Category: The Last Word

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

Poetry: “Wolves” by Luke Newell

After Allen Ginsberg The worst minds of our fathers’ generation laugh maniacally as they fuck us to within an inch of our lives,And tell us how it’s our fault because we’re so entitled becauseWe want to buy a house, because we drink and smoke andWatch videos of cats on YouTube but they don’t realise that…
“When Angela Asks Me a Question,” a poem by Antonio Lopez

—for my hermanita when she loses hope in school You’re armed with a non-toxic shadethat bleeds through Xeroxed sheets—the wicked clonesof an English textbook. Office Depot-issued holsterof highlight markers take aimat the 12 PT tremor. “Hey Tony, sorry to bother you.But what is this asking?” Thirty dollar uñas gloss over the district’s wear-and-tear,…
“AR-15,” a poem by Gabriel Welsch

A reason to burn the newspapers.Arrive to work in tears from hearing the Ardent words of parents on the radio immolating anyArguments about the right time, the right Areas to debate. Yearn for when the world ignitesArdor. Every few minutes Arch your back, deny the screen, roll yourArms to get the blood flowing properly. Watching…
Three Poems by Jill M. Talbot

Retrial: If We Just Lay Here If I just lay hereLet’s just lay hereIf we just lay hereIf you are the heroI will be the bad guyIf I am the bad guyYou can be the heroIf we just lay hereIn our superhero costumesIf we wear our costumesTo bedWe’re something else entirelyIf we’re something else entirelyWe’re…
Fiction: “Routine Cleaning” by Cate McGowan

Streetlights still gleam—their night-timers tick toward daybreak. You drive dawn’s early light, the rush-hour race. You park in a pot-holed lot, sit for a minute, delay entrance to your periodontist’s building, sigh at the drizzle, murky sky, construction cranes. Across the street, ambulances blurt horns as they enter a hospital breezeway. An empty freight train…
Seven Political Animals by Jessy Randall et al.

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Jessy Randall’s visual poems have appeared in Poetry, Rattle, and The Best American Experimental Writing. A collection of her diagram poems, How to Tell If You Are Human, is forthcoming from Pleiades Press in 2018. She is a librarian at Colorado College and her website is bit.ly/JessyRandall. …
“Everybody’s Hurt,” flash fiction by Jill M. Talbot

Everybody’s Hurt “Can we do this outside, I want a cigarette.” “I heard that phone call, played it over and over, it sounded real—there’s a girl in real trouble, I thought—now just tell us what happened.” “Nothing happened.” “So you called 911 for fun?” “I didn’t say that, I said that I was confused.” “Are…
Two Poems by Success Akpojotor

two BUTTons sitting on our faces Nature’s changing course remains unsliced like a big garlic bulbrendezvousing in cycles of loops and a merry-go-round in an abyssinhabited by gypsies with no roots as a phone call is now a twentiethcentury culture: but we’ve seen this a thousand times from 1918 to 45& two BUTTons sitting on…
“TRANSCRIPT: Donald Trump’s Speech Responding to Assault Accusations,” erasure by Mackenzie Bush

And so now we address the slander and libels that was just last night thrown at me by the Clinton machine and the New York Times and other media outlets, as part of a concerted, coordinated and vicious attack. It’s not coincidence that these attacks come at the exact same moment, and all together at…