Category: The Last Word

Writers getting the last word. HFR is invested in elevating art by marginalized groups with this feature.

Barbara Henning: Three Prose Poems from Boys & Men

Dan When I was in Detroit recently, my sister and I stopped at a restaurant at the Ford mansion. When we sat down, I heard a deep voice say my name. I looked up from the menu, and it was you, the maître d’. Forty years earlier, we met in a bar in Hamtramck. The…
Poetry by Michael Ruby: “Tu Ti Spezzasti”

—Giuseppe Ungaretti the imminent forwardfinding this parkleaves the melting * limit false morefor all the lost songsarena of disobedience * long for hollow solesthrough solid orificesfull thought and icingregular polishhigher organ force * the force abides wholepillows the ringand alleviates a certain * listen to silverhostess bending low * filaments of iceregistrars of hopepongo of…
New Poetry: “Stature” by Albert Hwang

When I was eleven I made a statueof my grandfather. My teachersaid we could pick anyone.Most of the boys picked quarterbacks. I painted his hair whitebecause I didn’t have gray.I asked my teacherhow to do his skin.She said, “Yellowlike you.” I lookedat my own handconfused. How did she knowwhat my last name 黃 meant? Something…
New Hybrid: “Mother, Madre, Mamma, Mom” by Chiara Reali

My mother is the text. I cannot enter her.Kate Zambreno, Book of Mutter The notebook begins like this: search for death rattle. Search for: death rattle, translation. Search for: rantolo terminale. The notebook is blue and green and pink—a blue background, green cacti, pink flowers. It begins on May 22, two days before the death…
New Poetry: “How to Help” by Kim D. Bailey

When momma cooked supper I washedthe dishes, while my sister dried, caressingthem like a crystal ball, and we sawour unmapped futures.Babies are made this way, we clenchour teeth hold our breath hope for more, sometimesless. We got what we prayed for, morethan we expected.Momma can’t wash the dishes anymore.We wring our hands, howl at windmills, feelthe earth fall upon…
Original Poetry by Britt Bustos: “If I Were a Scientist”

would’ve made foaming volcanoes instead of tri-fold book blurbs at sixth-grade state-mandated science fairs. I would propose hypotheses on how much anxiety affects comorbidity with eating disorders, the same way I feel when chewing thin split nails could be the way I crave seaweed-stained fingers in between my teeth. holding back coughs searching for…
“How far the tree bends”: An Original Poem by Celia Lawren

Kill it! the children scream. A nightmare of black swirling shadows converge on the tree. They burn, hack, dismember limbs as high as they can reach, finally feeling tall. Torment is harder work than they imagine. Before darkness recedes, they run home, kids after all. With a great shudder, the tree heaves its leaves. Its…
New Poem by Holly Day: “Exhibit 421”

The heat given off by a nuclear bomb is so hot that it can bake a shadow into concrete, so that even when the person standing there, screaming, is gone, that last shadow of them standing there, screaming, can last forever and ever on the surface of a building, the way glazed tiles have lasted…
Four Cloud Visuals by Gary Barwin

Gary Barwin is a writer, musician, multimedia artist, and the author of 36 books of poetry, fiction, and essays. His novel, Yiddish for Pirates, was a national bestseller, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award (in fiction and in French translation), and won the Leacock Medal for Humour and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award. Nothing…