Author: Heavy Feather

Haunted Passages Poetry: “Aubade to the Weight of a Soul in the Morning Air” by Jenny Maaketo

I packedso high in the lightI practice for whatuntil what is an objectTo cast becomes invisible To cradle light spindle refracts rays switchgrass the grass switch my wrist with you and to hold notuntil as lightly as I find I among the mountains air I will to be you here the cast touch is caught…
“Flag of the Patriot in the Country of Dignity”: Peter Mladinic Reviews Mark Danowsky’s Poetry Collection Take Care

In this world where there are more machines than at any time in history, and nuclear weaponry, and divisions between and within nations, the poems in Mark Danowsky’s Take Care, dedicated to the caregivers, are in their own way political. We hear them, see them, feel them. The thrust of some poems is vertical, others…
Fiction Review: Ria Dhull Reads Osvalde Lewat’s Novel The Aquatics

Osvalde Lewat’s debut novel examines the laws and social structure of Zambuena, the fictional African country within which The Aquatics takes place. Zambuena appears to be a thinly-veiled Cameroon, Lewat’s home nation; the fictional country and the real country have numerous similarities: a French colonial history, a Christian majority, ethnic diversity, and social restrictions, notably…
Three Original Poems by Choiselle Joseph

Hummingbird, or, First Blood at Witching Hour The night I first retched hummingbirdfeathers my mother said it was normal. Two a.m., both hands tremble-clingingto porcelain, the beak lodgedin my abdomen. Propeller wingsbuzzed against lining, bowlfilling with bile. She stroked my back, okra-slimylike a newborn’s cheek. Peachand lime-green clods of plumagelaunched from my throat. You get…
New Side A Poetry by Min Woo Chong: “I dare not look out”

the exit lights along the aisle are blinking red.red like the sunset over ocean outside, streamingin through the window I don’t dare look out.out, as the light leans in, the cabin is gold,gold framing for one final sunlit bloodstained picture. that bloodstained picture of the man beside mepraying for a golden miracle from the sky…
Poetry Review: Scott Ferry Reads Luke Johnson’s Collection Distributary

In the rare and happy occasion of receiving a new Luke Johnson poetry book, one is ready to be floored. Those of us who have read :boys and Quiver know what we will get; it is not predictability, but surprising turns and brilliance. As we turn the first page of Distributary we encounter: “For you,…
“Visiting the Dilapidated with Hope in Your Heart”: Abbie Kiefer Interviews Poet Kelly Gray

Kelly Gray’s Dilapitatia is, in many ways, a book about haunting—how lineage keeps shaping the present, how the dead remain with us, how our minds and bodies keep returning to the mysteries that possess us. I recently talked with Gray about her collection. Gray is the author of Instructions for an Animal Body (Moon Tide…
“Tell It Slant”: Shannon Nakai on Recollection and Reality in Melora Wolff’s Essay Collection Bequeath

“Before she opened the book, and before I entered this picture, I did not know that love is a deed …” So culminates the themes of Melora Wolff’s latest essay collection, Bequeath, published by the Louisiana State University Press. Part ode to a father figure who is a loving, enigmatic storehouse of imagination, part unflinching…
Fiction Review: S. D. Stewart Reads Samuel M. Moss’ Novel The Veldt Institute

“Of course, the Veldt Institute is not commonly known—likely no one outside the Veldt Institute is aware of its existence—but it is clear that those who arrive do so at the exact time that is best for them.” This is not a review, per se. It is more a series of impressions and associations meant…