Category: The Last Word

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

Essay: “Seattle Women’s March, 2017” by Amberly Baker

We are perched at the top of a hill, waiting, feet already starting to ache against the pavement. In front of us is a traffic light barrier we are not yet allowed to pass. My hands shake as I move in a small circle, careful to keep to myself, careful not to bump into anyone…
Essay: “Allyship” by Will Waller

Will Waller is a queer disabled experimental speculative author from the Finger Lakes Wine Region of New York whose writing focuses on memory, music, and the weather. After two years spent in San Francisco as the Managing Editor of Eleven Eleven, he moved to St. Louis to tune pianos and write. His experimental genre novelette,…
A Collage & Two Poems by Joe Balaz

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Immigration Killjoy Mechanical Sparrows All da mechanical sparrows stay broken chirp, chirp, choking to da oncoming corrosion as da shiny birdhouse up on da hill deteriorates into wun pile of small chips. Sing, song, singing along wit da copper doves on da telephone wires and…
Five Poems by Geoff Anderson

Excerpts: Letters from Thomas Jefferson to Barnum & Bailey [W]e have the wolf by the ear and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose.—Thomas Jefferson January 3, 1776 A ringmaster’s best audience is a crowdof peers; who better to understandthe plight of standing outside a cageall the while knowing the bars holdback…
“locker room talk,” a poem by yarrow yes woods

i have not heard someone say grab ‘em by the pussyin any locker room. what i have heardis she just lay there so i stuck it in her assin middle school. this was not in the locker room,but at the row of lockers outside my homeroom.laughter of all kinds. this wasn’ta boys’ club. the grin…
Three Poems by Lucian Mattison

Una Trumpada Defined, punching a Trump supporter or being punched by a Trumpsupporter. Perhaps both, but that’s too egalitarian for its namesake. Le di a ese racista de mierda una trumpada fenomenal.Ese racista de mierda me dio una trumpada apocalíptico. And then you dream about punching racists in variety of circumstanceswhich only makes them more…
Three Poems by Catherine Valdez

Names I love how you wear the shade under a treeI see, even though you say I am your blind girl I hold your hand, so calloused that it reminds meof orange rind—tough, yet so easily peeled.I’m afraid I’ll expose all those chalk-like bones . I started school a week ago, a year late, and…
Poetry: Jen Karetnick’s “What We Did”

We did handstands and YOLO leaps at the Holocaust Centers.We photo-bombed other tourists at the Holocaust Centers.We fish-lipped into selfies at the Holocaust Centers.We posted Insta stories of Shuvits and Front Foot Impossibles on our boards at the gravelpits of the Holocaust Centers.We stacked effects and filters at the Holocaust Centers—Snap game so strong, good…
Three Poems by Jen DeGregorio

Jesus of Coal “I was listening to an echo.” —Nick Lowe They say coal is deadbut I’ll bring it back. Just let metouch it. See itignite. Smell its per-fumes. In the new worldcoal will help youmake friends. Rub a charred pieceon your neck to enhanceyour scent. Dump barrels of coalin front of your house for…