Category: Poetry

Poetry: “God Responds [to the Proust Questionnaire]” by Jubi Arriola-Headley

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals [their] true nature. —Vanity Fair Where the typical journalistic interview tailors questions to the particular qualities of a subject, the Proust questionnaire’s unchanging…
Sandra Marchetti: Three Poems for Haunted Passages

Lake at Dusk for GMH He said it shonelike shook foil.It was that butadd gas rainingthen light a match,or plug it in.It was as if youthrew live coilsbeneath, a sparkingroil the kayakssliced throughto reach the draping shore. Crustacean Like pinball flippers or the barin a coin pusher game, redlegs scuttle to the rock’s edgewhere my…
A “Test” for Side A: Visual Poetry by Valen Arcelo

Mini-interview with Valen Arcelo HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)? VA: One of the turning points that has shaped me as a writer was discovering the novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and the poem “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” by E. E. Cummings. Honestly, the first time I saw these…
Adam Day: Five Poems from Midnight’s Talking Lion and the Wedding Fire

Chile example 1973—Zurita arrested and held in ship’s cargo hold; process-experience under witnessing. He tried to disappear his eyes with acid, but failed. “Instead he created a document: chapter twentieth century having disfigured its face. Might not be quite right. Then, a photo of its bandaged cheek with the text below, EGO SUM, and: ‘My…
“Dol-lim Ja Imprints”: A Poem by Georgia San Li

Characters for the Next Generations One generation of heirloom tomatoes divides their eggs, bubbling with blisters, bloody broken stems in the end. How many precious pigeon-red rubies will man flood with fires and vengeance of war in the end? Who were the three African women in tangerine silks and golden slippers, rerouted at Charles De…
Two Bad Survivalist Pantoums by Dan Collins

~ in which A.I. subroutines struggle with consciousness by investigating human thought through pantoums. A perfect OX Still, I refuse to accept that a perfect ox is the golden meanforged of utility and symmetry, but a stubborn pony cannot providea comfortable ride to the sublime. No matter how it goes, you musttrust what remains of…
New Side A Poem: Nathanael Jones’ “In the Absence of Language II”

In the Absence of Language II How will we say goodbye? You watch film after film and never notice that the music stops one moment and starts the next. I don’t think about it, you say. You turn your head away. A motor car peels through the corner of a cobblestone square; it is a…
Bad Survivalist: Five Poems by Barbara Tomash

Of Ancestors their bodies they knew primarily as instruments of noncompliance almost immortal lost among causes their hearts blacked-out hollows their lungs they pricked trillions of times they could ill afford breath the wrench of speech is that how one dies by sound by echo I repeat you endlessly in a mazy motion above ground…
Bad Survivalist: “Love Poem (with Subtle Anti-Whaling Message)” by Glen Armstrong

I am writing to you with ambergrisand cream, in a style too clumsy to be a hat or even a sunburn.The world has its preferences and I have mine: you are valued.After dinner, I wonder about silence and whales,secrets and beauty that festers then ferments.I am writing to you with a synthetic ambroxide and soy…