—Business Insider headline, January 13, 2017

so that
in a field

in the future
in the supposition

of some tent-
ative peace

one can
follow a loose

spray of tulips
or orange

cornflower
or the yellow

suns of
common

daisies’ flung
faces

in from arcs
they gather

in intensity
toward

a single
spot

they get
so thick

there is
no way to

stand there
without

crushing some
when one

stops thinking
to

savor
the scent

something
springish

ambiently hot
what may

or may not
incite

a comparable
gathering

of thought
like cloth

bunching
in a hand

extended to-
ward something

it is unable to
blot

the flowers
speak not

of sustenance
but

the sustained
ma-

king
of the lost

*

Charlie Clark studied poetry at the University of Maryland. His work has appeared in The New England Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, Threepenny Review, West Branch, and other journals. A 2019 NEA fellow and recipient of scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, he is the author of The Newest Employee of the Museum of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2020). He lives in Austin, TX. 

My lips are pink, like a piece of meat, I’m smoothing my face with the back of my hand, it’s so smooth it’s actually suspicious.  Not hiding anything, not at all, what if we only know what isn’t hidden?  Not thinking come and get me, there isn’t any point—everybody knows you’re not responsible for what you’re not even aware of, aren’t you?  It’s true we often know more than we’re willing to admit, we know when we would have, there’s no reason to pretend it’s suspicious when it actually is.  When I touch my lips I’m  counting the lines on my lips, letting my lips relax, I think they’re sweeter, and also softer.  Some people are suspicious of softness, but I like to press my lips in order to soften them, rubbing on some colored gloss to remind myself there’s nothing wrong with me.  Bowing my head to look more closely:  I’m often suspicious of my intentions, I mean I don’t intend to, but I don’t intend not to, intention isn’t even an activity.  If it’s not suspicious is it even interesting?  When I feel suspicious I hold myself in, turning to the side until I’m just a sliver like the interior of a silhouette, it’s hardly worth mentioning—sometimes I think this isn’t who I am, as if it’s somebody else who’s suspicious, isn’t it?  When it’s late I turn on the lights like William James to see what the darkness looks like, pulling apart my lips and speaking out of the corner of my mouth, I’m not one of those people who’s looking for a better offer.

*

Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.  He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, FIELD, New World, Raritan, and other magazines. 

I’m not even getting up, not looking up or lifting up my head, or turning my head, there isn’t time.  Not even opening my eyes—as long as your eyes are closed you’re not even thinking about what you’re going to see or what you need to do about it, not turning on the light to see what you’re not looking at, or getting up to look at something, I mean it’s not a museum.  Not waiting for anything:  reluctance is a waste of time, as is impatience, run and stop, run and stop.  Right now I’m lying down on the floor, pushing up my hair and resting my face on the ground as if I’m punishing myself before anybody else gets around to it, or before anything goes wrong, it saves time later on.  Sometimes I need to hurry and then I need to wait, hurry up and wait—I don’t know if it’s a good idea, what if it’s your only idea?  Isn’t everything the opposite of its opposite?  Not holding my breath or filtering anything out, there isn’t time.  Of course, it’s important to use all the time you have, it’s the best use of your time, not even hesitating, when you hesitate people think you don’t care or you’re hiding something—hiding something you don’t care about.  I mean it takes time just to move from one room to the next, like a kind of decompression, I’m not thinking if it happens or if it doesn’t happen, I don’t even have time.  I’d actually like to speed up, I’m trying to speed up, but it takes too much time.  Everybody’s caseload is increasing, largely because there are more cases, I’m picking things up, picking up where the others leave off:  when I need more time I’m not even sure where it’s coming from.

*

Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.  He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, FIELD, New World, Raritan, and other magazines. 

Here in the Heartland, El Dorado is a Cadillac,
Cadillac is to blame for everything that has ever happened
in Detroit, and Detroit doesn’t like to think
about what an economy is for, and in this way
Detroit has a lot in common with the Theban Legion,
principled, uncalibrated, preoccupied
with something other than taxes or the proper position
for a pizza stone, whether enthusiasm survives
ambition, or what I should do with my endless supply
of anytime minutes, whether I can revoke my love
for friends with terminal interests or remember what I wanted
to say here about Charles Ives’ bad, bad heart.

(The sorry verities, ah, the sorry, sorry verities.
But “quotations are,” how to say, “fatal to letters.”)

*

Benjamin Paloff‘s books include the poetry collections And His Orchestra (2015) and The Politics (2011), both from Carnegie Mellon. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Conduit, New American Writing, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, and others. Twice a fellow of the NEA, he is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Michigan.

