Moira J. I am borne of cactus fruit and seeds from the mesquite tree—my arms are weatherworn and I dream of dancing, my legs giving way to tallow and meat, bones being worked into needles and...
Johnny Damm Benjamin Patterson (1934-2016) Johnny Damm is the author of Science of Things Familiar (The Operating System, 2017) and the chapbooks Your Favorite Song (Essay Press, 2016) and The...
Ander Monson No one talks enough about how Schwarzenegger looks on-screen. Or how his face is lit in every shot: one sees what California did in him to make him governor. In 1987 I would have...
Brenda Miller and Julie Marie Wade My brother-in-law, who flies planes for a living, tells me that no one can die in the sky. “But people die everywhere,” I protest. “That’s the...
2017 Greg Grummer Poetry Award Winner, Chosen by Monica Youn Jennifer Givhan My last time in the underworld I followed a tiger the book said tigers could be...
Betty Rosen I learned “city” from Cleveland and its drone of heart-rot, clotting-rust hopelessness. I still read in its script of nostalgia. Its bridges crash down into silver water,...
Steven Church Fort Collins, CO 1999 Where’s the baby? I called out in the dark. Half asleep, I sat up in bed. Where’s the baby? I asked again. I’d been troubled recently...
Margaret Cipriano We believed in starting small so we examined ourselves in the light of a hundred different kitchens, and with stunning alacrity, concluded we were just some planetary ache. A...
Jill Talbot and Justin Lawrence Daugherty i. North Country For a while I lived along the Canadian border. Never crossed it, though it felt like it on snowy nights I’d settle into corner...