BRAYER
From four fields down this morning, the Walkers’ mule
is braying as if he’s had enough, as if he’ll kick off
the human arms bringing his burden, as if he’ll have
no more of those days he works straight through.
Featuring the winner of the Amon Liner Poetry Prize, Madeleine Poole’s “Pile of Maggots,” an Editor’s Note by Terry L. Kennedy, and new fiction, flash, and poetry from Allison Field Bell, Robert Carr, Stacie Cassarino, Jackie Chicalese, James Ciano, Sasha Debevec-McKenney, Corinne Dekkers, Chard deNiord, Gardner Dorton, Robert Evory, Arielle Hebert, John Hoppenthaler, Amanda K Horn, Nalea J. Ko, Beth Konkoski, AG Latham, Jeffrey H. MacLachlan, Michael Meyerhofer, Ania Mroczek, Mike Nees, John A. Nieves, Bruce Parsons, Chelsea Querner, Rachel Richardson, Robert Stone, Elizabeth Sylvia, Lloyd Wallace, Alice White, and Mimi Yang.
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From four fields down this morning, the Walkers’ mule
is braying as if he’s had enough, as if he’ll kick off
the human arms bringing his burden, as if he’ll have
no more of those days he works straight through.
In the bad winter of 1994, Minerva awoke at three in the morning during the fourth blizzard and pulled her suitcase out from under my bed. Your bed is what she called it even though we’d been sharing it for six months—longer than Minerva had been with anyone else exclusively. She slept around. Not in a sexual way, but in a let-me-hold-you-while-you-cry sort of way. She was the village witch that tended to the village idiots. Her business card said Minerva Lamplighter: Professional Spooner. Soothsayer. Doomslayer. She’d been in the bed of most every local man between the ages of twenty-five and seventy-five, curled up behind them, saying: “Now, now. There, there. Mommy’s here. Tell your troubles to Mama.” She didn’t like her job. She wanted to be a carpenter. But the Universe had other plans for her.
Read More »Featuring the Robert Watson Literary Prize winners, Luciana Arbus-Scandiffio’s “Have You Been to the Palisades” for poetry and Jordan Brown’s “Jenny Lynn & Buddy” for fiction, as well as work from Ian Cappelli, Justin Jude Carroll, Camille Carter, Mark Cox, Hannah Craig, Emma DePanise, David Dixon, Gregory Fraser, Mike Good, Bill Hollands, James Jabar, Mimi Manyin, Rose McLarney, Nicholas Molbert, J.S. Nunn, Phoebe Peter Oathout, Dan O’Brien, Lucas Daniel Peters, Ian Power-Luetscher, Dustin Lee Rutledge, Cameron Sanders, M.E. Silverman, Gabriel Spera, and Candace Walsh.
PurchaseFeaturing the Amon Liner Poetry Prize winner, Dom Witten’s “Broken Showerhead,” and an Editor’s Note by Terry L. Kennedy, as well as new work from Todd Davis, Chris Edmonds, Larry Flynn, Cynthia Gunadi, Matt Hart, AE Hines, A. Van Jordan, Sarah MacKenzie, Louise Marburg, Chris Mattingly, Aidan O’Brien, Skyler Osborne, Suphil Lee Park, Carol M. Quinn, Madison Rahner, Sarah Elaine Smith, Caitlin Rae Taylor, Abby Wolpert, and Dean Young, with a folio of Kelly Cherry’s work. This issue is dedicated to Kelly Cherry (1940-2022), Jeff Towne (1929-2022), and Dean Young (1955-2022).
PurchaseFeaturing the Robert Watson Literary Prize-winning story, Molly Guinn Bradley’s “The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena,” and Prize-winning poem, L.A. Johnson’s “Theory When a Western Light Goes Out,” along with new work by Nicole Adabunu, Alyx Chandler, Emily Cinquemani, Kevin McWilliams Coates, Natalia Conte, Julia Edwards, Jeremy Halinen, Kanza Javed, Peter Kent, Robert Wood Lynn, Matt W. Miller, Jed Myers, Ellen Rhudy, K.R. Segriff, Akshay Shrivastava, Melissa Studdard, Clancy Tripp, and Emily Herring Wilson.
PurchaseThe journal’s inaugural issue featured work from students in the first years of the MFA Writing Program at Greensboro, including Kelly Cherry, Harry Humes, Thomas W. Molyneux, and Angela Davis. Students and faculty members printed the issue in the campus duplicating shop, then collated it by hand. Greensboro painter Betty Watson designed the logo that is still in use today.
View » Read selected highlights from previous issues