Category: The Last Word

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

New Poem: “Girls I’ve Known” by Elaine Equi

S. who even in kindergarten wore a perpetually startled look. K. who of all The Beatles loved Ringo best and claimed the boy she babysat was his illegitimate child. R. who looked like an Indian princess. You knew she’d be pregnant by junior year. B. my boss who was shorter than me, who forced me…
Three Original Poems from If Only in Combat I Find Love by Jack Nancy

So the Carnival Does Not Crash Bikini Jesus of the red hangercome down, you mangeryou’re not meant to be up thereyou poet, come down, you are a boxfor living things, cows, farm animals Picking up lines from the half head goneripping off sweaters from the should be deadnot knowing how to clean themwatering the plastic…
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…