Author: Heavy Feather

On Joke Architecture in Elise Houcek’s Tractatus: “FINAL PROOF OF THE ETERNAL SUBJECTIVITY OF LANGUAGE!” by Maxwell Rabb

Words are playthings, and by no means is this trivial. There is an unadulterated joy to constructing language—to cutting up and arranging the pieces. There is suspense, an unalloyed momentum, to the words that endure tangibly in poetry. Unfortunately, language is frequently inundated by a deluge of abstractions, forcing the simple pleasure of words to…
Side A Poem: “Every Minute Is a Minute” by John Leo

Every Minute Is a Minute The invoice is ready for review.Download and attach the backup documents.Add the 14% fuel charge, plus energy feeequal to 10% of transportation costs.Initial and date. The invoice is readyfor review by a third party. In the den, you have received a request for bibliographicalinformation. Review the requested resource.Apply the article…
Flavor Town USA: Three Poems by Rachel Becker

morning sickness the world hasan atmospheric stenchthat turns yourstomach cyclonicfor the fullnine months. other mothers-to-beoffer advice,but there’s no wayto white chicken meator preggo popyourself out of bed,or to short circuityour brain’smaladaptive mishmashof wires. a glitchthat renders toxic aluminum, toilet bowl,skin cream, stove topthe stench of water. your baby at 12 weeksis a photo of a…
“All Was Lost”: Robert Crooke Reviews Men in My Situation, a novel by Per Petterson

A real-life tragedy haunts this beautiful, touchingly honest novel by celebrated Norwegian author Per Petterson. The event in question is a fire that in 1990 destroyed the Scandinavian Star ferryboat during an overnight voyage between Norway and Denmark. This profound catastrophe, which claimed the lives of 159 passengers—including Petterson’s parents, a brother, and a nephew—has…
“If There’s a Window—a New Possibility”: Allison Wyss Talks to Mary Lynn Reed

Mary Lynn Reed is a fiction writer and mathematician—but I’ve learned she’s also a photographer, shark-level pool player, and ace bowler. Her debut collection Phantom Advances has a bit of all that. It’s a deep exploration of questions of identity, sexuality, and gender—with a sharp focus and a lot of heart. She and I talked…
“I Cherish the Act of Sentencing”: Marcus Pactor Interviews Lance Olsen

Lance Olsen is one of America’s most formally inventive and intellectually stimulating novelists. Few writers have been as consistently excellent over the past thirty-plus years. In that time, he has evolved from a cutting-edge sci-fi writer into a wizard of form and narrative, infusing his singular works with poetically imaginative language as well as a…
Caw Caw Phony, 21st-century nature poems by Michael Sikkema, reviewed by William Lessard

Saxophonist and composer Marion Brown mapped the pastoral for avant-garde jazz. “Afternoon of a Georgia Faun,” the title piece of his 1971 album, explores deciduous sonics beyond the jagged urbanism of Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, and his own late 60s work. In an interview for 1973’s “Notesto Afternoon of a Georgia Faun: Views and…
NSFW, a new novel by David Scott Hay, reviewed by Dave Fitzgerald

Dystopian fiction is so hot right now. Hot like teen vampires before it. And child wizards before that. Hot like Chris Pine, and Michael B. Jordan, and J-Law. Hot like a Ron DeSantis book-burning. In Florida. In July. Hot like our annually warming planet. Speaking as someone who read The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New…
“Ghost Fingers,” a Haunted Passages short story by Justin Carter

Sometime in the 1940s, a school bus in Horton, Texas, was hit by a train after stalling on the tracks. One week later, a truck stalled in the same spot. As a train bared down on the truck, the driver braced for impact, but the truck slowly rolled down off the crossing, just seconds before…