Book Review, Criticism

Perfection: Not So Much an Attack on Millennials as the Things That Shaped Their Formative Years—In Other Words, the Internet

From the very outset of Vincenzo Latronico’s fourth novel (and the first to be translated to English), Perfection, there is a simmering contempt that’s always waiting to boil to the surface, but never does in quite the direct way one might have ordinarily expected before emotional suppression and passive aggression became de rigeur. A description that can, in effect, describe what it means to be … Continue reading Perfection: Not So Much an Attack on Millennials as the Things That Shaped Their Formative Years—In Other Words, the Internet

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Poetry

Hissing of the Feathered Thread by Gregory O’Neill

it all depends so much on the knowingas if the clinging itself would save you—should holding prove itself inadequateand release prove the impossible whole a stone falls not demanding its meaningand the bird must be held to the breeze—fingers recalling a charmed slack of threadthe light passing through, unraveling vision ache is your body surrendering its bordersopen palms, soft geometry, inward home—absence without calculus, knots … Continue reading Hissing of the Feathered Thread by Gregory O’Neill

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Poetry

The Night Out by Gregory O’Neill

We leave our souls like luggage—bodies like garment bags.In the bat‑black clock hours,we usher meteors,like tiny golden pins up the ivoryheights the day calls clouds. Children’s buckets at our hips jinglewhen they kiss—dream‑power makes us taller.Nightgowns and PJs sweeping like flags.Slippers loosen jangly baubles of frozen rain. A hundred million assemble themselvesinto a backup band for the universe.Sounds arrive that other minds might callinterference—or harmony. … Continue reading The Night Out by Gregory O’Neill

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Poetry

From a distance, I know* by Dale Champlin

I look like an ant—red as fireor one of those grease ants you might crush with your finger as it marchesacross the kitchen counter            insignificant in catastrophes of my own choosing(dear god—not yours) as sentient  as all wildlife            the way I head for my burrow at the first orange glow of the lowering sun  imagine how … Continue reading From a distance, I know* by Dale Champlin

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Poetry

The Other Option by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

No No thank you No thank you   No thank you! Just no  Just not feeling it Just not not  not notno   No!   NO!! What part of no   DON’T you understand? N   O   Please remove your hand Please remove your hand No None of that    None   Nada Nada thing   Nothing   Silence The Unspoken  The Refusal  Not    the UN-Lived Not    the    i couldn’t care lessNot    the silence of indifference or recusal nor the conspiracy of consent Not the absence of yes But no   Just no  No to submissionNo is … Continue reading The Other Option by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

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Poetry

Viens! by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Ten years agoin ParisYou were rapedby the tongues of peacocksand told it was Paradise Todayyou standa little left                 of the Mirrorfanning yourselfwith liesannouncing your own arrivalwith nothing left to say Whereis the smileyou stretched across canvasbefore you learned to paint You say nothingwith so many featherswhile I sip passionlikean elephantthrough a straw Continue reading Viens! by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

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Poetry

A Child’s Hellscape of Verses by Gary Keenan

Sing a song of sixpence spent on killingA popular hobby but never quite fulfilling I wish for day, I wish for mightTo survive the drones each night Round and round in circles, dizzy in despairStumble on a landmine and disappear Little Mohamet sat on a bucket eating a crust of stale breadAlong came a sniper with a .50 cal rifle and shot off Mohamet’s head … Continue reading A Child’s Hellscape of Verses by Gary Keenan

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Criticism, Essay

Why Emerald Fennell’s Adaptation of Wuthering Heights Is Such a Hot-Button Issue for the Stodgier Side of the Literary World Right Now (And Why It Shouldn’t Be)

It’s not any kind of “shocking revelation” that what’s left of the “book business” is mostly in shambles. And that what it takes to “monetize” literature in the present is a decidedly “bread and circuses” approach. Never was that made more apparent than the advent of “BookTok.” However, with Emerald Fennell’s latest film, a “version” of Wuthering Heights (that she opted to put in quotation … Continue reading Why Emerald Fennell’s Adaptation of Wuthering Heights Is Such a Hot-Button Issue for the Stodgier Side of the Literary World Right Now (And Why It Shouldn’t Be)

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Fiction

Turning the Corner by Mike Lee

When Deidre crossed Broadway against the traffic and stepped onto the curb, phone in hand, it was a transformative—albeit confusing—moment. A moment when the choice, for Henry, was to stare with stunned amazement or suddenly perform surrealist-influenced performance art. She was a good kid until she chose to manipulate and triangulate, until she was trapped in a corner, like a cheap 1950s wind-up doll, arms … Continue reading Turning the Corner by Mike Lee

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Poetry

Their Hunt by August Truly

Hedge fund managers hiring,Former heads of state that is, No debating on who made who great,Capital escaped the state,Gulfstream-numbers high altitudes,Worldwide Proletariat down bad, left with the weight, The infinite conservatorship,The sheep yap ‘bout concealed carry permits somewhere over there,DEI centurions caught up in they “massas’” skirmishes,The Dutch, The Hague, the truth, the way,The #1 EU_funder of a world’s sunken place,I mean placeholders, Demons backpacking from f.k.a. Middle East … Continue reading Their Hunt by August Truly

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