Author: Heavy Feather

Surface Tension, readable visual poetry by Derek Beaulieu, reviewed by Andrew Brenza

In Derek Beaulieu’s words, Surface Tension is “[a]t its core … a series of delicate, balanced poems, each symmetrical, palindromic, and made by hand using Letraset.” As such, it feels like familiar ground for the famed visual poet. But, as one proceeds through the book, that familiarity quickly fades. Through a process of manipulating base…
Fugue and Strike, a new poetry collection by Joe Hall, reviewed by Zach Savich

Let our meditation on Joe Hall’s terrific new collection of poetry, Fugue and Strike, begin with a brief survey of fecal refuse in nature poetry. Here’s Tommy Pico: Crappy water Shoots thru purgatory creek On its way to the Colorado River And here’s Trevino L. Brings Plenty, resplendent: You mean, if you see this world…
If This Should Reach You in Time, poems by Justin Marks, reviewed by Jeanne Griggs

If This Should Reach You in Time, by Justin Marks, is a collection of poems related by feelings of isolation and by the perception of failure in the systems we depend on, natural and political. If the news about school shootings, fake news, and migrant families has made you feel unsettled, these are poems for…
Haunted Passages Fiction: “On Sarpy, Nebraska, and the Places I Go During a Seizure” by Bella Koschalk

The yellow-bellied swallow has chosen me to facilitate her death. We are sitting on a concrete stoop under The Motel’s awning in the Midwest rain. I hold the bird in my hand and I do not think about bird-borne illnesses. She stirs, she is starting her final surrender. I am wearing my ex-stepbrother’s hand-me-down sneakers,…
Flash Fiction for Side A: “Anglers” by Dan Shields

Anglers We watch their suns drift like pulp to the bottom of the glass, these days between sleep and the gasp. We skim them like stones on a creek. These days we squat and moan—old tequila worms squirming in the bottle. A big yellow bus scrambles past the bones of a stop. Our stop. The…
“Guns on the Roof”: Peter Valente Reviews The Survivalists, a novel by Kashana Cauley

They torture all the women and children Then they’ve put the men to the gun Because across the human frontier Freedom’s always on the run —from “Guns on the Roof” by The Clash Kashana Cauley’s novel The Survivalists deals with questions of race, class, and the problems of late capitalism in a story that revolves…
“This World We Are Constructing”: An Interview with Alyssa Quinn by Nina Shope

Alyssa Quinn’s debut novel, Habilis, takes place in a mysterious anthropology museum that converts into a disco club at night. When Lucy, a young woman with an uncertain past, finds herself thrust into this museum, she must confront her own origins—and, all the more difficult, the origins of the human species itself. Quinn is the author of…
Side A Poetry: “California” by Dara-Lyn Shrager

California The weeping cherry trees behind our housewere once no taller than kindergarten boyscolliding plastic trucks on a carpet of EZ grass.Now, giant leaf canopies block the sun.There’s just the lone dog out there, chasingsudden whips of wind. Deep beneath my collar,I feel cold. Hungry for those half-eatenbowls of Cheerios left bloating by the kitchensink.…
Side A Hybrid: “Anecdotal Evidence” by Edie Meade

Anecdotal Evidence I. a. A man’s hand amputated at the lumberyard maintains a distal phantom structure through pins and needles continually fingerpicking “Wildwood Flower”; more research is needed into phantom limbs as a grief of the body. b. Necromancy cannot call up legs blown off in Belgian trenches, in part because there is nothing to…