Author: Heavy Feather
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Meagan Masterman: “The River Runs Red in Spring,” a Haunted Passages short story
The red in the river wasn’t blood, at first. It was iron. Just sediment eroded from mountain rocks that oxidized in the river long before its waters washed down to us. We lived in a small town that existed because of the river. Our forebears had floated logs down it to be hacked into boards…
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“From Extract to Artifact”: Review of Max Brett’s PANK Books poetry collection Nor Do These by Juliana Converse
To introduce his first book, Max Brett describes the collaborative exercise that prompted the poems in Nor Do These. He hints at a contentious and ill-fated set of relationships that ultimately ended the collaboration. But the pieces themselves are far from confessional. In fact, the observing voice in these poems is often detached, as though…
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Hybrid Prose Poem: “Midway Down Fairmount” by Rogan Kelly for Bad Survivalist
Later, before we sold it for a loss but after you were gone, I drove up the massive hill in my old pickup with the salt-rusted chassis. The city skyline visible below on a clear day. The whole truck seemed to lurch; the sound of metal screeching against metal. Two lawnmowers tied in the back…
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Rift Zone, a Red Hen Press poetry collection by Tess Taylor, reviewed by Esteban Rodríguez
Given the way history is inadequately taught throughout schools across the country, it’s safe to assume that it would be a challenge for anyone to recount at least a half-detailed history of their hometown. For 18 years, I never knew that Harlon Block Park in my hometown of Weslaco, Texas, was named after one of…
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Haunted Passages: “Black Magic,” a short story by Karen Petersen
A runaway hippo, typhoid fever, and a charge of theft had not figured in my plans for a tranquil seed collecting expedition in East Africa. I had flown to Nairobi to do some work for a botanical garden and write up a story about it for a national publication. While there, I was going to…
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Essay: “You’re Not Dead” by Reverie Koniecki
Don’t you think it’s creepy that your name is written there and you’re not dead? I ask. Why do you say that? my mother responds. I guess I’m just not ready to die, I say. We are looking down at my sister’s new gravestone. It is a rectangle with her name, birthdate, and of course…
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Haunted Passages: “The Unhaunted Poem” by Kim Sousa
X-Files child, Ialways wanted to brush up against the paranormal.Grant me a final girl foggy day. Though, in this only and on-forever life, I never found any ghost outside the mirror. Only bare fruit trees,controlled burns, abandoned hives, their capped and long-dry combs. Only strangerswith cheeks I kiss out of obligation, not gentleness. Their go-with-God…
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A History of My Brief Body, essays by Billy-Ray Belcourt, reviewed by Christina Ghent
History has traditionally been written by those who have the privilege to write it. Archives are created and maintained by those same people in power who can write their own narrative and the narrative for those they have conquered. Monarchies seeking to expand their power colonized places in the name of the throne and declared…
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“Emotional Resonances”: Jesi Buell Chats with Tariq Shah about His Debut Novel Whiteout Conditions (Two Dollar Radio)
Tariq Shah’s Whiteout Conditions is a slim book that, by centering on death, allows its protagonist to explore life. Ant, the main character, is back in town for a funeral in the middle of winter. As he wanders through his hometown and its memories, Shah leads us through a taut exploration of grief, masculinity, and revenge…
Heavy Feather Review 