Issue 4
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Interviews:
Willie Carver, Jr. Marianne Worthington Poetry: Ariana Alvarado Robert Beveridge Patrick Bizzaro Jennifer Browne Willie Carver, Jr. Jessica Cory Christiana Doucette James Engelhardt Jasmine Flowers Michel Lee Garrett Joseph Geskey Ben Groner III Pauletta Hansel Maggie Rue Hess Jane Hicks Megan Hutchinson Leatha Kendrick Ariadne Alexis Macquarie Josh Mahler Mariam Mohammed Jay Orlando David B. Prather Aaron Pinnix Lee Stockdale Jamey Temple Clare Welsh Meg Whelan Marianne Worthington Alicia Wright Prose: Jessica Farquhar Catherine Niolet Sheree Shatsky Jon Udelson William Woolfitt Visual Art: Briena Harmening Jessie Van der Laan |
270-736-5241 - Jamey Temple
As a child, my pointer finger touched those numbers through the rotary’s hole-punched plastic disc, pulling each to the right and down to the metal stop, releasing, then finding the next number. Later as a teen, my fingers punched raised buttons into a rectangular phone grid, quick like a typist. As an adult, they pressed a smudged screen, numbers unbound in glass. Always the same: the wait before she picked up, that tiny um before her Hello. I don’t know my teenagers’ cell numbers by heart, but I still remember the sequence of numbers that once led to my grandmother—what a miraculous conversion of electrical energy to sound to hear her voice, telling me what she’d done that day, who’d been by, the recipe she’d clipped. Alexander Graham Bell once said if he’d understood electricity better, he would never have invented the telephone. Impossible, it seemed. What small miracle could ring her? Some days when I think of her, my chest aches and water rushes into my eyes as if I’d turned the hose to an empty pool. If I dial 270-736-5241, would her voice be the same, she in her night dress, readers at the tip of her nose, whole and alive, as sure as the dates scrawled on the back of photographs? If she ever picks up, wherever she is, this I’ll say, much like Bell’s first call: Come here. I need you. Kevin the Ghost - Jasmine Flowers
At the Knoxville German brewery, you meet a French ghost: Kevin. Most days, he haunts his fixer-upper; Mortgages aren’t only for mortals. Tonight, he floats through flights of beer. Your non-alcoholic hops don’t keep him from hearing your small talk. Why did you want to leave Europe? Why did you want to leave Europe? Both say secret socialist words. All the academics leave one by one. Numbers are exchanged, but messages in the void only come from your side. Many days later, you suggest a closer encounter over adult apple juice. He asks for a sip and has what you’re having. He’s not pleased with plastic. Glass gives a ghost more visibility. Both sit inside then outside then inside. The rain is being indecisive. A young woman offers him a towel. He accepts. Do you want to go back? Do you want to go back? Kevin’s house is calling. The rain is still deciding. The young woman offers you a ride. You decline. Ghosts are hard to hug, but the humidity holds your hand as you walk down the block. There’s no use flirting with death twice. |
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Briena Harmening, Just a cog in the machine Screenprint on antique quilt 52” X 31”, 2024
Issue 3
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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 2
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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
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
acrylic and graphite on linen, 20"x16", 2019
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As part of our mission to support the arts in Appalachia, we have made our first issue freely available for download. Enjoy the work of these talented writers and artists, and support them in their other artistic endeavors. If you are thinking of contributing to The Red Branch Review, please read this issue to familiarize yourself with the sort of work the editors are interested in.
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Issue 1
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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
digitized Kodachrome slide, Photoshop, inkjet print, glitter flocking, 2019
Alice Stone-Collins, Special Order 120
48"x30", gouache on paper, cut and collaged, 2021
48"x30", gouache on paper, cut and collaged, 2021