Author: Heavy Feather
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“Eye of the Other,” an essay about Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers by Toti O’Brien
Five years after its publication I have read Rachel Kushner’s second novel, The Flamethrowers1. My intention isn’t to comment on the book—excellent reviewers have done it—but to share my reflections about a small section, a fragment that I find remarkably strange and worthy of attention. It begins on page 317 to culminate on 320. Seen…
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“Race Day,” an essay by Freda Epum
You board a bus and it seems as though there is a sea of Black people. If it weren’t for the fact that your skin is brown, your hair is curly, your eyes are black and almond, and you’ve got a nice ass (or so you’ve been told), you’d think there were no Black people in…
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ActivAmerica, a story collection by Meagan Cass, reviewed by Ryan Werner
I’m a bad loser and an even worse winner. My wife won’t go mini-golfing with me. I’ve slammed bar stools against pinball machines. I’ve rage-quit every video game after two weeks of playing and then never looked back. It’s with this attitude I approach sports stories. Somebody’s going home a fucking loser, which is a…
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Poetry: “Swallowed Whole” by Christopher Latin
even my god/ can be colonized even my body/ is a preexisting condition but what/ of love/ do we have to be ashamed —from a version of “Crimson Ring,” a poem for Sasha Wall screaming is the best way to not be silent mouthful seizure of want night’s long teeth sweetheart …
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Unbroken, an incredibly true WWII story by Laura Hillenbrand, reviewed by Samantha Seto
Laura Hillenbrand’s story is a narrative history that reflects the American experience during World War II and the cruelty of the Japanese. While the body counts mount in the middle east in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq in a military tally, the war is wrenching, tragic, and poignant as it quietly proceeds. Every day more…
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“More Than This,” a poem by Tim Carrier
Yes, I liked it when we had abundance. Liked its love. Like we were sitting up on the roof rolling thin white cigarettes, with a pale tobacco, very light on the fine white paper. Ryan climbing up to the long flat roof with a bag of Fritos. Karen in her faux-hide boots, with shining gold…
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Lessons in Camouflage, a poetry collection by Martin Ott, reviewed by Micah Zevin
Can we ever leave war behind and not remember its images, its roles, and deaths, or will it forever follow us? What goes missing and what will ever be recovered? When we exit the battlefield, there are other fights to be fought, whether of the mind or the body, or other seemingly mundane life tasks…
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Poetry: Bryan D. Price’s “Station to station”
The ocean is wide but the road is onlyas long as an upturned truckswaddled in flames.To one another they refer tothemselves as pilgrims,though their devotion to the pastoral is conditional,like the words of a balladrevered more for the violence of the roomthan for the persistence of its intentions.These words are percussive.Voiced rhythmically.Not staccato like pistol…
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“Rainbow Rock-Climbing Club,” a poem by Adèle Barclay
I’m a gecko on a wallthat simulates a cliffwith rainbow gripsI’ll touch any colourthat’ll have me touch itmidway is high enoughwary of emotional cliff-jumpingI don’t mean homesteadinglike that queer you overheardat Turk’s talking babiesafter only a monthI mean relentless breathlessnessand forgetting to hydratehaving met at an awkward sex partywe now call it a datebecause we…
Heavy Feather Review 