Her work has appeared or will appear in FriGG, Necessary Fiction, Word Riot, Pinball, and The Butter, among others. She was an Ivan Gold Fellow at the Writers' Room of Boston, in the city where she reads for FLAPPERHOUSE and does karaoke. Her debut novel is in search of a home. She's working on the next.
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Ryler Calabrese
BY JOSÉ ANTONIO RODRÍGUEZ
CURATED BY CECILIA LLOMPART
Liebre en el ejido
Por fin sale de su pozo
y su cuerpo acurrucado
se tisna con el humo desganado
de la basura que mis padres queman
por la húmeda tarde,
ante la vista de los vecinos.
Olfatea el plástico de la botella
que se retuerse entre las llamas
como chicharrones de cerdo
y cierra los ojos. Empieza
a caminar como una anciana.
No sé de sus años en el pozo.
Las parcelas se achican
ante las anchas carreteras.
La acequia se hace chorro
y el panteón se cree rey
con tantas coronas.
Ni siquiera voltea a ver
los trosos de papa
que tengo en mi mano.
Se va porque no quiere probar
las escarchas rosadas de mi casa.
¿Debo también celebrar su partida?
Aquí no se celebran los cumpleaños
porque llaman al recuerdo del nacimiento
que es la prueba de la concepción
que jamás se piensa —
como el sabor del terrón desmoronado
entre los dientes. Las velas se encienden
sólo para la iglesia.
La liebre se va
y el panteón se burla de mí.
José Antonio Rodríguez's books include The Shallow End of Sleep, Backlit Hour, and House Built on Ashes: A Memoir. His work has appeared widely in Poetry, The New Republic, Huizache, and elsewhere. He teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing program at UT-Rio Grande Valley. Learn more at www.JARodriguez.org
Cecilia Llompart is the Spanish Poetry Editor for Luna Luna Magazine.
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications), & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions) and the editor of “A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault” (CCM, 2017). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM. Some of their writing has appeared in Prelude, The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, BUST, Pouch, and elsewhere. They also teach workshops at Brooklyn Poets.
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Marcin Drabek
Danielle Susi is the author of the chapbook The Month in Which We Are Born (dancing girl press, 2015). Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Knee-Jerk Magazine, Hobart, and The Rumpus, among many other publications. She received her MFA in writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Newcity has named her among the Top 5 Emerging Chicago Poets. Find her online at daniellesusi.com
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I’ve known Devon since grad school, and I was overjoyed to see how her work—which has always been fantastic—has grown. This book is visceral and dynamic, rife with rich images and strange settings, “spaces that are theaters for the soul” (Bruce Smith): oceans and dreamscapes full of chucacabras, attics and deathbeds. There’s a wine-dark, pensive intricacy in Devon’s poems that left the tang of metal at the back of my tongue. There’s an unflinching eye, a resolute grittiness that plumbs longing, shame, and girlhood in America.
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Alvaro Serrano
The biggest secret to writing well is that there aren’t any secrets. Maintaining a blog or writing a book takes the same type of skill, and that’s organization. That means, creating a schedule, an environment, and taking the time to research. When we talk about writer’s block, we are really talking about disorganization and waiting for those “idea” moments to happen. Like lightning, inspiration does strike—just not often and fades before our very eyes.
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We could all stand to surround ourselves with love more. There's really no better time to foster the relationships with the people around you than during times of strife and turmoil, both personal and political (and isn't the political always personal?). To get you in the mood, here's a playlist full of some of the best love songs around.
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For adult survivors of child abuse, boundaries are a lifelong struggle. We are taught early that chaos reigns and that anything can and will happen at any time. We alternate between hypervigilance and radical openness, and our wires are so tangled that we often cannot figure out which of these responses is appropriate in the moment. We spend our lives letting the wrong people in, and lashing out at the right ones, until we become conscious of the pattern and begin working to rewire our own brains.
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Via That Grape Juice
Here's what happens when popular music gets darkly glamorous...
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Jamie Street
Steven Cordova is the 2012 first-place winner of the International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize. His first full-length poetry collection, Long Distance, appeared in 2010 from Bilingual University Press. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Annie Spratt
I often write to music. I find music helps set a tone and atmosphere that is hard to do on my own, especially if I'm in a public space like a coffee shop (and I often am). Here's a playlist that helps get me in the mood to write/make art:
Read MoreLisa A. Flowers is a poet, critic, cinephile, ailurophile, the founding editor of Vulgar Marsala Press, and the Reviews Editor for Tarpaulin Sky Press. She is the author of diatomhero: religious poems, and her work has appeared in various magazines and online journals. Raised in Los Angeles and Portland, OR, she now resides in Colorado. Visit her here.
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PHOTO CREDIT: Huffington Post
The reasons a person who chooses to get or not an abortion or use or not use birth control are varied. For many the choice is not even there. The legislation may currently there in some cases but the opportunity is not. Although abortions are currently legal, there are still a multitude of reasons an individual does not have access to the procedure. There many be women who wish they could be on birth control but can’t.
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Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications) & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Civil Coping Mechanisms and Luna Luna Magazine. Some of their writing has appeared in Prelude, BUST, The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, The Huffington Post, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. Joanna also leads workshops at Brooklyn Poets.
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Joseph P. O'Brien is the Managing Editor of Flapperhouse. His short fiction has appeared in Matchbook, The Alarmist, and The Rusty Nail. Non-fiction at El Jamberoo. Lives in Brooklyn with his lovely wife and their very popular dog.
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