Sticky post
The Opiate Books

The Opiate Books Presents: I Love Paris by Rufo Quintavalle

A city of romance, a city of trash, a city of tourists, a city perpetually burning. For those who can see and hear the poetry in Paris, no matter what state it’s in, Rufo Quintavalle’s incisive collection, which addresses subjects and towns well beyond la France, is the perfect élixir for enfants terribles and modèles de vertu alike. Enjoy un petit goût of the book via Quintavalle’s Bandcamp here. Buy I Love Paris at … Continue reading The Opiate Books Presents: I Love Paris by Rufo Quintavalle

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Sticky post
The Opiate Books

The Opiate Books Presents: Atlas, Bound by Victor Marrero

There are few poetry books of its kind. And perhaps for good reason. After all, a collection of this nature isn’t easy to achieve. For Victor Marrero manages to take a hyper-specific subject matter–Michelangelo’s unfinished “Four Prisoners” sculptures–and deftly expand it so as to apply to such universal themes as humankind’s endless quest for meaning in existence, its tendency toward self-imprisonment and the author’s own … Continue reading The Opiate Books Presents: Atlas, Bound by Victor Marrero

Genna Rivieccio1 Comment
Sticky post
The Opiate Books

The Opiate Books Presents: The PornME Trinity, 2nd Edition by David Leo Rice

Perhaps too unbelievable to fathom at the beginning of 2020, The PornME Trinity by David Leo Rice has taken on an entirely new meaning and resonance in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. An (ongoing) era, as we all know, when everyone was forced to acknowledge just how bleak and ersatz their existence really was when confined to four walls (whether at work or at … Continue reading The Opiate Books Presents: The PornME Trinity, 2nd Edition by David Leo Rice

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Sticky post
The Opiate Books

The Opiate Books Presents: Brontosaurus Illustrated by Leanne Grabel

Regular readers of The Opiate may recognize Leanne Grabel’s work from the pages of our magazine, where we previously serialized Brontosaurus. Now available as Brontosaurus Illustrated, this is the work as you’ve never seen it–gorgeously illustrated and beautifully designed with the help of Robin Chilstrom. Don’t miss out on this truly unique and unprecedented memoir that turns a lasting trauma into something triumphant and hopeful. … Continue reading The Opiate Books Presents: Brontosaurus Illustrated by Leanne Grabel

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Sticky post
The Opiate Books

The Opiate Books Presents: Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life, 2nd Edition by Genna Rivieccio

The book that was too hot to handle in Hollywood and all other mainstream locales (basically just leaving Italy, where scandal is sacrosanct and nobody reads anyway). Find out the truth about the 00s and the butterfly effect of Lindsay Lohan not only on our current Kardashian-Jenner driven culture, but on ex-socialite and underdog Tate Carmichael. Available via Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Blackwell’s, Amazon, Book … Continue reading The Opiate Books Presents: Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life, 2nd Edition by Genna Rivieccio

Genna Rivieccio1 Comment
Poetry

This Thing Called Sex by Dale Champlin

I’m liking this thing called sex, the way my spineroots me to the bedclothes; my DNA tinglesinto my ecstatic shoulders, the branchesof my arms to my fingertips—thoughtdissolves—delicious oblivion. I float, a girl again,maybe a boy. Under my goosebump fleshall splayed ringlets—I elevate, scrumptious. Crucified between cloud-drift and gravity, I go the distance; a cry arcs full-bodied,unrhymed from the shivers at my foot, by wayof my hummingbird … Continue reading This Thing Called Sex by Dale Champlin

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Poetry

It Will All Pass in the End by Adrean Bellon

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Breathe in. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Breathe out. Another round. Another cycle. This feeling again. Don’t make any noise. Don’t bother anyone. It will all pass in the end.  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Breathe in. You’re taking control of your heart. Another image. Another memory. Don’t cry. Don’t complain. Your knees on your chest. Your … Continue reading It Will All Pass in the End by Adrean Bellon

