Our Winter 2014 Issue is now available featuring poetry by Dick Allen, John Blair, Karina Borowicz, Mike Bove, John F. Buckley, W. E. Butts, Danny Caine, Roger Camp, Mark DeFoe, Timothy Gillis, Raymond Hall, Leonore Hildebrandt, Peter Krok, Sydney Lea, Wesley McNair, Paul Pines, S Stephanie, Joshua Sullivan, Helene Swarts, Mimi White, Howard Winn and an interview with Charles Simic.
It also features artwork from John Angelopoulas, W. E. Butts, Katherine Doyle, S Stephanie and reviews by Megan Grumbling and Jefferson Navicky.
In Memoriam
Amiri Baraka
1934 – 2014
Poems
James Wright’s Horses
by W. E. Butts There are certain words that transport us out of those small spaces we sometimes live in: prognosis, cancer, treatment, memory
Learning Williams
W. E. Butts Learning Williams for Kevin Cahill What did I really learn that quiet afternoon in a classroom of students, heads on their desks, or
Five Picture Postcards
by S Stephanie Five Picture Postcards for W.E.B. — after Radnóti I August 1944 In the flint colored mountains of Bulgaria two weeks before your
Ars Poetica
by Howard Winn To the right of me loom neo-formalists, rigor in their cheeks, cash behind their checks, anthologies in their bank accounts,
The Anxiety of Influence
by John F. Buckley Nobody’s parents have loved him enough, and everyone’s mommy has struggled with cancer, and anyone’s daddy’s addicted to
And Now Let Us Go Into The Garden
by Helene Swarts Light, like spilled milk, spreads near our feet making little circles. Soon the moon will bring another cast. Come, let us go
Aftermath
by Helene Swarts Like orphans dreaming mothers out of their soup Like the pauper’s mouth moving when the rich man swallows We expect the moon.
War
by Helene Swarts Light no longer colors the leaves, blending green into grace. Evil, as unremarkable as ever, silts over the streams. Children
Micah Weeping, 1983
by Sydney Lea Three decades ago, even the Vietnam War Seemed gone for most of us. On Memorial Day, Or Decoration, as our small town’s elders
Insouciant
by Sydney Lea Insouciant after the Newtown massacre After school treat, reads a certain crossword clue. For an instant I’m dizzy with rage at
Crepuscular
by Joshua Sullivan The drainage ditch leads down to the pond, forming the boundary of the fallow flood plain. Paul’s farm, his father’s before
Three Lunulae
by Raymond Hall A soul, the Universe, awakens awestruck looking around Interprets further, gags I watched a Spider spin a web, patiently Wait.
A Letter to Bruno: Seven Years Since He Left
by Peter Krok A Letter to Bruno: Seven Years Since He Left Blaise Pascal: “The heart has its reasons . . . ” It has been seven years since you
Marlin Strike
by Paul Pines He breaks the surface a splinter of buried light tail-walks the water dives back runs/ tugs/ stops/ circles/ approaches runs
Old Man Pan
by Paul Pines We anchor close to Peter Pulitzer on his reconditioned Louisiana shrimp trawler The Sea Hunter a man who marries girls that leave
2 a.m. in the Grand Hotel Leveque
by Danny Caine 44 screams each other in a language. 45 awakes naked and cannot asleep again. 42 reaches to phone neuf un un then hand retreats.
I Love You Detroit
by Danny Caine I Love You Detroit for Dan Gilbert I love you Detroit People Mover because you don’t give a fuck you just give rides to
How a photographer landed on the valet at L’Opera
by Roger Camp How a photographer landed on the valet at L’Opera for Len Matsuk I was told by someone who was standing in line valet ticket
Rain Dance
by Mimi White Would like to sing, but the sea ran across the road. People are eating, others driving in the rain. Tomorrow the news, but today
Through the Keyhole
by Mimi White Amazed a tree could grow in the sky, shoots about to burst, supple, tender. Sleep had sealed lost prayers, sibilant, forgotten
Prodigal
by Mimi White The eternal route past the lake where you learned to swim as a child where you fished with your brothers for hornpout whose whisker
Sitting on an Old Stone Fence, Looking into the Distance
by Dick Allen Far away, there’s what might be a windmill or a silo, or just a trick of the eye, and are those eye specks or crows floating out
Her Secret
by Wesley McNair Why Thurman must cover every counter top, table and chair with his things, Wilma no longer asks, knowing he will only answer as
Crepuscule
by Sydney Lea There’s a man with two bearded collies: on his drive back home from an office, the widower passes the three at 5:30. When winter
Cartography in Retrospect
by Mike Bove Roads to nowhere, rivers flowing back into hills: I can think of several wrong ways to draw a map. All it takes is one slack stride
Side by Side
by Mark DeFoe In decency and calm our homes repose. Flowers bless our summer. Each fall we rake. When the snow comes we heave the snow aside So
Dumping the Old Windows
by Mark DeFoe I heaved them in the reeking pile, but they did not break. The vision of that old world was not so brittle, though warped to be
The Lost Cause
by Mark DeFoe In some jungle, waiting. What we feared may be amongst us. We sniff the wind. We hang on each change of intonation. We
Elephant
by Karina Borowicz In a clearing at the edge of the forested hillside a boulder is crouched. A mother elephant and we her children. We find her
Punishing Snows
by Karina Borowicz When the punishing snows came, mother would stand with her hands outstretched and filled with crumbs for the sparrows. How
Evelyn
by Karina Borowicz Our neighbor, she of the white hair smoothed in a French twist. She of flowering dresses and earrings of mute pearl. Hands
Wisteria
by Dick Allen The French, I read somewhere, think cellar door most beautiful English. My father’s cellar door was ugly,
Ramshackle
by Dick Allen black–eyed Susans in a tin cup over a grimy porcelain wood–burning kitchen stove beside the washing machine in my
Zig-Zag
by Dick Allen When you’re being shot at, it’s best to run in an almost zig–zag pattern, varying a little depending on the time of day, the
Sitting on an Old Stone Fence, Looking into the Distance
by Dick Allen Far away, there’s what might be a windmill or a silo, or just a trick of the eye, and are those eye specks or crows floating out
Begin Again
by Leonore Hildebrandt To discern layers of sound and scent begin again to focus sink and strike begin to rise into the rising begin in silence.
