Author: Heavy Feather

Sneak Preview: “Prologue: Eternal Weimar” from David Leo Rice’s New Novel The Berlin Wall

Europe, 2020. Some claim that the Berlin Wall, once a living entity, is coming back together, its scattered pieces seeking reunion on the far side of history. The European continent trembles on the edge of total war, either in reality or deep in its own feverish imagination. Part present-tense apocalyptic satire and part neo-medieval phantasmagoria,…
Fiction Review: Dave Fitzgerald Reads Joe Koch’s Story Collection Invaginies

Over the past few years, as I’ve delved further into indie and experimental literature and been exposed to the dazzling array of queer writers thriving therein, I’ve discovered something of a bad habit in myself—a tendency to automatically read as-yet-unidentified narrators as the same gender as their authors. I’ve been caught with my comprehensive pants…
Two Poems for Side A: Jonathan Dubow

The Unwound The unwoundable wound will, willing, willing.The olive trees bull dozed (the unknowable being en acted), someone else’s mother with drawing, drawn out, writhing, writing, engraved. Midrash A comparison is necessary here.Possession, according to R’ Ahabic, suggests difficult,distant,without. According to R’ Aschre it suggests the hole,mask (shadow),and (what I thought) the name of another. Mini-interview…
“Ending’s Etiquette” by Lucy M. Logsdon: Poetry for Side A

Ending’s Etiquette First, I notice fine lines parenthesizingmy once full lips. I google wrinkles.Learn that over ten on one’s facemeans give the fuck up. A strong whitestreak appears in my bangs; I cut themoff. They return, spread into forbidden zones, smooth as scouringpads. Age spots my hands, forearms,chest, cheeks, thighs. At parties,I no longer command…
New Poetry for Bad Survivalist: “when i say i still think of you in august” by Cate Latimer

i mean that when i saw that truck full of chickens on highway 5, feathers grazing yellow lines, i wished on their mangled bodies and white wings pinned like fallen gods to the road. you taught me to do that. you, who left streaks of lipstick on my dashboard and playing cards in my center…
Poetry Review: Scott Ferry Reads Lauren Scharhag’s Collection Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet

In Lauren Scharhag’s collection Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet she succeeds in giving voice to “15,000 years” of ancestors, to the elders who forget how to draw clocks but whose names chime in music boxes, to the young nieces now mothers and mothers now childless, to the blood which flows within her and too easily out…
“Notes to the Girl Across the Street” by Zary Fekete: Fiction for Side A

Notes to the Girl Across the Street May 5, 1989 Hello … my name is Zoli. I am fourteen. I come from Hungary. I live in a small town called Nyárliget. It means “summer grove.” Your town is Sonnenalm. It means almost the same thing. I saw you in the window yesterday. You were fixing…
New Poetry by Matthew Johnson: “My Front Yard in Summer”

The Moon felt like a tingly blur on my skin, And as it gradually slid down my shoulder through my forearm,I tried to smack at it like it was a marsh mosquito, Or an arcade game of whack-a-mole. We soft tossed Wiffle balls when the sun went down,And the whistle of the breeze passing through the hollow,…
“A Trek through Working-Class Pennsylvania”: Nicole Yurcaba Reads Scott Dimovitz’s Novel The Joy Divisions

In Scott Dimovitz’s novel The Joy Divisions, Allentown, Pennsylvania, is not merely a geographic location or the novel’s setting. Yes, it is a place, but in Dimovitz’s book, Allentown is a living breathing entity, a character with a life and experiences entirely its own. The Joy Divisions draws on Allentown’s rich history as Pennsylvania’s third…