I am hopping like a crow hopping
like a child for candy.

I am sustaining
utterly unromantic injuries
in, and entirely through
neglect in the operation of,
a true luxury
automobile.

I am an interval:
the orca turns gorily on its trainer
just moments after
it has finally understood
what “trainer” means.

All government is provisional,
and what’s the difference?
If we just end up back at politics?

If I’m whittling myself down
and have a ways left to go?

*

Benjamin Paloff‘s books include the poetry collections And His Orchestra (2015) and The Politics (2011), both from Carnegie Mellon. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Conduit, New American Writing, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, and others. Twice a fellow of the NEA, he is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Michigan.

***

Bethany Yates (she/them) is a queer social worker who utilizes intersectional feminism and art in her practice with clients who experience childhood trauma and societal marginalization. While she does not identify as an artist, she utilizes art to process the world around her and to cultivate healing within herself. 

I was a bad child     
They told me so

and so it was   I stole
the candy bar
from Teacher’s desk                                                          

I etched   the bully’s
initials      into the new paint    
I fired the rifle   
****************inside     I rolled    

a boulder         onto the tracks     
I hucked rocks at highway drivers    
each time I cursed       an angel    

lost its wings so           I cursed and cursed

********and took the carving knife

********to my arm  

jesus rode by   on his high cross _{­­­­­­­}
********and slapped me   
********on the other cheek

****he had holes
****************in his hands

****************to reduce wind resistance

********Teacher took the broomstick    
to my knees        during mass    I ate the flesh                       

****************and swallowed   
********************************blood               it burned

my tongue          I wanted to flush

the bad out   I downed           
************************the dish of holy water
in which the Parishioners      dipped their fingers

********and came down   with the flu
********************************I wanted someone

********to see me         so I ran    

********around the classroom
************************during math and pushed     

************************everyone’s books

off the desks               

****************Teacher locked me

************************in the supply closet  

**************************************** with a life-sized model

of a man’s   

********skeleton and a paper
************************cutter with a blade 

************************big as my arm     

****************************************slices                of blue fell

****************************************through the fan blades   

************************in the ceiling vent   
********************************I could hear    the Other Children  

****************laughing across

************************the playground      I told god     

********************************************************to go fuck himself

I dared him     

************************to kill me I begged him     

************************************************to kill me

****************on the football field  

****************************************in front of the Other Boys    that

 

********would show them        

 

************************I lay     in the driveway and begged 

 

satan to take me                     

 

****************************************after I killed     

 

god my grandmother       
********************************died        I couldn’t cry

 

at the funeral because   

I was a bad child
They told me

 

********so it was     

************************I wore the wrong

 

********************************shirt to school            

 

********************************************************I wore the shirt with  

 

********flowing
********************************sleeves that felt  

 

************************************************like two                       classy
***********************************************************************black

 

************************dinner dresses     so

 

************************They made me change           

********************************************************before class

******************************** I smoked a joint   

 

behind the dumpster                                       the classroom       

 

****************************************************************went liquid    

 

************************I had to excuse myself                       I ran     

 

************************to the boys’ room to puke     I carved

 

an anarchy symbol        into my calf

********************************and dressed it     with black ink

I sold               crystal meth

         

******** to the Rich Kids       at Youth Group they    

 

took turns snorting it               

****************off their bibles       in the church basement 

   

I stared at the sky        for a long time      I fell  

 

********asleep in the grass

 

********I etched my new    name  into

the park bench     I lit the park

             

********restroom     on fire   The Cops

 

****************drove around

 

****************with spotlights          my Parents   

 

 

********wanted me home      I couldn’t go

 

 

home   I needed       to keep

 

 

Myself   separate          

 

****************somehow

 

I was a bad child

***

Derek Annis is the author of Neighborhood of Gray Houses (Lost Horse Press), the associate director of Willow Springs Books, and the manager of Lynx House Press’ Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry. Their poems have appeared in The Account, Colorado Review, Epiphany, The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review Online, Poet Lore, Spillway, and Third Coast, among others. 

A sign,

mark,

language, token,

an omen,

 portent,

     (constell

 -ation, grave—

 how it’s said,

  might come down to)

significant,

   or Sanskrit: to see,

 look, he meditates.

 

*

 

A pity no one can truly trace

how things rhyme,
***************that is, get along 

***************in symmetry or proportion,

 move or flow—it depends (I guess)

                        on providence,

fortune or grace—though

                        the fact that things can, and do,

seems to me a mystery

                                                meant for multitudes.

