It’s tricky to pin down what, exactly, The Irresponsible Magician is, but that’s the fun of it – it defies genre. A work that weaves between essay and fiction, Rebekah Rutkoff’s collection from Semiotext(e) is exploratory and pushes beyond what we have often come to expect from our books – that extra readability that comes […]
Read moreNeyat Yohannes on A NT by Elijah Pearson
The Lyte Funkie Ones, better known as LFO, were responsible for the infamous 1999 classic, “Summer Girls.” A laundry list of non sequiturs strung together to create a single—allegedly about girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch—that topped the music charts with seemingly unrelated lines like “When you take a sip/you buzz like a hornet/Billy Shakespeare […]
Read moreBethany Mary on “Daughters of Monsters” by Melissa Goodrich
If you read Melissa Goodrich’s “Daughters of Monsters” very slowly, concentrating on each sentence, the book will change you. Each story will change you in the same but slightly different way, because each story has a theme of transformation. The opening story provides a lesson in impermanence with a shape-shifting Cinderella, adaptable but empty, every […]
Read moreVagabond City Interviews Lorenza Centi
Lorenza Centi is a artist whose work feels tumblr-ready in a way that means it knows our souls, it knows the poems typed into the notes on our iphones, it knows the hurt we embody in young skin and tired muscle. It is pink, and young, but no less serious; it is easily called edgy, […]
Read moreTHE HONEY BADGER by MOLLY HARRIS
You and Leroy are in the Moon’s parking lot. Leroy always says that if you go between the hours of 1 and 3 am, you won’t have to deal with the police department. Leroy was never wrong. The Moon is the highest point in St. Charles County. It is a 75-foot tall pile of grey […]
Read moreFAMILIA/FAMILY: ON FAMILY, LANGUAGE, AND WALLS by EUGENIA VELA
We are on the I-37 halfway between Austin and South Padre Island, Texas. We started our trip late today, the pink sky already changing to a deep orange on our rearview mirror. It’s my favorite time. When my husband and I drive together to Savannah, Nashville or the closest Texas town, we reach a point […]
Read moreTHE STAIRCASE AND WHAT IT DID by KATIE CLARK
i am watching you walk where your feet, smaller then, stumbled | muddied | blistered pre-bound, pre-ballet, danced differently. what if i knew where i was when you were still- child laying your legs’ down roadside, blonde hairs blooming
Read moreACE OF CUPS by ALINA PLESKOVA
In an alternate version of today, I corner each whim w/ a lullaby Hush—there’s nothing interesting about a resistible urge Instead, a card left face up so its forces leak, lap the hours
Read moreBLUE SHIRT MAN by URVI KUMBHAT
Raindrops gathered on my nose like a piercing. It was that just awake, yawning Delhi rain Leaving me not quite wet not quite dry I am quite honestly lost in these gullies Rain has that faraway look in my eye quality— It scoops out my soul and scatters it in the dirt. Swanky house Block […]
Read moreHOLY FEVER by KEITH J. CASTILLO
I had a dream where ashes rained down from the sky the night made so black it felt primal in the dream my father is saying ‘sacrifice.’
Read moreDUST BOWL by STEVEN CHUNG
I travel westward to reach earlier time zones. Cross a line and I am an hour younger, though my body doesn’t know it. I will extend my life this way: by crossing borders. My ancestors did the same because they knew that the only hometown is the skin,
Read moreENTOMOLOGY by IAN HILL
A blush of night-bloom. That exquisite last word. In the type of family that could afford To fall apart, a young girl grows More hands than things to cling to. She’s Just thumbnail innocence, motel white Wallpaper thighs and perforated silence In glitter flecked too-open hands.
Read moreSOFT by VICTORIA BUTLER
A boy is burning in my bed and as I watch his face disappear I curse the world for teaching me how to be everything but water.
