Author: Heavy Feather

“a city grrl lured”: Jesse-Rice Evans on Kam Hilliard’s Perceived Distance from Impact

It’s safe to say that the most revelatory work in contemporary poetry is at the hands of Black queers & femmes: Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Angel Nafis, Jamila Woods, Jayson P. Smith, and bright among these, Kamden Hilliard. Kam edits Jellyfish and Big Lucks, two poetic institutions working hard to make room for marginalized writers. Having…
Essay: “Seattle Women’s March, 2017” by Amberly Baker

We are perched at the top of a hill, waiting, feet already starting to ache against the pavement. In front of us is a traffic light barrier we are not yet allowed to pass. My hands shake as I move in a small circle, careful to keep to myself, careful not to bump into anyone…
Essay: “Allyship” by Will Waller

Will Waller is a queer disabled experimental speculative author from the Finger Lakes Wine Region of New York whose writing focuses on memory, music, and the weather. After two years spent in San Francisco as the Managing Editor of Eleven Eleven, he moved to St. Louis to tune pianos and write. His experimental genre novelette,…
A Collage & Two Poems by Joe Balaz

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Immigration Killjoy Mechanical Sparrows All da mechanical sparrows stay broken chirp, chirp, choking to da oncoming corrosion as da shiny birdhouse up on da hill deteriorates into wun pile of small chips. Sing, song, singing along wit da copper doves on da telephone wires and…
Fiction Review: Giano Cromley Reads The Glamshack by Paul Cohen

I fear the praise I want to give Paul Cohen’s debut novel The Glamshack might end up hurting its sales. To say The Glamshack is unlike any novel I’ve read in a long time is not the kind of compliment that causes a book to shoot up bestseller lists. To say it challenges the reader at every turn, as it follows…
“Charting the Depths of Absurdity”: Miranda Schmidt on Reading Annie Hartnett’s Rabbit Cake

The very nature of death is absurd. The notion that a person can cease to exist, here in one moment and gone in the next, creates a strong sense of dissonance that, especially in those first minutes of grieving, makes the world feel surreal. Directly after my mom died, I couldn’t find my way out…
Five Poems by Geoff Anderson

Excerpts: Letters from Thomas Jefferson to Barnum & Bailey [W]e have the wolf by the ear and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose.—Thomas Jefferson January 3, 1776 A ringmaster’s best audience is a crowdof peers; who better to understandthe plight of standing outside a cageall the while knowing the bars holdback…
Two Poems by Ally Harris

Ayreamd Color, orb ring—fur, lie, rise serious, heavyhead I shoulder mind on. Pleasurethis conversion as the ram ray sparkest thusa cranial lace over the gun-lined crag. I taught myselfthis many other things shod formamong the famine-sad window of the shearwelcomed the final element douched from rafter tatters, gapedhalf peripheral in sleep’s hood foddered film-likein a…
Poetry Review: Chris Muravez Reads Ears by Jared Stanley

I guess I should begin this review with a kind of caveat. I love Jared Stanley. He was one of my poetry professors at Sierra Nevada College, he was my project advisor, and he guided me into the poetry community with friendship and grace. It is safe to say that I would not be who…