Category: The Last Word

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

New Poem by Jiwon Choi: “Reading About Prince’s Movie While Conjuring the Sunday Times Crossword and Rote Learning ‘Postcolonial Love Poem’ by Natalie Diaz”

Quest Love calls Ezra Edelman’s nine hour sequence of the Beautiful One looking quiet punching out muses speaking in koans while embracing lace “a cultural service” for Black men We’re in junior high and our parents are too busy to notice we’ve cut school to see a movie at the Olympia movie theater on the…
New Poem by Steven Alvarez: “gelatin silver”

argument w. words less obscure than these bodies in apartments just like these— w. fears like anybody wd have in times as charming—& soft skin & walls doing lousy keeping down wind w. words written w. light into verses i. black & white Y behind X Y’s face contoured & pressing to back of X’s…
New Fiction-Memoir-Essay by Jason Dubow: “Seven Takes on Mindfulness: A Work in Progress”

Brother B., who directs Campus Ministry at the Franciscan college where I teach, asked me if I would write and record myself reading a short mindfulness message as part of an ongoing interfaith dialogue initiative. “Sure,” I said, without fully considering, I see now, the conflict between the focused awareness inherent in mindfulness and my…
Three Original Poems by Eleanor Levine

What the Legendary Do Abbie Hoffman says “rich kids do heroin”Springsteen plays pool with my brotherBob Dylan snores at an A.A. meetingToni Morrison is a postage stampLiz Smith disparages my researchGrandpa Munster makes sexist remarksChairman Mao doesn’t brush his teethStalin kisses you in the East VillageHitler taps me at the Exxon stationJohn Goodman argues in…
New Poetry by David M. Alper: “Press 3 to Listen Again”

You have one new message. It came in at sunsetwhen the sky was a smeared fruit color. Hello. Here I am—your first language,the one you planted in the school playground,the rusty swing set, the dusk train stop. I remember your lips sometimes.When they were learning, they forgot me.How teeth molded me like freshly baked bread…
Three Original Poems by Choiselle Joseph

Hummingbird, or, First Blood at Witching Hour The night I first retched hummingbirdfeathers my mother said it was normal. Two a.m., both hands tremble-clingingto porcelain, the beak lodgedin my abdomen. Propeller wingsbuzzed against lining, bowlfilling with bile. She stroked my back, okra-slimylike a newborn’s cheek. Peachand lime-green clods of plumagelaunched from my throat. You get…
New Essay: “The Gospel of the Dumpster” by Joey Colby Bernert

Move-out day, April 2022. I had just graduated, just came out, and was sitting on everything the university left behind. The Photo This was me in April of 2022. A queer who had come to terms with their gender identity and sexuality. I had just finished my undergraduate degree in Women and Gender Studies. I was…
New Poetry by Delaney S. Saul: “You’ve Never Even Heard of Main Character Syndrome”

It’s the first Father’s Day since my dad died and I’m working at the mall. It’s been ten years since my psychotic break. I’m still recovering, even after all this time. Something I’ll always remember is how he came from out of town to drive me to the hospital. I could never tell him how…
New Poetry: “Inventory” by Em Townsend

The law of conservation states that energy in an isolated system will remain constant over time It is day 2 of post-graduate reality: alreadyyou are lonely Your hair is choppy around your forehead from where you trimmed it yourself in a moment of desperation, wanting to feel like you had control over something, wanting to…