Month: March 2019

Poetry

Mother Daughter Fight by Peter Crowley

Glass dives off table, marrying flesh Eyes widen, in shock and rage Then another glass, constructed in forgotten Chinese factory, is hurled from hand, from the same direction but toward the other end of the table. The two flying glasses’ trajectories made an X, each shattering after hitting wooden tabletop and splaying out shards which land on mosquito-flooded floor Afterwards, the daughter, temporally “home” from … Continue reading Mother Daughter Fight by Peter Crowley

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Criticism

Ariana Grande Songs as Shakespeare Plays

As Ariana Grande serves to build on an old lexicon–that of love and love lost–both in pop culture and (before that came along to destroy it) literature, it bears noting that the songs on thank u, next offer certain similar thematic elements to most of William Shakespeare’s plays. He was, after all, the supposed inventor of tragedian love, and the intermingling comedy that comes with it … Continue reading Ariana Grande Songs as Shakespeare Plays

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Poetry

Outlier: A Poem About the Workplace by Laura C. Wendorff

The Bandwagon is full (colleagues know which side their bread is buttered on). “I’ve made up my own mind!” (They’re into denial, here, too.) The center is subterfuge. The master-manipulator works his political magic and presto! The Bandwagon is changed into a smooth, black Lexus. Then presto, again! The Lexus becomes a white Prius, and riders breathe a sigh of relief. Their guilt is gone—they’re … Continue reading Outlier: A Poem About the Workplace by Laura C. Wendorff

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Criticism

Off the Rails: Sylvia Plath’s Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom

Of course it’s no coincidence that Sylvia Plath wrote an allegorical tale about heading to purgatory via train just months before her first suicide attempt at the age of twenty. While Plath’s mother, Aurelia, was brought up Catholic, Plath herself seemed only to flirt with the religion for different, largely erudite reasons throughout her lifetime, using it for the purpose of Mary Ventura and the … Continue reading Off the Rails: Sylvia Plath’s Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom

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Criticism

The Mysterious Woman is Still the Most Beguiling Woman: Oscar Wilde’s “The Sphinx Without A Secret”

As most classifications of people are divided into two primary categories, it would seem that, by and large, there are those who overshare and those who wish nothing more than to guard every aspect of themselves even to those closest to them. It is this sort of personage that serves as the subject of Oscar Wilde’s short story, “The Sphinx Without a Secret.” Told from … Continue reading The Mysterious Woman is Still the Most Beguiling Woman: Oscar Wilde’s “The Sphinx Without A Secret”

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Criticism

“Self-Publishing” and Celebrity

While, sure, the singer-songwriter a.k.a. celebrity “literary” game has never been lacking (and was arguably started when Jewel put out her own immortal poetry collection in 1998, the robust–for a poetry book–160-page opus that was A Knight Without Armour), it seems as though Lana Del Rey has taken to a new level the annoyance of it to those who spend their entire lives trying to … Continue reading “Self-Publishing” and Celebrity

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Poetry

We Christianized Barbarians by Julio Monteiro Martins, Translated by Helen Wickes & Donald Stang

We Christianized barbarians, more alone than ever in the world’s regard, no longer have the Ptolemies or the Basileuses to explain us to others, nor do we have other converted Goths to hoist the two-sided blade in our name. We are alone, without any remedy. Searching the desert that forewarns us of the lions, we see everywhere mirages of wild beasts, naked martyrs forever in … Continue reading We Christianized Barbarians by Julio Monteiro Martins, Translated by Helen Wickes & Donald Stang

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Poetry

Dream Sketched From Memory by David Leo Sirois

We wash our hands with coffee grounds & light, & pulse still. New water reaches for our air in your coffee/tea temple’s constellation of plants. Out-of-doors, Canada Road hides under sharp snow, shares forward-steps & sideways triple-steps with us, dances impromptu swing. Brown-beige blanched façades lost in hollowed histories this shortened sun-span, before the inner Witness ~ spectator of sleep, who records dream-scenes to show … Continue reading Dream Sketched From Memory by David Leo Sirois

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