A Quarterly Journal of Poetry and Art

Monet’s Blue Tall Bearded Iris Maltese Cross Red Poppy Double Texting behind a screen of tulips Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding career in public health resear…

I had a nightmare that I was pregnantso I went out and bought a test to assessdespite a device in my body designed to preventme from having a baby. I think hard on this body,what it would mean to c…

I once heard water moving behind the plaster.It was not a leak; it was memory rehearsing itself.Each crack widened its mouth for confession. I pressed my ear to the wall—the sound of a river preten…

Butterflies 2020 Insects and flowers 2020 flowers, stripes and circles 2020 Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. …

Cicada Eugenio at the start, 2 Eugenio at the start, 4 Eugenio at the start, 5 Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of feathering and Honey in My Hair. She is Cofounder and Managin…

In the photograph, my father is wearing a white shirt,the collar slightly turned, the way the breeze remembers him.They say I walk like him,one foot folding into the next as if it knows a rhythm I …

The sun setssad as an oldwomantoo tiredto go on.The sky’s starsare brightlike crushed bones.Buildingsat the sideof the trackelongatetheir shadowswhile a train—fast as a fishoutside the net,bold as …

The wig looked like a muskrat,on Mom’s head, its auburnhighlights indiscernibleunder the funeral home’s fluorescentsand the feeling I’d walked in onthe wrong visitation. Dad was shakinghands …

Saffron Magnitude National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of forty books in multiple genres, an award-winning memoir teacher, and the author of the bestseller Substack…

–after “What If? Magik” by Leah Williams and Filipe AndradeIf every action makes a new universe. If every step canconjure thirteen new worlds. If my body had been too bigto fit in the locker,…

Butterfly Fire Escape Upsidedown Striped Pockets The Mysterious Lady Hawaiian Wahine Stephanie Maru Flood {birth name: Desiree Maru} is a Filipino American intercountry adoptee and mixed media stor…

It is not the death I remember.It is that his brown pajamashad a stain of canned-peach syrup—canned peaches his only sustenancethose last few days.The stain his sister usedto judge our lack of care…

I swim lapslike I’m escaping a city of smokethen turning back.I am regaining shape, training to racetowards ruin.I am pleased with how long I can gowithout breathing now,how my stroke has improved.…

Interview by–Natalie Solmer When I attended Butler University’s MFA program many years ago, I had the good fortune of having Karen Kovacik as one of my thesis readers. We connected over…

Lay on the kitchen floor like when you were a child.Look at the ceiling and the light fixture. Countany dark flecks in the shade. What radio stationdid your mother listen to while cooking? Why does…

A Quarterly Journal of Poetry and Art

Two employees of OpenAI and Anthropic cited concerns about the future of humanity amid wider resignations in the industry

Our bodies are maps of every tragedywe survivedto see another one coming. Tracing the lines for a fairytale endinghope takes us to the memories we left behind,the lives we are grieving. We don’tgiv…

For Roja Azadian We’d said goodbye to herten days before she got on that flight.She and her partner hosted a good-bye partytook us to the tiniest room in their homewhere the biggest thing was photo…

Gallery

Review by-Ashley Mack-Jackson I first encountered Patricia Smith’s work in the fall of 2001, a nervous high school senior encouraged by my friend and choirmate, the poet and photographer Corey Ewin…

Hammons on 125th street June 8, 2020, Indianapolis Flag Union Square Joshua Mark Phillippe is an Indianapolis based artist who works in the mediums of photography, painting, and printmaking. Joshua…

Ava Mack (she/her) is poetry editor at The Lost Poetry Club and a reader for ONLY POEMS. Previously, she was the 2023 Poetry Fellow at The Writers’ Room of Boston. Her work has been published…

Six witnessescalled it“Horrific.”Sad newscasterssaid,“There’s nothingmore to see, nothingmore to say.” The image wasfirst pixelatedand blurredbeforethe public learnedits truth.Legislatorsand …

after Thomas Paine & this time, we start with Blackness—a holy Blackness—a radical love that bellowsfrom the womb of the cosmos for three days.& like children, we sit & wait & liste…

Distortions Noise War Dark Colette Love Hilliard is a writer and English teacher from St. Louis, MO. She is the author of two blackout poetry collections—A Wonderful Catastrophe and Celestial Timpa…

Artist Statement“I slide back into the pain spiral” explores the somatic experiences of chronic pain and disability caused by Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD).TMD is a chronic condition with severe…

Lisa Caroline Friedman (she/her) was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, raised in New York City, and currently lives and works in Palo Alto, California. Her poems have been published in The …