In another universe, my father and I are coming home from the concert, and he still leaves.
Read MoreQuadrophenia (1979)
via beliefnet
Writing a (Poetic) God while Disbelieving
This isn’t a new concept. Epic poetry has been calling to gods and muses for centuries. However, the nuance is in a lack of spiritual power attached to that character. The Poetic God is a trope to which I address my existential idiosyncrasies. This God exists only in my writing as a thematic apostrophe linked to all the other poems that address a god. For someone that believes in a higher power, my lines may resonate for them as a genuinely religious exhortation. I encourage that. For me, their poetry referencing a religious god becomes my Poetic God.
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Aliza Razell
Flash Fiction by Joyanna M
From my bedroom window, I watch the ferries. Like counting sheep, see them float across my window, light up against the darkness, and reflect in the water. I can't sleep, and the languid pace lulls me.
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Sit Zone Art
Five Gifts for the Water Worshiper in Your Life
Now some people love the water and anything water related. Luckily, there are quite a few gift options out there and below you will find what I hope are interesting ideas for the upcoming gift giving season.
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Ashely Adams
Poetry by Ashely Adams
Jupiter
There is a storm older than the world (at the center of everything),
churning gods’ blood
(eating the flesh of their flesh).
Its daughters turned
into ice and rock under a jealous rain, bending
all the softness into metal.
(Don’t look).
This gale sings in hydrogen tongues
and swallows
swallows
swallows
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Ashely Adams is an MFA candidate in nonfiction at the University of South Florida. Her work has appeared in Flyway, Heavy Feather Review, Fourth River, Anthropoid, Permafrost, OCCULUM and others. Her favorite astronomical body is the Galilean moon, Europa.
Poetry Collaboration by Maris McLamoureary
Mark Lamoureux lives in New Haven, CT. He is the author of four full-length collections of poetry: It’ll Never Be Over For Me (Black Radish Books, 2016), 29 Cheeseburgers / 39 Years (Pressed Wafer, 2013), Spectre (Black Radish Books 2010), and Astrometry Orgonon (BlazeVOX Books 2008),. His work has been published in print and online in Elderly, Denver Quarterly, Jacket, Fourteen Hills and many others. In 2014 he received the 2nd annual Ping Pong Poetry award, selected by David Shapiro, for his poem “Summerhenge/Winterhenge.” He teaches at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, CT. His chapbook, Maris McLamoureary's DICTIONNAIRE INFERNAL, co-authored with Chris McCreary, was published by Empty Set Press on Halloween 2017.
Chris McCreary is the author of four books: [neüro / mäntic], undone : a fakebook, Dismembers, and The Effacements. His review of Arrive On Wave, the Collected Poems of Gil Ott, is forthcoming in Tripwire. His chapbook, Maris McLamoureary's DICTIONNAIRE INFERNAL, co-authored with Mark Lamoureux, was published by Empty Set Press on Halloween 2017.
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Natalia Drepina
Ma Says Monsters are Real
I’m still so afraid of all the monsters that I never want anyone to know or even know about, that no one should ever have to know at all.
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Michael Kestin
Do This in Remembrance of Me
My mother says that she feels the presence of my aunt a lot. Something in the way the curtains move and shake when the wind blows makes my mother feel her there. I’ve never experienced that. A month ago, however, I experienced something else. I had dreams about her often after she died. In the beginning, it felt kind of her to show up like that. Despite the experience of watching her die and then seeing her body leave, I never had nightmares. It was always dreams about her talking to me and being confused over my crying. Even in my dreams I would cry because I was aware of it being a dream.
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Lateef Dameer's Album 'First Kiss' Is a Must-Listen
When it comes to music, I'm always listening. Music isn't just a song someone produced, it's the footsteps down the hall, the rain on the roof of a bus, the clicking of laptop keys. When musicians truly understand this, and understand the poetics to every sound that happens around us, and realizes it's music, you know you're about to get a gift.
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Carrie Lavers
Six Italian Liqueurs for You to Enjoy That Are Not Limoncello or Amaretto
If you would like to touch a lip to something sweet or bitter, here are six great options:
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Poetry by Tim Lynch
Tim Lynch has poems forthcoming or published with tenderness, yea, Connotation Press, Mead & more. He has directed workshops for young writers through Rutgers University in Camden, NJ & conducts interviews for Tell Tell Poetry.
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Cotton Xenomorph: a New Cotton Cool Literary Magazine to Look out For
Have you ever dreamed of Xenomorph? What about Xenomorph as a literary publication? Well, dreams do come true because there's a cool new literary magazine in town: Cotton Xenomorph! I was warmly invited into the heart of their awesome hive and we got talking.
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Photo of Dolores Del Río via Women Reading
The Power of Listing Things in Reverse
... a way to document my personal progress...
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The Alphabet (1968)
Five Videos to Remind You of That Strange Dream You Once Had
Here are my favorite strange and unusual videos to get your comfortably daydreaming about all that is pleasantly discomforting.
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The 20 Best Books of 2017
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 (The Operating System, 2017), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016) and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). Joanna received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, a managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM, as well as an instructor at Brooklyn Poets. Some of their writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Brooklyn Magazine, Prelude, Apogee, Spork, The Feminist Wire, BUST, and elsewhere.
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