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Issue # 49 Fall 2023
Editors for this Issue:
Dorian Gossy
Kevin Stein
Contributors' Notes
Table of Contents
(Click on title of the poem or prose piece to go directly to it.)
Poetry
Robert Gibb
History
Dan Kline
Tony Beyer
Festival
A wild night for it
Erin Wilson
Slash Pile
Lynn Gilbert
The Sorrow Songs
Rochelle Robinson-Dukes
Senior Summer Siesta
City
Bruce McRae
Note Of Introduction
Barry Seiler
Chapman’s Hand
John Repp
Allen Ginsberg Had a Heart Attack
George Moore
The Body of Genghis Khan
Bone Museum
J.R. Solonche
Dialogue with a Dead Beaver
Mary Dean Lee
First Morning, Early Spring
Jennifer Dotson
Listening to gospel music while I mop the floor
Stephen C. Middleton
Black Hole (Which is Worse?)
Priscilla Atkins
The sky just CANNOT be sad
Cordelia Hanemann
Two Sides of a Butterfly Wing
James Owens
Madeleine
Eugene Datta
Herzogsweg
Daniel Romo
Imposter Syndrome
V.P. Loggins
Artichoke
Leonore Hildebrandt
Lessons in Love’s Grammar
Joel Allegretti
The Birthday Boy
Rizwan Akhtar
Things far off
Prose
Stephen Combs
The Ghost and the Decoy
James Hartman
Crack
Eleanor Lerman
Old Dogs
Pegah Ouji
To Conquer the Fog
Li Ruan
Ride to Heaven
Daniel Ruefman
The Viper
Contributors' Notes
Rizwan Akhtar is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. His debut collection poems Lahore, I Am Coming (2017) was published by Punjab University Press. He has published poems in poetry magazines in the UK, the US, India, Canada, and New Zealand. He was a part of the workshop on poetry with Derek Walcott at the University of Essex in 2010.
Joel Allegretti is the author of, most recently, Platypus (NYQ Books, 2017), a collection of poems, prose, and performance texts, and Our Dolphin (Thrice Publishing, 2016), a novella. He is the editor of Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books, 2015). The Boston Globe called Rabbit Ears “cleverly edited” and “a smart exploration of the many, many meanings of TV.”
Priscilla Atkins, after a life in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Indiana and Illinois (not in that order) lives in Michigan. She is the author of The Café of Our Departure (Sibling Rivalry Press), as well as a chapbook, numerous journal publications, and a critical essay on poet Cathleen Calbert.
Tony Beyer writes in Taranaki, New Zealand. His print titles include Dream Boat: Selected Poems (HeadworX) and Anchor Stone (Cold Hub Press).
Stephen Combs (“The Ghost and the Decoy”) is a fiction writer hailing from Brandon, Florida. His literary work delves into the human psyche, weaving tales of tragedy and redemption. Notably, his short story "Flower Bed of Lies" has recently been published in Literary Stories.
Eugene Datta’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dalhousie Review, Rust & Moth, Arboreal Literary Magazine, In Parentheses, Main Street Rag, and elsewhere. Born in India, he now lives in Aachen, Germany.
Jennifer Dotson's debut collection, Clever Gretel, received the first Journal of Modern Poetry Book Award and was published by Chicago Poetry Press in 2013. Her second poetry collection, Late Night Talk Show Fantasy & Other Poems was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books. She is the founder and creative engine behind www.HighlandParkPoetry.org.
Robert Gibb is the author of Sightlines (Poetry Press, 2021), his thirteenth full-length poetry collection, winner of the 2019 Prize Americana for Poetry. Other books include Among Ruins, which won Notre Dame’s Sandeen Prize in Poetry for 2017, After, which won the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize for 2016, and The Origins of Evening (Norton, 1997), which was a National Poetry Series selection. He has been awarded two NEA Fellowships, a Best American Poetry, a Pushcart Prize and Prairie Schooner’s Glenna Luschei and Strousse Awards. A new book, Pittsburghese, has won 2023’s Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Michigan State University Press in the spring.
Lynn Gilbert’s poems have appeared in Appalachian Review, Blue Unicorn, Consequence, Light, Mezzo Cammin, Tipton Poetry Review, Southwestern American Literature, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist in the Gerald Cable and Off the Grid Press book contests. A founding editor of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, she lives in a suburb of Austin.
Cordelia Hanemann, writer and artist, currently co-hosts Summer Poets, a poetry critique group in Raleigh, NC. Professor emerita retired English professor, she conducts occasional poetry workshops and is active with youth poetry in the North Carolina Poetry Society. She is also a botanical illustrator and lover of all things botanical. She has published in numerous journals, including Atlanta Review, Laurel Review, and California Quarterly, and in several anthologies including best-selling Poems for the Ukraine. Her poems have been performed by the Strand Project and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is now working on a novel about her Cajun roots.
James Hartman’s (“Crack”) fiction appears in Blue Fifth Review, Litro, december, Raleigh Review, Gris-Gris, and New World Writing, among many others both online and in print. His fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions, and was an Honorable Mention in New Millennium’s 50th Annual Flash Fiction Award. His scholarly work is featured in The Hemingway Review. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University, and lives in York, Pennsylvania.
Leonore Hildebrandt is the author of the poetry collections The Work at Hand, The Next Unknown, and Where You Happen to Be. Her poems and translations have appeared in the Cafe Review, Cerise Press, the Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, TheFiddlehead, Hamilton Stone Review, Harpur Palate, Poetry Daily, Rhino, and the Sugar House Review, among other journals. She was nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. Originally from Germany, Leonore divides her time between Harrington, Maine, and Silver City, New Mexico.
