Tag: Poetry

“Ashenfolk”: William Lessard Interviews Joseph Mosconi + 6 Exclusive Poems

Joseph Mosconi is a writer, editor, and curator based in Los Angeles. A former Google computational linguist, he is the executive director of the Poetic Research Bureau (PRB), a hybrid arts space that hosts weekly readings, performances, and films by today’s most progressive poets and artists. Mosconi is also a co-founder and programmer at 2220…
Side A Material Collaboration: “Sleep Takes More and More of Us” by Philip Lindsey & Matt McBride

Sleep Takes More and More of Us Mini-interview with Philip Lindsey & Matt McBride HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as collaborators (or continues to)? PL: Matt and I met in my studio one evening over a couple of beers to talk about ideas, art, and a way into the project.…
Poetry: “Ode to Broken Birthdays and an Empty High Noon Can” by Samantha Cross

I don’t know if it was the combined birthday partiesWith the Daytona 500 for Alex and me as children,Or being told to shut up when I playedMy saxophone that fateful night in sixth grade.Maybe it was the standardized testing that took placeThe first week of March in Connecticut,Where the governorFailed to recognize the importanceOf in-class…
Haunted Passages: “Pursued by a Line of Three Ducks,” a poem by Gregory Crosby

One day, you will have no choice but to walk,the punctured tire of these times behind youon a road brimming with sunlight & dust. The clarity of movement, followed byexhaustion. The clarity of exhaustion.Your feet hurt, & you can’t hear the river. The only question is whether you area refugee or a tourist. Or dead.They…
Flavor Town USA: Four Poems by James Miller

On the Beach Tonight we’re driving along the South Shore, looking for a party to crash. Adjunct hell, frayed Spanish grammar— but Stevie prefers his Iberian cheeses. Dairy farmers steep their rounds in caves up north, he tells me. Slots carved in stone, cabrales throbbing in the dark. Does the mold think, or dream? Tendrils…
Flavor Town USA Poetry: “I served Kirk Douglas at Swensen’s ice cream” by Laurel Benjamin

peach or butterbrickle, but never anything heavyin the year of the flood. “50 years in 50 weeks”wineries up north washed away, plateaus turnedto sand, minerals leached on the edges of the baywhere tall grass bent for ducks. I signed offon a wardrobe of black slacks & a white button down,but changed for clubbing into cargo…
Side A: “Winning Poem” by Bunkong Tuon

Winning Poem I try not to let it get to me.After all, what has poetry done for them?Did it stop the Khmer Rouge from makingGhosts of neighbors and family members?Did hands let go of sickles,Were throats spared?Did poetry fill ditches with lotusesAnd streams with fish?Did it bring back loved ones?What does it matter that my…
Side A Half-Sonnets from Now, Here, This by Ron Silliman

For Terence Winch & Ivan Sokolov ● Debby Harry listed as “someone you may know” on Facebook. The squirrel freezes along the trunk of the tree, barely breathing until the hawk soars off. The rot in Lenin’s tomb starts to bloom. She finds an empty pill bottle in the compost. The stanza begins elegant, ends…
Side A Poetry: “California” by Dara-Lyn Shrager

California The weeping cherry trees behind our housewere once no taller than kindergarten boyscolliding plastic trucks on a carpet of EZ grass.Now, giant leaf canopies block the sun.There’s just the lone dog out there, chasingsudden whips of wind. Deep beneath my collar,I feel cold. Hungry for those half-eatenbowls of Cheerios left bloating by the kitchensink.…