Interview
Charles Simic Interview
Interview with Charles Simic on Teaching, Translating, and the Mystery of Writing Poetry This telephone interview with Charles Simic was
Reviews
The Boss
by Victoria Chang. McSweeney’s Poetry Series, 2013, 64 pages, paper, $16, ISBN: 978-1-938073-58-8. Buy the Book “Her boss is somewhere where is
The Messenger
by Stephanie Pippin. University of Iowa Press, 2013, 70 pages, paper, $18, ISBN: 978 -1609381646. Buy the Book Birds of prey hold a place on the
Poet Biographies
Howard Winn
has had poetry and fiction published in Galway Review (Ireland), Dalhousie Review, Descant (Canada), Main Street Rag, Caduceus, Burning Word,
Howard Winn
has had poetry and fiction published in Galway Review (Ireland), Dalhousie Review, Descant (Canada), Main Street Rag, Caduceus, Burning Word,
Mimi White
was awarded the 2009 Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Poetry for her first full–length poetry book, The Last Island (Deerbrook Editions).
Helene Swarts
her poems have appeared in Poetry International, The Café Review, Christian Century, and The Hartford Current. She taught poetry at the
Joshua Sullivan
lives in central Maine and teaches composition at Thomas College in Waterville. He also works as a farm hand for local businesses. His poems have
S Stephanie
has published poetry and book reviews in literary magazines such as the Birmingham Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and The Sun. She has two
Paul Pines
grew up in Brooklyn, New York, became a merchant seaman, and spent 1965 – 66 in Vietnam, after which he drove a taxi and tended bar until he
Wesley McNair
was recently invited to read his poetry for the second time by the Library of Congress. He is the poet laureate of Maine. The poem in this issue,
Sydney Lea
is the current Vermont Poet Laureate. He is the author of 10 poetry collections, most recently, I Was Thinking of Beauty (Four Way Books, 2013);
Peter Krok
is the humanities poetry director of the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center where he has been coordinating a literary series since 1990. His poems
Leonore Hildebrandt
has published poems in the The Café Review, Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Quercus Review. Her
Raymond Hall
has published dozens of poems in The Café Review. Three of them won the Helen Williams Award and were published in the Manhattan Mercury,
Timothy Gillis
is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared in The Portland Daily Sun, Dispatch Magazine, Magnitude, The Portland Forecaster,
Mark DeFoe
is professor emeritus of English at West Virginia Wesleyan College where he teaches in the low–residency MFA Writing Program. His tenth
Roger Camp
lives in Seal Beach, California, where he tends to several hundred plants, is apprenticed to a master mason, plays blues piano evenings, and
Danny Caine
hails from Cleveland, Ohio where he lives with his wife, cat, and collection of 1960s soul records. Formerly a rural Ohio high school teacher, he
W. E. Butts
John F. Buckley
lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and is attending the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. His second book of poems written in
Michael Bove
Karina Borowicz
has published a collection, The Bees Are Waiting, which was selected by Franz Wright for the Marick Press Poetry Prize and was named a 2013
Dick Allen
his eighth collection of poems, This Shadowy Place (St. Augustine’s Press), won the 2013 New Criterion Poetry Prize. His earlier new poems are
Artist Biographies
Reviewers Biographies
Jefferson Navicky
has recent work published in, or forthcoming in, Birkensnake, The Journal of Experimental Fiction Anthology, Off the Coast, Kindred and Hobart.
Megan Grumbling
has recent work published in, or forthcoming in, the Berlin journal Sand, Unsplendid, Angle, and the Hobble Creek Review. She teaches at Southern