Writing is an act of resistance
-
Lithium & High Heels
By Heather Dorn Barbie’s feet come preformed for sexiness, but the rest of us must learn to curve our arches like a playground slide. We start young, even as babies, barely able to walk, staggering up church or pageant stage steps—sparkling quarter inch heels, lace dresses, makeup bruising our eyelids blue, punching our cheeks…
-
Secrets in the Gazebo
By Penny Perry For my Aunt Leona Heyert Tarleton who died at age 33 We are looking at the mockingbird in the lemon tree. This is the first day of my cousin’s summer visit. I wriggle closer to her. “I know how my mother died,” my cousin whispers. The gazebo is the place for…
-
Feeding the Goldfish
By René Marzuk We walk to the edge of the pond at the far end of the backyard—a pond dirty and small, slightly bigger than a bathtub—filled with plants and fish carefully chosen for their ability to survive off each other. “An ecosystem,” you offer. A grubby Eden. Colored shapes appear and disappear within the…
-
Welcome to our June issue, and farewell to a beloved editor
The summer of 2022 is roiling with challenges. By the time you are reading this, or soon thereafter, Roe v. Wade is likely to have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and “states’ rights” will quash human rights. People around the globe will suffer from increasingly extreme temperatures, weather events, and food and water…
-
I don’t even remember his name
By Sarah Gundle Something made me think of him. For days now, it has been bothering me: I can’t remember his name. I can recall many of our conversations, the gentle character of his voice, the resignation in his eyes, but not his name. I’ve wracked my brain. I saw him almost twenty years…
-
Slave Cemetery
By Elizabeth Spencer Spragins anguish overflows levees lined with unbleached bones— a channeled fury gathers silt of centuries and the river roars their names Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a fiber artist, writer, and poet who taught in North Carolina community colleges for more than a decade before returning to her home state of…
-
Body Before Extinction
Poetry, environmental degradation, climate crisis, climate justice, species extinction, Emily Hockaday, litterBy Emily Hockaday I sing to the water and lower my only child into the foam, wiggling toes first. I think about all the species the ocean held that I don’t know the names of that have gone extinct this past year and focus on the sound of the waves and all the metaphors…
-
Throwaway
environmental degradation, women’s rights, Karen Kilcup, pollution, abolition, Underground Railroad, garbage, PoetryBy Karen Kilcup Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal? –Rachel Carson A one-woman Revolution, Jemima Wilkinson was stoned for preaching the light that lives in everyone. The Public Universal Friend was driven north from Philadelphia to the Finger Lakes, her movement forecasting what would follow: women’s…
-
A Simple Act
By Erin Edwards It is a simple act to stand in the middle of the road. Simple, but effective. A car either has to stop and wait or run you down—and it just wouldn’t do for a hearse carrying the body of a former government official to accelerate towards a woman in the middle…