Category: Side A

Flash Fiction for Side A: “The Short History of the Long Road” by Harsimran Kaur

The Short History of the Long Road Some called you golden. Golden as in Kintsugi. Kintsugi as in America. America as in Dear America, what else could you give us? Giving as in holding hands at Thanksgiving and singing a prayer in praise of all the thank yous you’ve garnered over all the seconds in…
“Talk Show Host,” a new hybrid piece for Side A by Chris McCreary

Talk Show Host bombs his monologue. Checks his notes, blinks meaningfully into camera two. Talk Show Host throws his desk out the window. It hits the trampoline, bounces back onto his lap. Talk Show Host puts on his therapist’s cap, but the guests have removed their mics their mouths faces & eyes they’ve receded behind…
Side A Material Collaboration: “Sleep Takes More and More of Us” by Philip Lindsey & Matt McBride

Sleep Takes More and More of Us Mini-interview with Philip Lindsey & Matt McBride HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as collaborators (or continues to)? PL: Matt and I met in my studio one evening over a couple of beers to talk about ideas, art, and a way into the project.…
“Some Things I Miss & Some I Don’t,” a Side A prose poem by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

Some Things I Miss & Some I Don’t Maybe not missing is forgiving and missing is holding on, the way I can taste and smell Teaberry when I miss unwrapping a pack of that gum; I miss the first day of school as a kid, a just-bought outfit laid out on my made-bed like an…
Original Side A Essay: “On the Boulder” by David Capps

On the Boulder Begin with the proposition that the boulder is not a mountain. That you are not so relatively small. The proposition that the boulder is not a mountain locates itself in space where the body is: arms reaching, fingers outstretched, toes secured in familiar footholds; familiarity through the matter of scale. The proposition…
Side A: “Winning Poem” by Bunkong Tuon

Winning Poem I try not to let it get to me.After all, what has poetry done for them?Did it stop the Khmer Rouge from makingGhosts of neighbors and family members?Did hands let go of sickles,Were throats spared?Did poetry fill ditches with lotusesAnd streams with fish?Did it bring back loved ones?What does it matter that my…
Side A Half-Sonnets from Now, Here, This by Ron Silliman

For Terence Winch & Ivan Sokolov ● Debby Harry listed as “someone you may know” on Facebook. The squirrel freezes along the trunk of the tree, barely breathing until the hawk soars off. The rot in Lenin’s tomb starts to bloom. She finds an empty pill bottle in the compost. The stanza begins elegant, ends…
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…
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.…