Poetry & Prose V.B Borjen Teresa Mei Chuc Cynthia Cruz Cynthia Huntington Bill Jansen Jim Keane Paulius Norvila Nick Ripatrazone Zachary Schomburg Alex Tomoff Rimas Uzgiris Indrė Valantinaitė Michael T. Young Conversations Chandler Klang Smith and Alizah Salario Zachary Karabashliev and Vera Asenova Simona Maicanescu and Cynthia-Marie O’Brien Featured Images Mayeta Clark (Stills from Piano Rites: “Hands
Monsters of the Book Like anything else, I suppose, it starts in childhood. Reading, that is, and wanting to write, and not always understanding what was going on with either impulse. I grew up in a large and verbal family, where we talked a great deal about almost everything. It is safe to say that
Fake Blood Fake blood Red color. Blue. I put it on carefully. It looks so real. Absolutely real. Although I’m not doing this for a living anymore, I’m still good. For twenty years I was a special effects artist. Now, I’m nobody. Four years before retirement, I got kicked out with fifteen more men. Our company
A Pack of Cigarettes This morning, as I sit at my computer in the bedroom, I hear the TV in the living room that is tuned to an Italian station. I’m trying to filter things out. Separate the laugh track from the joke, the crematorium from the barbeque. It all started when I found a
Excerpts from Terra Nova Dust 1. Then the noontime furnace. Heat shuddering up from the sand, the sky a plate, and out in the desert the tents of the Hebrews luffing in wind, their heavy curtains of goat hair thumping on the ropes; they lean and pull. Dust in your throat and eyes, dry film
Paulius Norvila is a twenty-seven year old poet from Lithuania whose first collection, Septyni Metų Laikai (“Seven Seasons”), was well received when it was published in Vilnius in 2006. His second collection of poetry was released this year. Rimas Uzgiris‘ poetry has been published in Atlanta Review, 322 Review, Lituanus, Prime
Con Son “She’s become insane . . . unable to sleep for fifteen days, believing herself to be a pampered dog that could only eat bread and milk. Not being given these, she refused to eat and became so weak she couldn’t talk. When the wind blew she wanted to fly.” -Father Chan Tin, Vietnamese
Indrė Valantinaitė is a fresh voice in Lithuanian poetry. Her debut collection Žuvim ir lelijom (For fish and lilies) won the 2006 First Book Contest of the Lithuanian Union of Writers. Her second book Pasakos apie meilę ir kitus žvėris (Stories about love and other animals) was published in 2011 and won the 2012 Young
Momento mori I sip my tea and observe the boot of God heavy in the sky. The waiting is about to be crumpled to bits by its pointy top. Threatened by a cloud yet not merely a cloud, a weathergod, I sit back and catnap until it morphs into a bear or a galloping horse.
from Agnes the Elephant from Asteroid •• deafness, a catapult into spaceness—light makes what you call something •• the place you are in is also in space I don’t care if it’s inside or even if it is true you’re a fish I’ll never even see •• catapulting bodies into space saves lives in the
Scraps I throw on a trench coat and tuck my pen inside the breast pocket only to pull out an old ticket stub for Paris or the birth plan of our first child, the day dissolved into another lifetime, my fork slicing a square of foi gras in the Crémerie-Restaurant Polidor, bumping elbows with the
1989: Willsboro, NY, A-1 Market Three sisters walked arm-in-arm down the meat aisle, past lean cuts packed beneath frosted plastic wrap, where teenage boys wore aprons tied not too tightly but enough to keep their stomachs down, because you should not breathe in front of a girl, or girls, especially ones who wore the same
SELF PORTRAIT: POLAROID Our very own Pharmacopoia blonde In blue powder eye shadow, or Luminous nurse of the locked ward, This sweet, licked delirium. Of teeth, Dirt, and seed. Alone, in my dream Room, listening careful For the second coming. ARE THEN SEEN AND PURSUED Cords of voices are unspooling inside my head. White-gloved
Dear Readers, We are excited to share our online home, the space where your ideas and images will be curated, by bringing you the interviews that will complement our poetry and prose. Consider these entry points, the bridge between direct interaction with an artist and the solitude of confronting texts alone, inviting us to dive
“Writing a novel is like being out on the ocean, and you just can’t see land, and you have to pick a direction.” Goldenland Past Dark, ChiZine Publications, March 2013. Beaded ladies, mermaid girls and a dwarf hunchback. Chandler Klang Smith discusses her debut novel, Goldenland Past Dark, which chronicles the lives of a traveling
“In the novel I’m writing now, the narrator says that if you’ve succeeded in publishing a book, you most probably have failed in something much more important in real life. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don’t.” 18% Gray. Open Letter Books. January, 2013. Translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel. Religion, politics, the mixing
“We still have millions in poverty who are unseen as individuals, but instead as slogans on T-shirts. Helping them makes those who give money feel good.” “The Fever” at LaMama, New York City, 2012-2013 Globalization, exile, inequality, the power of contemporary dance, and why she counts herself among the marginalized. Editor Cynthia-Marie O’Brien finds out
