Issue III

Interviews:

Silas House
Linda Parsons

Poetry:

Allyson Abernathy
Jennifer Browne
Audra Burwell
Victor Clevenger
John Davis, Jr.
Conner Dickson
John Dorsey
Dorian Hairston
Elizabeth Hill
Linda Holmes
Silas House
Cody D. Jarman
Ashley Massey
Rowan B. Minor
Jason Mitchell
Andrew Alexander Mobbs
Vanessa Y. Niu
Linda Parsons
Nome Emeka Patrick
Chrissie Anderson Peters
Jason Ryberg
Kelsey A. Solomon
Emma Galloway Stephens
Mike Wilson
Erik Zepeda

Prose:

Timothy Dodd
Michael Henson
Marie Manilla
Niles Reddick
Yance Wyatt

Visual Art:

Thomas Flynn II
Melissa Newman

Torso of a Young Man - Vanessa Y. Niu
         Constantin Brancusi, 1922. Bronze.
Except in the music video, they were undeniably
younger and faster and more brilliant. Except
in the sunlight my limbs moat, castle each other
do nothing but lack luster in the summer glow,
blasting Talking Heads remasters and pushing
bodies of rivers into each other. Night falls and
I imagine myself the subject of a particle accelerator
and what doomed romance there is between
a particle and its antiparticle that makes me think
of us that evening by the lake, some Athenian
youth glittering in your skin oh, I’d wear it. I’d
mold it. I’d melt and remake it into a tree that I
could revisit and fancy myself Apollonian. Just
the problem that I’d promised I’d never write a
love poem again, is the thing.



His Body, Appalachia - Silas House

When he lay like that
his legs made the shapes of steep
hills. His veins were the same
as rivers. Like leaves.
 
His groin was a shady
place with a warm springs.
In his armpits were orchards.
His belly was a wide
 
valley. If he rolled
over and arched his back
just so his spine became
a ridge and his rump
 
rounded hills. His heart
was a rocky cliff.

Melissa Newman, Puppet 01, 11"x14”, found collage materials, 2024

Issue II

Interviews:

Kari Gunter-Seymour
Crystal Wilkinson

Poetry:

KB Ballentine
Steve Brisendine
Les Brown
Shane Coppage
Seth Grindstaff
Kari Gunter-Seymour
Jeff Hardin
Maggie Rue Hess
Hannah Houser
Angel James
Micah Daniel McCrotty
William Rieppe Moore
Amanda Oaks
Emily Phillips
Anna Laura Reeve
J.T. Temchack
Patricia Thrushart
Adam Whipple

Prose:

Laura Dennis

Visual Art:

Lynne Marinelli Ghenov
​Rubens Ghenov

Less of Silence - Micah Daniel McCrotty

Hillsides guard a quietude without
silence, a reminder that living near
the ground eschews true blank noise.
Even as I search for asparagus
in March, the crickets and small
spider-mothers with their egg sacks
crinkle leaves with each passing,
a car passes down the road,
trains heave weight into the air.
Even the woodland’s peace knows
less of silence than of darkness.

That Time of Year - Anna Laura Reeve
Silky tufts billow
from a hundred cracked milkweed cases

Broomsedge, too, opens its mouths
saying such soft things just before frost

and doggedly after, till empty
Spiderlings cast silk lines on this day, so warm

Woolly aphids drift like milkweed fur,
blooming in the last heat before freeze

I don’t need a flint heart today
How strange this knife looks in my hand

I have to drop it to touch the silks
rolling on smooth air like hair underwater

How terrible if they were severed
How killing, to not be able to feel
​
them or the patter of aphids
drifting lazy against my skin

Lynne Marinelli Ghenov, Roots Loose,
vintage decor dry rub transfers and graphite on photo paper printed with ledger, 24"x45.25", 2023

Rubens Ghenov, File Under: Receptacle of a Flower,
​acrylic and graphite on linen, 20"x16", 2019

---

Issue I

Interviews:

Kimberly L. Becker
Frank X. Walker

Poetry:

Tohm Bakelas
Ace Boggess
Victor Clevenger 
John Dorsey 
Byron Hoot
Ashley Massey
Barb McCullough
Jay Orlando
Elaine Fowler Palencia
Greg Ramkawsky
Susan O'Dell Underwood
Karen J. Weyant

Prose:
​
Peter Faziani
Mitch James
John C. Mannone
Henry Yukevich

Visual Art:

Kelly Hider
Alice Stone-Collins

full moon and the sun shines - Tohm Bakelas 
 
new jersey is a frost bitten coffin
with miles and miles of pale clouds 
 
every winter the birds disappear, 
i’m left with crows that circle overhead 
 
toward the end of january
sparrows and titmice return,
just in time to shake off suicide 
 
at midnight, the flowers stop waving,
the dead pass through the living, 
and i sit on my porch and scratch 
at the black tarry sky with 
broken glass just to 
recall my name.
 

Sushi for Hillbillies - Susan O’Dell Underwood

It’s posh in East Tennessee tonight.
​
Thursday maki rolls are half-price
and all-American—tempura deep-fried
with cream cheese, smoked trout, and sauce that’s nothing
if not mayonnaise’s kissing cousin.
 
In line for the ladies room, these two are Pentecostal,
one with untrimmed lank and holy hair,
the other with a braid hanging nearly to the hem
of her acid-washed blue jean skirt.
She’s preaching over again what she preached
to some poor man who’s lost and bound for certain.
“I told him, if you sin, you’re going to hell.
There’s nothing to it besides that.”
 
It’s a thin vein of roe that calls us home,
reminds us of the small-mouth bass we split open
long ago on some rickety back porch table,
in view of the cow field and the river
rising up into fog against the mountains.
 
Now we dine on precious flesh we must practice
to pronounce: maguro, ikura, unagi, nori,
daikon some local boy juliennes
to earn eight bucks an hour.
 
This is the extravagance that tempted me
when I used to make-believe grown-up,
wishing my parents owned martini glasses,
praying someday I’d cross over
to that other, blissful side, sophisticated and redeemed.
Now we’ve all arrived, our coveting accomplished.
We’re proud our Southern portions are on equal terms
with tender bites they pinch in chopsticks
from Santa Barbara to Boston.
 
But we’re like koi, those giant gold fish transformed,
our copper scales grown crimson, larger
and outgrowing, bound forever round and round,
a swelling fatuous luxury
of being bigger than the day before,
in those same backwaters where
we were bred, still circling.

Kelly Hider, Trillium,
digitized Kodachrome slide, Photoshop, inkjet print, glitter flocking, 2019

Alice Stone-Collins, Special Order 120
48"x30", gouache on paper, cut and collaged, 2021