Mary Dean Lee grew up in Milledgeville, Georgia, studied theatre and literature at Duke University and Eckerd College and received her PhD in organizational behavior at Yale. Her debut poetry collection, Tidal, is forthcoming (Pine Row Press, May 2024). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2021, Ploughshares, The Fiddlehead, Burningword, Dunes Review, Sepia Quarterly, Salvation South, and other journals. She lives in Montreal.
Eleanor Lerman (“King the Wonder Dog”) is the author of numerous award-winning collections of poetry, short stories, and novels. She is a National Book Award finalist, recipient of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, winner of the Campbell Award for Best Book of Science Fiction, and has received Guggenheim, NEA, and New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships In addition, her poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in dozens of literary journals. Her most recent collection of poems, Slim Blue Universe, will be published by Mayapple Press in February 2024. www.eleanorlerman.com
Born and raised in Beijing, China, Li Ruan (“Ride to Heaven”) is a Manhattan-based educational consultant and an emerging immigrant writer. She felt a special calling to write later in life during the COVID pandemic. Composing in English has deepened her intimate connection to the language and empowered her to promote cultural understanding. Her work has appeared in online literary journals including Flora Fiction, Restless Books, Story House, Purple Pegasus Publishing's “Humans in Pandemic,” Assignment Literary Magazine, and Persimmon Tree.
V.P. Loggins is the author of The Wild Severance (2021), winner of the 26th Annual Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Competition, The Green Cup (2017), winner of the Cider Press Review Editors’ Book Prize, The Fourth Paradise (Editor’s Select Poetry Series, Main Street Rag 2010), and Heaven Changes (Pudding House Chapbook Series 2007). He has also published a book on Shakespeare, The Life of Our Design, and he is co-author of another, Shakespeare’s Deliberate Art. His poems and articles have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Crannog (Ireland), The Dalhousie Review (Canada), English Journal, The Healing Muse, Memoir, Modern Age, Poet Lore, Poetry East, Poetry Ireland Review, The Southern Review and Tampa Review, among other journals. He has taught at several institutions, most recently the United States Naval Academy.
Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and The North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have been performed and broadcast globally.
Stephen C. Middleton is a writer working in London, England. He has had five books published, including A Brave Light (Stride) and Worlds of Pain / Shades of Grace (Poetry Salzburg). He has been in several anthologies, including Paging Doctor Jazz (Shoestring), From Hepworth’s Garden Out (Shearsman, 2010), & Yesterday’s Music Today (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2015). For several years he was editor of Ostinato, a magazine of jazz and jazz related poetry, and The Tenormen Press. He has been in many magazines worldwide. He is currently working on projects (prose and poetry) relating to jazz, blues, politics, outsider (folk) art, mountain environments, and long-term illness.
George Moore has published poetry internationally, including in Poetry, Northwest Review, Arc, Stand, The Atlantic, The Colorado Review. His most recent collections are Saint Agnes Outside the Walls (FutureCycle 2016) and Children’s Drawings of the Universe (Salmon Poetry 2015). He has been finalist for eight Pushcart Prizes, The National Poetry Series, and the Brittingham Poetry Award. He taught literature and writing with the University of Colorado, and now lives on the south shore of Nova Scotia.
Pegah Ouji (“To Conquer the Fog”) is a writer from Iran who writes short stories in Farsi and English. She is currently working on a short story collection set in various regions of Iran that highlights local traditions and customs in light of contemporary problems in each locality. Her work has appeared in Isele Magazine. She is a writing fellow at Roots, Wounds, Words and has received scholarships from Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, Hudson Valley Writers Center, Literary Arts, Grub Street and Corporeal Writing center. She can be found on twitter @Oujipegah
James Owens’s newest book is Family Portrait with Scythe (Bottom Dog Press, 2020). His poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Channel, Arc, Dalhousie Review, Queen's Quarterly, and The Honest Ulsterman. He earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in a small town in northern Ontario, Canada.
John Repp is a poet, fiction writer, and folk photographer/collagist living in Erie, Pennsylvania. Seven Kitchens Press will soon publish his new chapbook, Star Shine in the Pines.
Rochelle Robinson-Dukes is Professor of English at Olive-Harvey College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. She has taught all levels of English and Literature. Her work has been published widely in journals, including the African American Review, Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Carolina Quarterly Review, Meridian, Salamander, and Torch.
Daniel Romo is the author of Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press 2019), and other books. His writing and photography can be found in The Los Angeles Review, Yemassee, Hotel Amerika, and elsewhere. He received an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives, teaches, and rides his bikes in Long Beach, CA. More at danieljromo.com.
Daniel Ruefman’s (“The Viper”) poetry and prose has appeared in more than 50 periodicals, including the Barely South Review, Burningword, Chapter House Journal, Dialogist, Flare: The Flagler Review, Gravel Magazine, Minetta Review, Red Earth Review, and Sheila-Na-Gig, among others, among others. He is the author of several books, including his memoir, What the Fuzz? Survival Stories of a Minor League Mascot, which was featured on Wisconsin Public Radio. When not writing, Daniel teaches the craft to students at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
Barry Seiler has published four books of poetry, three of them by University of Akron Press. He appears in the recent anthology New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust. He lives on the outskirts of Roxbury, NY in blessed seclusion, with his wife Dian and cats Homer and Milton.
J.R. Solonche has been nominated for the National Book Award and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 35 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.
Erin Wilson's poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in B O D Y, Vallum Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Potomac Review, Verse Daily, and Atlanta Review. Her first collection is At Home with Disquiet; her second, Blue (whose title poem won a Pushcart), is about depression, grief, and the transformative power of art. She tries to live a small life, in a small town, on Robinson-Huron Treaty Territory in Northern Ontario, Canada, the traditional lands of the Anishinawbek. Her best days are spent with poetry, trees, and milkweed. She refuses to carry a cellphone.