Category: Poetry

Hybrid Piece from the Future: “Genetic Engineering Demonstration Gone Wrong” by Bethany Jarmul

No one believed umbrellas could be grown in fields, could open their faces to the firmament like foxgloves. But I raised the curtain and revealed—to gasps of delight—a wonderful waterproof leaf-canopy with sturdy vine-shaft and real root-handle. What luck! I held it over a child’s head just as the rain roused. The crowd cheered, applauded.…
“There Is News Along the Ohio River”: Four Hybrid Pieces from the Future by Beth Gilstrap

XVII. There is news along the Ohio river: a young man has tied his loosening jeans up with twine and huddles into his denim jacket, a bird peeking out of a nest, but the fabric may as well be a brittle photograph wet and dried a hundred times before he taped it over the crack in…
Side A: Two Poems by Arden Levine

To the Trade Through the driver’s side window comes sunto burn my thighs as I look for new fire out there:the many tongues of trees, that cardinal plumage,those things that turn over and over and over. Most people get about eighty autumns.But, when put that way, it seemsa scam, the rest held below the counter,the…
Side A English-to-English Poetry Translation: “The Morning of the Poem” by Matthew Klane

The Morning of the Poem Bonjour madame,I am the Marcel Proustof toast and jam,orange juice,honeydew melonoatmeal,The Irish kindcoffee and the news:I’d like to sharea pipe with Baudelaire,Youcould be mynineteenth-centurydandy dudeTyping pseudo-symbolismsomething meaning somethingdoesn’t mean a thingat all:I’ve searchedthe collected WilliamCarlos Williamsfor something calledthe Poison Line:a shortand seeminglySenseless:“Are you surewe shouldn’t justgo to church?”no siree,Bob!Who has…
Three Original Prose Poems by Michael Robins

On Solitude What can only be a perfect phrase, hurried on the back of a receipt, subsequently caught in the wind & flown forever away. Your eyes are not what they were, imperfect & especially in the morning before gravity once more proves us little. First to sit in the reglazed tub, its waters rise…
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 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,…
New for Side A: Three Poems from WHAT by Robert Kocik

proto-anything Sunrise light day sunset night dark. Sharpness of shape-less white against blue. Unbearability of ticking. Grievance blight, life changing quiet, the way of thingswith/out us. Another antler chandelier. Sculptor’s field of marvels overgrown. Blooms of jellyfishclogging aircraft carrier’s cooling system. Nail polish next to erythromycin. ‘Composting’… a wordfor earth’s reaction to our works our…