Author: Heavy Feather

Fish Boy, a poetry collection by John Gosslee, reviewed by Tammara Hoyt

“In the car he says, the important thing is that you’re okay.” Some fathers go beyond the call of duty to be there for their children, picking them up when they fall, setting them on their feet, hoping, believing in progress, even when those children are adults. Throughout Fish Boy, John Gosslee focuses on one…
Dameion Wagner reviews Emari DiGiorgio’s poetry collection Girl Torpedo

As luminaries Allison Joseph and Natasha Trethewey have already noted, DiGiorgio’s Girl Torpedo is a book that’s needed—needed to remind her readers that this struggle, this deep human yearning to be whole and to share, to recognize and to understand, and to call out is at no truce or ceasefire. Like the ever-present, heavily-armed battleship…
“Both the Substance and the Evidence,” a short story by Elise Burke

On the Sundays Harlow convinced me go to church, I never really listened to the sermon. But certain phrases stuck out. Maybe the pastor made sense of it all but I was caught up staring at Dot across the congregation as he held his jittery wife’s hand. Her legs bounced around nervously like God was…
Poetry: “Necessary Facilities Improvements” by Patrick Williams

Here’s the gougey bodega,the graying gym shoe power lines,sloping toward what televisiontells me is our drug corner. Out front I ghosted throughthe earliest blossoms of an uglyfistfight and didn’t look backuntil I knew it was over. Yards away a wet sweatshirtcloaked a cat’s corpse for mostof a winter, until they vanished:first the sweatshirt, then the…
How to Carry Scars, a debut novel by Dana Green, reviewed by Wendy J. Fox

Dana Green’s debut novel How to Carry Scars is both a manual for loss and a warning against unresolved grief. The women of this book are surrounded by accidents and longing, and Green’s tender approach towards her characters creates a story of empathy that cuts through the heartbreak and leaves readers wanting more. While Olivia’s…
Situ, a novel by Steven Seidenberg, reviewed by Micah Zevin

According to Merriam-Webster, in situ is defined as “in the natural or original position or place.” So it follows, in Steven Seidenberg’s Situ, that an unnamed entity is engaged in an intellectual and exploratory dialogue/discussion with itself, and its relationship to a bench. At times, Situ is a seriously philosophical text, in the vein of…
Barton Smock Reviews Erik Rasmussen’s Novel A Diet of Worms

I. ERASURES I’m not sure how old I was when two boys with a few years on me told me in Sunday school that god gave us hands to keep our arms from falling off. I didn’t believe it, of course, except when I did. Same goes for Erik Rasmussen’s A Diet of Worms. Youth…
Lyric Essay: “When a man says less is more, it’s hard not to hear him (or, on figure painting)” by Sophie Paquette

He teaches us to apply paint in shapes. To recognize shadow and bend before limb. Our subject sprawls on the couch, arms hung along the cushion’s back. I paint the knee sticking out too far and the kimono slides down her leg, pulls her thigh into the light. I like this: leg hiked up like…
“The Dollhouse,” a short story by Meiko Ko

Once more, the man said he was lost. I told him no, he wasn’t, from where I sat I could see him clearly, cross-legged on a braided rug. I said, “You are free. You can leave anytime you want.” He would not believe me. He said I was only a child. Don’t be too sure,…