Poetry by Devin Kelly

January 14, 2016

Devin Kelly earned his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. His collaborative chapbook with Melissa Smyth, This Cup of Absence, is forthcoming from Anchor & Plume Press. His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming inGigantic Sequins, Armchair/Shotgun, Post Road, RATTLE, The Millions, Appalachian Heritage, Midwestern Gothic, The Adirondack Review, and more, and his essay “Love Innings" was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He co-hosts the Dead Rabbits Reading Series in Manhattan, teaches Creative Writing and English classes to high schoolers in Queens, and lives in Harlem. You can find him on twitter @themoneyiowe.

Interview with Poet & Painter Rebecca Nison on Influences and New Book

January 13, 2016

Rebecca Nison is one of those people you want to hate a little bit, because she's just good at everything. Being a poet and a painter, while not completely unheard of, is pretty unusual if you're actually talented at both. And she is--she's proved it in her new book, If We'd Never Seen the Sea, which was published by Deadly Chaps Press at the end of 2015.

Poet Robert Balun on His Obsessions, Process, & 'Self (Ceremony)'

January 12, 2016

I'm interested in what works and what's engaging; I'm thinking about other media and drawing from them. I think this mindset influences my perception of ontology and aesthetics, they way I move through the world, what to pay attention to, what to absorb. I forget who said this, but they said that poets orbit all of the arts, and this was illuminating and affirming for me to hear. Maybe, though, I'm not exactly sure what this distinction means; I don't know what a poet or writer's "mentality" is or if it's any different. But being an artist is a lifelong pursuit, again, a way to make sense of the world, a lens. David Bohm talks about how art, science, and religion all evolved from the same impulse in humanity (and were once a unified entity), and I think there's something of this in the way that I approach my work and myself.

Poetry by Jenna Cardinale

January 6, 2016

You notice that the pen you’re using to write is not an easy pen with which to write. Maybe it’s the flow. Or something about the grip is off. So you look at the pen. It is thin. Silver, black, then tipped with silver. “Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.” You think, “How fancy,” then remember that this is your pen. You took it from a Four Season hotel. It wasn’t as decadent as the appearance of the pen might suggest. Or maybe it was fancy for the Midwest. Because you were in the St. Louis Four Seasons hotel and St. Louis is different from where you’re from. This is why you were staying in a hotel, after all. But there was a rainfall shower. And the TV appeared in the corner of the bathroom mirror. Was the toilet seat heated? Maybe you don’t understand decadence. Did you touch it all?

Overnight Success Is Overrated: A Book Blogger’s Journey

January 6, 2016

It’s hard to believe that my book review blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, is still going after eight years. It started with just one reader and individual poems I’d read in literary journals, like Poetry and AGNI, that I liked or made me view the world a little differently. I wanted to share these poems and my thoughts, and I really gave very little thought to how the blog would continue or how it would evolve. All I knew is that I wanted to talk about poetry, something I missed after college graduation.

You Write What You Read

January 5, 2016

I didn’t consciously make my protagonists white when I began to write fiction. There were times I swore I didn’t think about my characters’ races. But really, they were. Even when I claimed they were utter inventions of my imagination, removed from a context of race, I re-read my stories and see how they really weren’t of anything else. They were all cut from the same cloth.

Poetry by Michael Schmeltzer

December 28, 2015

The way the worm
ripples forward.

The way a boy and girl,
disgusted by the movement,

follow.

Poems by Nicelle Davis

December 23, 2015

Holding shovel is a boy—not boy so much as a body growing.

How his skin—patch of ground—is like a bed. What can’t be

sown in youth? Clean well mouth—spring of throat.

Review of Amy Pickworth's 'Bigfoot For Women'

December 22, 2015

Books are like people--they have their own personalities, bodies, & hearts. When I first met Bigfoot for Women (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2014) by Amy Pickworth, I was intrigued. Bigfoot poems? Sign me up. I was already on board before I even cracked the spine. Of course, once I opened the book, it was hard not to devour in one sitting.

Poems by Natasha Moni

December 22, 2015

This may sound simple but stop—

There is more than cell death, the subsequent shock for return

Put aside the yogis who may will their organs still

I am right here and you are somewhere in a room of eggs

And someone right now is stopping—I can feel the strong glaze.

An Interview with Real Life Unicorn Jamie J. Mortara

December 18, 2015

i often worry that i will be pre-judged for being a bisexual person who has up until the past couple of years only pursued romantic relationships with ciswomen. i always wondered if i was genderqueer enough to my trans friends.

Poetry By Clara Pluton

December 18, 2015

Multi-tasking is exceptionally difficult when one is pushed to commit the same intensity of eye contact to each person they meet

Close Your Eyes and Turn, She Said

December 17, 2015

When she was still learning to tie her shoes, a band of girls from her new neighborhood convinced her to drop her pants. In the dim underground garage that was damp with the morning’s rain, she leaned up against the bike rack, her daisy-printed shorts gathered at her flip-flops.

Interview with Poet Niel Rosenthalis On Queer Bodies

December 17, 2015

Niel Rosenthalis is a poet. If there was ever someone who not only loved poetry with ever fiber of his being, but could actually write a goddamn good poem, it's Niel. This is exactly why I say he's a poet; he's earned the title. I was lucky enough to meet Niel while he was studying at Sarah Lawrence College--we met by accident, really. We never took classes together, but happened to volunteer to run a poetry festival.

Poems by Cesca Janece Waterfield

December 16, 2015

Oxygen redox;

fancy name for one part

of fire; flame

shaped like man.