Victoria Saltz “No harm done, am I right?” That was the third time I had been wrong that day. I smiled earnestly at the cashier in the green apron bending down to pick up the bruised...
Ander Monson Things keep happening outside my screen. In 1993 the Michigan Militia guy I work with in Electronics at Walmart tries to recruit me—unsuccessfully. The video he showed me does...
Nick Kowalczyk That Tuesday morning I awoke with an aching body and yellow shit clumped around my eyes and caked across my temples like two dried-out streams during a summer drought. It was...
Chelsea Dingman “The truth is, that every death is violent.”-Samuel Johnson Then, let me know the violence of the last day of sun. The violence of a thousand orphaned forget-me-nots,...
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,...