from OBIT
“The visits lessened and lessened. They were pursuing their own deaths.” Victoria Chang‘s obituaries spiral out from the death of her mother into a series of wide-ranging, imaginative, and heart-breaking meditations.
from The Riddle of Longing
Read excerpts from Faisal Mohyuddin’s new chapbook, as well as an introduction by Dilruba Ahmed.
The Goodbye Door
Lesley Jenike encounters a painting with an intriguing title—The Goodbye Door by Joan Mitchell—at around the same time that she learns about the discovery of remains of infants and small children near a Catholic Church-run home for mothers and babies born out of wedlock in Tuam, Ireland. In this essay, Jenike meditates on Mitchell, Tuam, her own life, internalized misogyny, resistance, synesthesia, narrative, love, and more.
Neighborn
“it occupies me,” writes Christina Davis in a brittle and bold new poem of a self among selves, “this errand out of narrowness.” “such as I was / I was eligible.”
from Little Climates
Read excerpts from L.A. Johnson’s new chapbook, as well as an introduction by Tyler Mills.
Two Poems
“Who begs for school, in such a / yellow voice? // A mother determined / to set her children free.” Two new poems from Mahtem Shiferraw take on colors, exclusion, and words.
Somewhere on the Road to Nowhere: Double Negative
Merridawn Duckler takes us beyond “No” and “No” into Double Negative, Michael Heizer’s monumental piece of land art stationed in Nevada.
from Henry Kissinger, Mon Amour
Read excerpts from Conor Bracken’s new chapbook, as well as an introduction by Nick Lantz.
txt me im board
“you can see the need / to monitor words not meant / for me He wants to talk / to ones who are bored / And me I am not bored I am / flying” A turbulent cross-country flight–along with 30 minutes of free internet–turns into a capacious and kind new poem from Tanya Olson.
Amy Jorgensen
Amy Jorgensen talks with Debra Klomp Ching about Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue.
from Shadow-feast
“You were right. I couldn’t climb / the stairs. Breath was all I wore / and what bolted my body together, / poor meat, was a small will—smaller than me.” Exquisite new poems of dying and grief from Joan Houlihan.
The High Rise on Desolation Row
“Dylan became our soundtrack, as we wrestled with confusion, living so far from home.” Philip Metres discovers a quintessentially American album while living in Russia.
The Colossal: Iris van Herpen and Girls Write the Museum
“For me, each dress functions the way a poem does: ‘A poem should not mean / But be.'” Emily Mohn-Slate on “Girls Write the Museum,” the art of Iris van Herpen’s couture, poetry, and the feeling that the world could be colossal.
Two Poems
“What are you going to do?” asks Camille Guthrie, wandering the history of art. “You hold her tremulous hand and wipe her brow / Stay up reading to her when she can’t sleep for the pain / To ease her tempestuous heart.”
Two Poems
“Imagine / a day alone / and call it Love.” New poems from Jayme Ringleb try to rename sadness. “because / you wanted to believe this was good, // you kept from yelling against this man / who wanted to gather you, to remake you / into what may have been worth a man.”