From Blacksmith to East Palestine: Don DeLillo Isn’t A Prophet, Just a Realist

Like something out of the film adaptation of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, it seems that Don DeLillo’s White Noise has the power to make the plot points on the page come to life in 2023. More specifically, that plot point about the train derailment near Blacksmith. A fictional town in (you guessed it) Ohio, where White Noise’s protagonist, Jack Gladney, works as … Continue reading From Blacksmith to East Palestine: Don DeLillo Isn’t A Prophet, Just a Realist

Genna RivieccioFebruary 16, 2023February 17, 2023Leave a comment

Poetry

How It Feels to Float No. 2 by Andrew Hudson Barter

I went to the grocery store for milk, and bought limestoo. The cashier asked me if they were lemons. The drive home was uneventful, people walked their dogs,cars sat on the side of the street, some with smashed-in windows. I clocked the price of gas as I passed by the station,but realized I had no reference. I buy gas so rarely now. The person in … Continue reading How It Feels to Float No. 2 by Andrew Hudson Barter

Genna RivieccioFebruary 12, 2023Leave a comment

Poetry

In the Swimming Pool by Gabor Gyukics

he jumped headfirstbut before each lengthhe read a stanza from a poemand during each fifty metershe engraved each stanza in his brain as many stanzasas many lengths when he finishedhe recited the poemto those presentat the pool’s cafeteria he left damp pagesfrom his notebookin the locker room trash can Continue reading In the Swimming Pool by Gabor Gyukics

Genna RivieccioFebruary 7, 2023Leave a comment

Poetry

True, For the Most Part by Steve Denehan

I’m not racist but…he droned onI listenednoddingat what I guessedwere the right times he told me about his promotionhis new carrecent and upcoming holidaysbefore askingif I could lend him some money he fed me old jokesintellectual psychobabblepretentiousnesspeppered with obscure references we had known each otherfor a long timehe had talked and I had listenedfor a long time I had not expectednot even consideredthat I might … Continue reading True, For the Most Part by Steve Denehan

Genna RivieccioFebruary 6, 2023Leave a comment

Criticism

Moby-Dick Splooges All Over The Whale

It’s easy to forget that the title of Herman Melville’s most major work, Moby-Dick, has another component to it: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. Fittingly, Samuel D. Hunter’s adaptation of his own play, The Whale, has plenty of nods to Moby-Dick. And not just because Charlie is “the whale” in question that everyone seems intent on “getting”—particularly a missionary named Thomas (Ty Simpkins), who wants to … Continue reading Moby-Dick Splooges All Over The Whale

Genna RivieccioJanuary 30, 2023January 30, 2023Leave a comment

Poetry

Alternatives by Susie Gharib

Give alternatives for the following, the teacher commands, with a grin,the twelve-year-old who is eager to pass his test.Moonlight, the teacher states with a grimace:A neon tube, the boy promptly replies.A canopy of trees for shelter:A bus stop.A proper bath:A free drizzle.A candle-lit dinner:Chips without fish.Sailing the ocean:Paper boats.A holiday abroad:A book from the public library.Doting parents:Street busking.A pair of pajamas:Old, tattered clothes.Attending church:Text messaging … Continue reading Alternatives by Susie Gharib

Genna RivieccioJanuary 20, 2023Leave a comment

Poetry

From the Old to the New by Ellen Wright Hervé

Tip toes in the snowFrom my loved ones, old and newA gust of wind blows Continue reading From the Old to the New by Ellen Wright Hervé

Genna RivieccioJanuary 18, 2023Leave a comment

Fiction

The Classmate Who Tells Me Things by Priscilla Atkins

On an island far away, I study for a semester with a white-haired woman who wears black polish, slender (black) clothes over a skeletal frame and, in the one extant photograph, sunglasses. “Witch,” a classmate whispers. Yes. The visiting prof is old enough for a few hairs on her chinny-chin-chins…and why is she here for the year except for the money (necessity—not greed)? She is … Continue reading The Classmate Who Tells Me Things by Priscilla Atkins

Genna RivieccioJanuary 8, 2023January 8, 2023Leave a comment

Poetry

Truth, Beauty and Photoshop by Cathy Allman

She was born in a deltaof three rivers. He’d been a native of that river which had caught fire. But physics is not biology.Equal and opposite reactionshappen between two bodies. Their past dissolved into next,torn like a lost lotto ticket,scattered as a broken strand of pearls. Their wounds trailed like the wake of a trawler. They argued through that slipstream of eras and ages, cities and places they … Continue reading Truth, Beauty and Photoshop by Cathy Allman

Genna RivieccioJanuary 6, 2023January 6, 2023Leave a comment

Poetry

The Fire We Spin Around by Cathy Allman

You were young, and after three Jacks he said he loved you.He touched you awake in places you didn’t know. Decades later, the same man after three Jacks tells you everything wrong with life is because of you. You can’t sleep, and he won’t remember. You hear his irregular breathing,replay the weeks of his chemo. An owl calls from a tree.The clock on the nightstandticks on, like years. … Continue reading The Fire We Spin Around by Cathy Allman

Genna RivieccioJanuary 5, 2023Leave a comment