Category: Poetry

An Accident of Love

Nan Byrne

Once when I was young, I read a story in the newspaper. A man had gone on a picnic with his wife and children. They spent the day by the lake, playing in the water, throwing a football, and doing all the typical things that families do. At the lake, Read more

Nan Byrne

Nan Byrne is a feminist poet and television writer. The author of two books, her poems have appeared in a variety of feminist journals including Phoebe: A Feminist Quarterly, Canadian Woman Studies, Earth’s Daughters, Critical Matrix: Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture, Poemmemoirstory, So To Speak, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of grants from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, and is currently at work on a documentary about Margaret Fuller, an early feminist and the first woman journalist.

Empty Handed

Elizabeth Regen

I built a fort around myself I thought you could not get through- Steel and nails so high I thought I could prevent you— From ever getting inside. I crouched down low in a corner, With my daughters… And I put my hands over their mouths. I knew building the Read more

Someday Someway

Dori Owen

If someone should ask what is a regret? I would answer truthfully and say not mastering how to stay. I’ve pretended to sleep with men who loved me and some I have loved back. I do find myself in spite of myself plotting escape routes instead of savoring sweet dreams. Read more

Dori Owen

Dori Owen is a storyteller, writing from small town Arizona, after living a few decades in California as an LA Wild Child, with a brief stop in Reno. She settled into grownup life as a project manager, collecting an MBA and a few husbands along the way. She is a shown artist and her favorite pastime is upcycling old furniture and decor she finds from thrift stores. She lives with the cat who came to visit but stayed. The love of her life is her grown son who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her essays and poems have been published in RAW&UNFILTERED VOL I, StigmaFighters Vol 2, and Love Notes From Humanity. Her blogs have been featured on The Lithium Chronicles, Open Thought Vortex, Sudden Denouement, and The Mighty.

By God’s Grace

Natasha Alexander

I hid in my dark cave My cloak wrapped tightly around my body, one covered in the dirt that’s my shame my sins my hurt You walked in with grace and fetched me from the dark I crawled at Your feet, scared to face You. What would I read in Read more

Natasha Alexander

Writer, always Wife and Mother first. Perfect is overrated, I am flawed and yet loved. Now that I don’t chase perfection, I can chase my dreams. I have completed a "Write a Novel" course in 2015 through S.A. Writers’ College and passed with a distinction. I also completed the Copy-Editing and Proof-reading course through them in March 2016. My first Manuscript of 60 000 words has been written and currently seeking a publisher. I have been writing poetry since I was 14 and the reason/inspiration behind all my writing is a stand against women abuse. It is a cause that I hold close to heart. Something that started as an outlet for feelings too ghastly to speak about has turned into my passion.

Here

Brianna Scott

When I pluck my hands in the dirt and feel the little blades stroke my cheek I hope my vibrations rattle the insides of the earth and you can feel them while you sleep your hair invading me like this grass I’m laying on the brown hair the way the Read more

Brianna Scott

I am an 18 year old naive libra girl who is really gullible and still believes in fairytales and love at first sight. I moved across the country to northern California to find a new adventure.

How the Dead want to be Remembered

Icess Fernandez

When you remember me, picture me smiling. A grin of a thousand laughs Like sunshine on a Saturday. Remember how my laughter bounced off the walls and filled a room. How you already knew me, when my laughter reached your eardrums. Remember me as I was. With the same sweetness Read more

Icess Fernandez

Icess Fernandez Rojas is a journalist, blogger, teacher, and writer based in Houston. She earned my BA in Communications from the University of Houston and my MFA from Goddard College. She’s been published in USA Today, NBCNews.com, HuffingtonPost and the Guardian. She’s had fiction anthologized in Soul’s Road: A Fiction Collection and published in literary journals including Minerva Rising and The Fem Lit Magazine. Icess is also a VONA/Voices of Our Nation Foundation alum.

Tales of Immigrant Ancestors

Joan Mazza

Another conversation with my aunt, who tells me about her father’s trip who made his crossing to America when he was fifteen. Alone, he traveled from Canicatti, no money or education, for vague hope of a better life, sponsored by his sister, my grandmother, who arrived at Ellis Island, 1917. Read more

Joan Mazza

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Whitefish Review, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.

All I Can Do

John Michael Antonio

I feel the malevolent thunder coming from the Right a howling nativistic storm led by the Orange monster swirling and marshaling for their inevitable attack And all I can do, is breathe the fearful angry air hold the people and things I love tighter and deeper and unflinchingly prepare To Read more

John Michael Antonio

John Michael Antonio is a freelance writer, photographer, poet and screenwriter. He claims his Midwestern roots while at the same time admitting his incurable and insatiable love and addiction for all things New York City. He has been the husband to his wife, the love of his life, for almost thirty years and is a father of three wonderful children. He is an unapologetic male feminist as well as a passionate lover of fashion, art, movies and music from all eras and genres. An endless dreamer, John Michael is also an avid historian, ex-punk rocker and a legendary Internet surfer who sleeps, on average, about four hours a day. His work has also been featured on The Good Men Project.