Month: October 2023

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

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Essay

They’re Trying to Make “Glamorama With Bedbugs” Happen

The bizarre, rather non sequitur spotlight on bedbugs in Paris seems to come at a very “convenient” time for a number of reasons. For one thing, everybody wants to see Paris “flop” in a manner that coincides with the Olympics, when all eyes will be on it more than ever, and, for another, people only care about icky and unpleasant “goings-on” when it affects either … Continue reading They’re Trying to Make “Glamorama With Bedbugs” Happen

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Book Review

Victor Marrero’s Atlas, Bound Offers Hymns for The Oppressed, Hope for The Downtrodden by Jennifer O’Grady

Atlas, Bound, Victor Marrero’s striking first collection of poems, takes its inspiration from Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures known as the “Four Prisoners,” or “Four Slaves,” housed at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. Begun by the artist as embellishments for a pope’s tomb, the statues appear to be both carrying—and struggling to emerge from—the partially chiseled marble that contains and obscures them. The book’s opening poem, “Variations … Continue reading Victor Marrero’s Atlas, Bound Offers Hymns for The Oppressed, Hope for The Downtrodden by Jennifer O’Grady

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Prose

Starting From the Bottom by Xavier Jones

Dr. King once said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” And maybe some of you are familiar with the saying, “A hard head makes for a soft behind.” When there is any violent outburst against the institutions of power, it is when the deaf and blind state has left a trail of injustice that has stretched the patience of the nation, if not … Continue reading Starting From the Bottom by Xavier Jones

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Prose

Social Media Hierarchy by Xavier Jones

Just as there are hierarchies in the echelons of politics, families, business, religion etc., there is also that which exists on social media. However, this last one is without doubt the most unstable as freedom of speech finds itself in the most awkward of positions. On one hand, people claim to believe in it because it allows them to say things that would make the … Continue reading Social Media Hierarchy by Xavier Jones

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Poetry

The Travel Channel by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

It took me forever to learn how to love—to love wide open with the throat singing ariaswith the arms waving like bannerswith the heart bleeding fleshwith the entrails leakingwith that profound wound of womanhoodthat waits for you like a bruised ripening hungerthat trembles for you like an unhinged moonthat weeps for you as you enter me without a sound How to love openly is an … Continue reading The Travel Channel by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

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Creative Nonfiction

 You Just Found Out Your Book Was NOT Used to Train AI. What Now? by Max Talley

Try their search engine again. And again. Nothing? Okay, take a deep breath and calm down (has that ever worked for anyone?).  You may have noticed this hits different than your multiple rejections from those high-paying literary magazines. Yes, it’s both crushing and damn insulting to realize your writing, your books—some that can be downloaded for free—have not been used to school our future robot … Continue reading  You Just Found Out Your Book Was NOT Used to Train AI. What Now? by Max Talley

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