Category: Poetry

The Shapes I’ve Been

Nicole Zwolinski

I say I know Minnesota like the back of my hand. I don’t know the back of my hand. I wouldn’t recognize it on the street or if it slammed a door. 1 Not like I recognize the lines etched near my eyes, I saw them emerging at 20 and Read more

Nicole Zwolinski

Nicole Zwolinski earned a BA in Creative Writing with a focus in poetry and Mass Communications – Journalism. Zwolinski is always learning and continues to take courses through The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and in 2011 attended the Mississippi River Creative Writing Workshop at St. Cloud State University. Zwolinski’s favorite course at The Loft was Writing through Photographs with Brad Zellar. Zwolinski has had a few short short plays performed live. In addition to plays, Zwolinski has had numerous poems selected for live readings. Zwolinski’s work has appeared in Firewords Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bare Hands Issue 20, FishFood Magazine, Feminine Collective, and had a piece published in NEAT.

Going Gray

Eloisa Perez-Lozano

You want to be a part of me, your absence of color like spider’s silk growing, surrounded by a sea of dark strands, lonely. Patiently, you wait for me to find you, but my job, chores, phone calls, and the rest of routine that comes with family keep me distracted Read more

Eloisa Perez-Lozano

Eloísa Pérez-Lozano writes poems and essays about Mexican-American identity, women’s issues, and motherhood. She graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in psychology and an M.S. in journalism and mass communications. A 2016 Sundress Publications Best of the Net nominee, her work has been featured in “The Texas Observer,” “Houston Chronicle,” and “Poets Reading the News,” among others. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas.

Black Hole Witch

Megan Coleman

I’m a bad bitch, stay low to the ground witch, made of ground stone and bone motherfucker, bleed snake skin and vermouth.   I was born under a watching eye: teeth, moon, armless spiders are my kin.   See me sizzle against your skin, erase time from our coordinates, etch Read more

Megan Coleman

Megan Coleman has been writing from the womb and is an emerging poet in Chattanooga, TN. Five of her poems appear in Elephant Journal (2017), and she is featured in Ordinary Madness Magazine (2017), Vocal Magazine (2017), finalist in the Fortnight Eyewear contest (2017), Visera (2012), and the winner in poetry in Chattanooga Writer's Guild contests in 2003 and 2004. She has given readings at Barking Legs and Mudpie Cafe in Chattanooga. She also has a B.A. in Women's Studies.

Searching For Home

Tom Lagasse

At night, after my day as a spice merchant concludes, the smell of garlic and onion dust coats my clothes and body like a new skin, as though I am someone different. I do not shower before visiting my parents, my scent melds with their age and confinement. My mother Read more

Tom Lagasse

Tom’s poetry has been published in Black Bough’s Poetry Freedom & Rapture and Dark Confessions; Faith, Hope, and Fiction; Silver Birch Press Prime Movers Series, Freshwater Literary Review, Word Mill Magazine, The Monterey Poetry Review, and Plum Tree Tavern, along with a half dozen anthologies among others. Several short stories appeared in The Feminine Collective. He lives in Bristol, CT.

FROM THE LIFE OF IRIS ORIGO

Anne Whitehouse

(a cento, mostly) “The days go by waiting for better times.” I Day after day we sat in the library of our isolated country house, listening to the voices on the radio with an increasing sense of doom — Hitler and Dolfuss, Eden and Chamberlain, schoolchildren and soldiers singing Fascist Read more

Anne Whitehouse

Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press, 2016). She has also written a novel, Fall Love, which is now available in Spanish translation as Amigos y amantes by Compton Press. Recent honors include: 2018 Prize Americana for Prose, 2017 Adelaide Literary Award in Fiction, 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Prize, 2016 Common Good Books’ Poems of Gratitude Contest, 2016 RhymeOn! Poetry Prize, 2016 F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Poetry Prize. She lives in New York City. www.annewhitehouse.com

uroboros chorus

e. smith sleigh

the beginning was lost so the ending will become the beginning the passion for breathing blends with tower tongues tattered candy wrappers next to the curb are all too common in an upside down kind of exploded, nuked world bloody lips licking global death fat chemicalized globules half broken slow Read more

e. smith sleigh

e. smith sleigh's poetry has appeared in Paper Darts, Squalorly, Kumquat Poetry, Kaleidoscope, Pankhearst’s Slimline Volume: No Love Lost, PRISM International, 'Ekphrasis', The Criterion, Orion, Scintilla, A Twist in Time, Tilde and elsewhere. She's written nine poetry collections, a fictional memoir, a non-fiction book and a historical fiction book. She won finalist designation in several literary and academic competitions including Eastern Kentucky University’s academic journal Nine Patch: A Creative Journal for Women and Gender Studies. She was educated at the universities of Delaware and Michigan, taught at the college level and traveled extensively. e. smith sleigh is a pioneer blogger. She is one of the first poets to write about post structuralism and poetry online. She lives in Robert Penn Warren county where she draws inspiration.

Because Nice Guys

Tanita Cree

She was always ready to cry on my shoulder and accept my help, my affection, my favours. ‘Cause nice guys finish last. But one kiss and she doesn’t want to ‘ruin the friendship’. ‘Cause nice guys finish last. I bought her dinner and drinks but only got a kiss at Read more

Tanita Cree

Australian born and raised, it was only in the last few years that Tanita transitioned from the sunny shores of Tweed Heads in NSW to the seasonal beauty of Canada. A graduate of Griffith University, Tanita has a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature. While earning her degree, she also worked as a Production Manager to help create the arts television series Put Some Colour In Your Life. When not working, writing or reading, she has a tendency to spend ludicrous amounts of money on Funko POP figurines, books and tattoos. Not necessarily in that order.

sub gum

e. smith sleigh

I close my eyes and see a sky light I’ve never seen I feel a sunlight   I never touched I jump into water that isn’t liquid I can see the sun through an unwoven basket   I sense events that haven’t happened and glimpse things in turmoil or unborn I’m Read more

e. smith sleigh

e. smith sleigh's poetry has appeared in Paper Darts, Squalorly, Kumquat Poetry, Kaleidoscope, Pankhearst’s Slimline Volume: No Love Lost, PRISM International, 'Ekphrasis', The Criterion, Orion, Scintilla, A Twist in Time, Tilde and elsewhere. She's written nine poetry collections, a fictional memoir, a non-fiction book and a historical fiction book. She won finalist designation in several literary and academic competitions including Eastern Kentucky University’s academic journal Nine Patch: A Creative Journal for Women and Gender Studies. She was educated at the universities of Delaware and Michigan, taught at the college level and traveled extensively. e. smith sleigh is a pioneer blogger. She is one of the first poets to write about post structuralism and poetry online. She lives in Robert Penn Warren county where she draws inspiration.