 

                                    *

 

In Hebrew a sign’s a siman,

or omen

of apple, pomegranate,

carrot, honey, beetroot

we ingest to usher in the new,

hoping to remember

words are multiple,
multi-pull—in meaning,

never to be

just one,

to take in, to become

 

*

 

Human:
********(featherless planti-

grade biped mammal)
********which is to suffer (Cf.

 allow to occur,
********continue, permit, tolerate,

fail to prevent or suppress)
********such that sufferer is he,

or she, on either side
********of that equation of

allowing. Suffering:
********a painful condition,

agreed upon.

 

                                    *

 

Though experts are divided 
************************as to victim’s origins.

Some suggest sacrifice

(Arabic: adĥa)
****************but it also bears

resemblance  to vicis (turn,
occasion). Con-

nected perhaps by viscous

bodily fluids,

vicious droplets,

what happens to you happens, too,

to me (powers-that-be                      

                                    dislike this fact                                               

                                                            of biology). . .

 

*

 

Coming down, perhaps, to this:

no one’s ever
********just one 

but rather,

in exchange with, vicarious

knobs and branches

along paths where

people (populonia, lit.: she who protects
****************against devastation)

link up

at the edges, scent to scent,

                                    body to body.

 

*

 

And naturally, mind to

mind— which meant
(perhaps archaically)

loving memory,

 or significance, import.

 Someone long ago thought:

                                    she who protects against devastation

                                    and thought:

                                                      people.

I’ve wanted to share

the source of a certain despair

but nothing stays

                                                            in place. Somehow, the mind

is where we love

what’s gone. Roots (underground

 part of a plant) turn to trunks.

                                                A word meaning body has

replaced life in certain

tongues. Wherever

we look, the wonder of seeing—

 to behold in the imagination or a dream—

 in a word, what we mean.

 

Cf. Online Etymology Dictionary https://www.etymonline.com/, from which many of the definitions were paraphrased or quoted.

***

Annie Kantar’s poems and translations of poetry have appeared in The American Literary Review, Barrow Street, Bennington Review, Birmingham Review, Cincinnati Review, Entropy, Gulf Coast, Literary Imagination, Poetry Daily, Poetry International, Rattle, Smartish Pace, Tikkun, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. Her translation from the Hebrew of With This Night, the final collection of poetry that Leah Goldberg published during her lifetime, was published by University of Texas Press and  shortlisted for the ALTA Translation Prize. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and Fulbright Scholarship, she has recently completed a literary translation of the Book of Job, for which she was commissioned by Koren Publishers. 

“Aussi ai-je enfermé sous ma langue un pays,
gardé comme une hostie”

                                                  Nadia Tuéni

“Tell me about your country” – she commanded,

as if I can open a page inside the cage

of an inner atlas, and pinpoint a mountain peak

spread over the valley, inside a museum of forgetting,

an old taxidermy shop after the taxidermist

died, forsaking a prehistoric bird with melted

wings on the speckled floor.

A glade ambles vertically, feebly holding

the obdurate Mount Lebanon with the acquiescent

Anti-Lebanon from plunging into the abyss.

Fractal images, portents of sirocco storms,

loom on the rocks of Byblos, scour the shoreline,

where old fishermen mend their shredded nets

with letters of the alphabet.

Ancient shores beckon rivers that feed them with invisible

silt, secret alluvium, steep-sided gorges, choruses of

vagarious reefs, seracs scraping adrift on submerged

limestone, spurs across fjords gazing at a waxed moon.

Nothing is left for us but salt marks on the membranes

of an earth we treaded, a land with no borders, unfinished like

the best poems, leaving us opened, a murex on a rock.

***

Donia G. Mounsef grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. She is a Canadian-Lebanese poet, playwright and dramaturge. She splits her time on either side of the Canadian Shield, between Toronto and Edmonton where she teaches theatre and poetry at the University of Alberta. She is the author of a poetry collection: “Plimsoll Lines” (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2018), and a chapbook: “Slant of Arils,” (Damaged Goods Press, 2015). Her writing has been published and anthologized in print and online in Pacific Review, The Harpoon Review, Rabid Oak, La Vague Journal, Habitat Literary Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly, Bluestem, Yes Poetry, Gutter Eloquence, Poetry Quarterly, Lavender Review, Linden Avenue, Bookends Review, Gravel Magazine, Skin 2 Skin, Iris Brown, Reverie’s Rage Anthology, 40 Below Anthology, etc. Her performance poetry and plays have been performed on stages in Toronto, Avignon, Montréal, Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, and New Haven.

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