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Prose

I’m Mexican by Andrea V. Garcia Robles Gil

I’m Mexican. That much I know. That much I can be sure of. Or can I?  Here, in a strange land, my nationality manifests as a shield. It comes as a reflex, to protect and justify my less than perfect tongue: the brokenness of my words and the silly mistakes. It is also an impenetrable wall (Berlin?): I cannot understand them, the French and the … Continue reading I’m Mexican by Andrea V. Garcia Robles Gil

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Fiction

Family Matters by Sarah Siham

You know what’s worse than a family dinner? I’ll tell you: a fucking wedding dinner. Every random relative that you’ve ever encountered once, three millenniums ago, and whose existences are perfectly inconsequential to you but apparently primordial to the familial circle, reunited in the same room. Annoyance grated me as I observed people, whose blood was the only thing we had in common, hypocritically saluting … Continue reading Family Matters by Sarah Siham

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Criticism

Says I: Against the Repetitive of Use of “Says” and “Said” in Prose

Something has happened in the writing world recently. A sudden sea change in favor of the repetitious use of a particular four-letter word…describing characters’ utterances. Said. Where once it would have been unthinkable to see such lazy writing (and it is lazy, not “simple,” as many writers are fond of using as a defense), it’s now deemed the norm for “straightforward, unpretentious” writing. Writing that … Continue reading Says I: Against the Repetitive of Use of “Says” and “Said” in Prose

Genna Rivieccio1 Comment
Fiction

A Sudden Change of Plans by Mike Lee

I felt powerless…and chickened out at what was supposed to be my defining moment. Instead, I was a coward who backed away five minutes into grasping destiny with a finger on the trigger. Methodically, I stripped the rifle with disgust, placing the parts neatly into the gym bag. I slung it over my shoulder and crossed the abandoned warehouse floor, taking the stairs in lieu … Continue reading A Sudden Change of Plans by Mike Lee

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Fiction

The Princess of Morticians by Mike Lee

At 10:30, the receptionist at the front desk gave off the look of a mortician, heightened by her jet-black hair with the white streak in the bangs that evoked a mid-90s memory of one of the band members in Luscious Jackson. As well as what I realized decades ago: punk is not a uniform. Instead, it was a way of thinking—an attitude. The latter came … Continue reading The Princess of Morticians by Mike Lee

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Poetry

Incarnation by Louis Faber

I had been sitting for an hourin the coffee shop areaof the now gone Borders bookstoretrying to piece together the shardsof a life shattered by the impendingend of a long marriage that wasgoing to last for a lifetime.And I was hoping, perhaps,to meet someone, ready or notto try and fill the smallest cornerof what was now a gaping void.She was dressed in something fromthe late … Continue reading Incarnation by Louis Faber

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment
Poetry

Hunger by John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper

I know now that watching you eatwas what I once loved about my mother: the necessityof it, the intensity of it, the unacknowledged pleasure—everything that made reality human. So much in life, my tenderexperience, places things in doubt, and here was proof,above all sciences, that to be, to exist, was hunger, and could be satisfied.Beauty was to perceive, to see that whatever else truth might … Continue reading Hunger by John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper

Genna Rivieccio5 Comments
Criticism, Essay

The Woman In Me: Britney Spears Reckons With Exploitation and the Double Standard She Was Subjected to Her Entire Career

“Hello. Oh my goodness, ew. Strong Britney!” These were the words an on-the-verge-of-tears, twenty-one-year-old Britney Spears uttered while forced into doing an episode of Primetime on November 13, 2003 with Diane Sawyer. And oh, how strong (stronger than yesterday) she had to make herself in the years spent under a microscope that followed. The word “forced” vis-à-vis Primetime feels applicable because, as Spears tells it, … Continue reading The Woman In Me: Britney Spears Reckons With Exploitation and the Double Standard She Was Subjected to Her Entire Career

Genna RivieccioLeave a comment