Author: Heavy Feather

Kodi Saylor: Three Poems from The Future

Subject: Requirements for Emulation To: Octopus GirlsFrom: Bureau of EconomicsDate: 6/2/16, 10/25/16Subject: Requirements for Emulation We, guardians of—it has come to be civilization—yellow xylophone played on moonless nights—music is extraneous; the luxury of sound can no longer be preserved and in the new world we—you are building, dear girls, you are unnecessary—remember to wipe the…
John B. Oldenborg: Three Poems for Bad Survivalist

Eco-TerroristAfter the Great Miami-Dade Snail Invasion of 1966 I.When there are no more breadcrumbsflocks of the elderly and seagulls dissipatescents from their cottage chimneys (yes the seagullstoo have chimneys) Scentsof windowsill piesand chamomileThere are many contractsThis is one of themSince grandma gets depressedwhen the seagulls don’t visitAnd the seagulls attackmy grandma She forgets who she…
“The Brothers Squimbop in Hollywood”: A Haunted Passages Short Story by David Leo Rice

After their disastrous tour of Europe, which had necessitated nothing less than complete rebirth from the womb of the witch who had claimed to be their mother, the Brothers Squimbop returned to America, disembarking at the edge of a New World that they could already see would never be new again. They quickly abandoned the…
Two Haunted Passages Poems by Pete Miller

Assessment: Disinterment Or if notdisinterred exactly,shaken loose by cravingsnot quite killed with the rest of you? All that coldgravel of the gravesiteyour brother paid for with a bottle anda justkeep the shovelshoved asidelike so much promised afterlife as you rose one dizzy momentthen dropped again to crawl? Did all your cousins’ carscooling in your father’s…
Joe Rupprecht: “dear nebula,” a poem for Bad Survivalist

1. swarms milk the sky’s geometry our imaginary cocoonsembrace dead pupassocketed with smallpearlescent eyes the dark spits a gnatfrom my whole floating panorama asmoths flapinterludes ofloving you the way they hurt meis on my mind all the time I was in their hands for playing witha show of forceenough to wantto leave myself and say…
Tasha Coryell & Brian Oliu: Judges’ Statement for The Zachary Doss Friends in Letters Memorial Fellowship

Ryan Bollenbach here. Heavy Feather Review is publishing short pieces on the blog from writers who have collaborated on previous projects in order to give potential collaborators ideas and stoke excitement for The Zachary Doss Friends in Letters Memorial Fellowship (collaboration itself being the biggest takeaway I hope to create from all this). Please read…
Three Poems by Lisandra Perez

How to Be Happy Consider this: buy a straw hat (maybe two), toss a bag over your shoulder,and walk west where dusk settles on mountains that become line drawings.Move to Montana where sweat beams multiply as hands massage tomatoseeds into the dirt. Gently push the hair from your face. Consider a ponytail and walk west…
The Age of Discovery, the ninth poetry collection by Alan Michael Parker, reviewed by David Epstein (Tupelo Press)

Pick up a biography, and one is drawn first to thumb through the sheaf of photographs lodged centrally in the book. With a volume of poetry, it’s the notes to the poems, should they exist. The Age of Discovery has notes for nineteen of its forty-five offerings. They are snapshots of Alan Michael Parker’s breadth…
“What We Were Given”: Darren C. Demaree on Count Four., a University of Tampa Press poetry collection by Keith Kopka

I grew up in a house with a shortage of oxygen. One person would take deep and disquieting breaths while the rest of us relied on the air tucked underneath our clenched jaws to make it from room to room. It’s been a long time since I experienced that level of intensity from familial reckonings,…