Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction Review: Jacob Stovall Reads Rebecca Fishow’s Collection How to Love a Black Hole

Something is always wrong with our bodies, at least a little. Sometimes you have an ear growing out of your back. Sometimes your upper skull is removed and fastened over your face. Rebecca Fishow, author of How to Love a Black Hole, is closely attuned to these strange mutations. The collection of fabulist flash fiction…
Side A Short Story: “The Foster” by Tom Busillo

We were having dinner, and she said, “I signed us up for a foster.” I thought she was kidding, but everything had already been arranged. His name was Lollie. The next morning, he was in the kitchen making toast. He wore a cardigan and kept his shoes on inside. He had dietary needs, emotional needs, and…
New Poetry for Side A: “My Curriculum Vide, eh!” by Éamonn Ó Laocha

My Curriculum Vide, eh! Dear Sir/Madam To whomever you are and in regard to Whatever it is You are offering I am very excited to apply It is that which I’ve long sought And to which My whole purpose and being Has been heretofore directed To this amazing opportunity Oh, what joyful chance That on…
Haunted Passages Poetry: Five Killings by Scott Ferry

2. the dermatologist looks over my skin to see if something dead has boiled up from under the surface a rusted car with intact remains or if something has been branded into my hide by ultraviolet by hate and cruelty dried blood on the map of man he burns off damage with ice before it…
New Poetry for Haunted Passages: “Shadow Wolf” by Martine Bellen

We follow the she-wolf across sky as she crosses overAnd those left on land howl and beamAt storm wolves that fall from the tallest trees:Redwood wolves, wind spirits, wolverines,And goats wearing wolf coats.How ambush devours. Shadow wolfSwallows reflection or illuminationIn darknessNo wolf no worldJust shades * Even as a child she believedIn her selves…
Poetry by Jason Fraley: Two Secret Machines from the Future

Secret Machine #1 The machine’s pull cord, not unlike a lawnmower or teddy bear’s, winds for miles. It’s resplendent, glossy like fishing line still wet, a sharp burst of blinding light when viewed from the right angle. It disappears periodically into the earth’s dry clefts, only to reemerge somehow brighter. The pull cord bows in several sections, burdened…
Side A Poetry: “buzzing my lips into” by daniel joseph

buzzing my lips into i put plastic grocery bags over my ripped shoes, bending myself, hitched up on the eroding edge of the front stoop, breathing more than i should, feeling the pain of bending and tuggingnear the empty loops of my sagging pants, but i feel joy today, for muddy spring is here. hallelujah, so be it. the…
Nonfiction Review: William Lessard Reads Alejandra Pizarnik’s Selected Critical Writings A Tradition of Rupture

A Tradition of Rupture collects the critical writings of an Argentine poet (1936-1972) whose life and work have come to the attention of English-speaking readers in the past decade. Not unlike the Roberto Bolaño craze of the aughts, new translations of Alejandra Pizarnik’s poetry have appeared almost every year, selling well among anglophones eager for…
New Poetry: “Work and Punishment” by Sara Cosgrove

When I returned homefrom the interview(the one that made sense),I brought a bouquet. I brought hope and a funny story.I brought the beginning. Months later,when I returned home from work,I brought details …about my colleagues’ behavior,about following me into the restroom,about giving me strange tasks,about their token-friends-with-disabilities stories.Except their friends were smarter, sicker, and thinner…