We arrived in crowds, and I said I have already seen this. The crowds made little homes at the tops of buildings that sagged and the crowds made ready for winter and hoped for the old water in the canals to harden the boats and the trash which I …
The tram conductors will strike tomorrow— Efren buttoned the top of his coat and adjusted his scarf. With old men it is always politics or the past, and usually they are the same. The too-loud discussions closed as the door closed in the bar behind him. He crossed to the other side of the canal. …
I always knew that I would burn. I knew it even at eleven, standing in the Jehovah Hall wearing a Pepto-Bismol pink crinoline dress, my fat-knobby knees rubbing that rough fabric, the itch of that crinoline dress and a forced smile. The force upon me like damp fur. I could smell it, the danger of it, God, …
According to fiction writer Neil Gaiman, “Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, …
American writer Madeleine L’Engle told us, “Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.” Below are a few we found this week that force us to agree: An excerpt on Lit Hub from Melissa Broder’s upcoming book on love, marriage, sex, monogamy, and illness that, seriously, you can’t miss: “But we can’t freeze the way …
I didn’t cry when I watched The Notebook or Titanic, or at that part when Plato dies in Rebel Without a Cause. I didn’t cry for The Bell Jar or The Great Gatsby. But when I watched Sierra DeMulder perform at York College last Spring, I sobbed. It was one of those purifying, necessary sobs that had been …
This is the second installation of a two-part interview with poet Christopher DeWeese; read part one here. STORY: Can you talk about Alternative Music a bit more? How you are remixing the songs? DEWEESE: It’s hard, because the premise is I can only do this with songs that I remember well enough that I can …
Artist Paul Klee said, “The father of the arrow is the thought: How do I expand my reach? Over this river? This lake? That mountain?” Let’s analyze that, the metaphor, the metatheory, the meta—or, let’s not. Instead, let’s look at the work of Christopher DeWeese, a poet from Ohio whose recent collection reflects the same theories that …
Dear dome of impenetrable darkness— It is only fair I give you some glimpse of my own birth: that was the year the Andean volcanoes sent England magnificent weather: tides blasting against the shore, light dashed across the sky, the slant of rain coming down like a puppet’s strings. Mid-August, a comet smeared the inky …
My thighs touch too close for comfort. Hip bones buried in my sides, old handlebars or the bronze gates to a hungry woman. Pull, she says, come closer. I do not bleed, anymore I maneuver this daunting vessel and I am starved. Please, come closer. I want to disappear with the reptiles My large …