Read moreCOGNITIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY (CBT) by SAMANTHA CHEH
I sometimes wonder how, when I am not paying attention, from behind me, like a cinematic ghost, you creep back into the creases of my skin, where the sister-parts of my arms meet, the length of them seeming to break in two. Stiff like joss sticks burning down to ash, propped up in bricks laid […]
Read moreTHE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH AND OTHER NICETIES” by ALISON GRAHAM
I was the fishes’ lungs, the earrings 1 on your daughter and polyphonic you were checking the time. – a hell of a way to go, uprooting leg hair 3 and the picnic plate tongued by flies. When the news called me exceptional they spoke into a microphone of me: the […]
Read moreLesley LeRoux on “Double Teenage” by Joni Murphy
There are always those early friendships that shake you. My first ‘best friend,’ as with most first friendships, came to me out of a mixture of proximity and shared interests but also a need to engage with friendship and connection in a deep, all-consuming way. Sleepovers were a must. We had to be around each […]
Read moreNeyat Yohannes on Surveys by Natasha Stagg
“One day, I was not famous, the next day, I was almost famous and the temptation to go wide with that and reject my past was too great.” (8) This is the story Natasha Stagg tells in Surveys with astounding exactness and understanding of that esoteric corner of the internet of which we all, at […]
Read moreIn which Vagabond City talks books, because #NationalBookLoversDay
rachel [4:21 PM] hey @channel – since it’s national book lovers day, can we do a thing to share everyone’s favorite books? chelsea [4:25 PM] It’s so hard to choose though! abby [4:27 PM] The Virgin Suicides, And the Mountains Echoed, andddd Pride & Prejudice. @cardle you’re right so hard to choose
Read moreBethany Mary on This Is A Clothespin by Lucas Scheelk
“This Is A Clothespin” is a work of art that provides an intersectional education in such a creative way, it is mindblowing to realize how much you are learning and enjoying it. Lucas Scheelk invokes the clothespin image to describe self-harm and the pinch of discomfort when the public is not a safe space, encouraging […]
Read more19149 by LAURA BRZYSKI
Mom read x-rays for a living, but made a life kissing the bones of a 1932 row home always under construction Dad repairing with arthritic hands from the ground up
Read moreEDITORS on WATER
Prompt: 100 words on water. Give it a shot and tag us on Tumblr, Instagram, or Twitter & we’ll show you some love! Bright summer nails look like bits of coral floating through the water, I think, as my hand grazes the lake. I wipe five coral fingers on my melon shirt. Solo wears orange […]
Read moreDISAPPEARING IN BEACON HILL by cj west
You are a hitchhiker’s brainwash, a negative gasmask, a pair of waiting hands vacant everywhere You are a hoarder of ridges, a concave risk, heartsick and craving bludgeon exchange in a room of soundless piano keys, pushed in. Lonely carnivore, with a dirty forehead a mouth of murder. You beautiful handsaw, ripping my roots to […]
Read moreBODY SAY WHAT IT FEELS LIKE by cj west
being touched in a charged body by accident bounces bones enough to shed dead skinand leave flesh behind to finagle steady breath without a frame of mind barely attached to a torso danglingout of the car window even if hanging on means swallowing the one-winged mosquitos or pounding a steak until the vesselsrun dry and deformed or become […]
Read moreSPLATTER by cj west
—– cj west is a 20 yr old junior at Emerson College, where they created a major in Performance Poetry. They don’t care what your parents think of her tattoos. Their favorite things are: cats, bread, and women. Two they’re allergic to, one is out to get them. If they can’t change the world they […]
Read moreMISDIAL TONE by cj west
hi you might like the way the moon looks will you go outside and see for yourself put the phone down first open the door then close it take however long you need to make up your mind if you don’t come back before time runs out i won’t blame you doesn’t it look like […]
Read moreVagabond City Interviews Emma Ensley
In a word, Emma Ensley’s work is magical. It sparkles and lives and mixes mediums in a way that complicates each piece. As soon as we saw it, we were moved to send a rambling email about how stunning stunning stunning it was, and would she be interested in being featured? A total sweetheart, Emma […]
Read moreCOVET by LAUREN MILICI
you kept my amethyst in your jacket / so I put a new piece of citrine in your palm / we sit at the bar & talk about cemeteries / tell me about your father again / talk about New York / that one time you were onstage dripping with blood & your best friend […]
Read moreQUEER (IN RETROSPECT) by AUDREY T. CARROL
15 and she invited me to sleep over at her place minimal adult supervision hours one and two dedicated to mocking a children’s movie because we were not children she let me test drive her violin, first string instrument I ever touched, told me my instinct by way of heritage
Read moreREPLACING THE MONUMENT #19 by DARREN DEMAREE
We used to be able to collect the dust, to make whole families out of the dust & though those families were never able to fit a ship inside of the bottle, they could could give themselves wholly to the land that made them. The hard times took
Read moreFOR ITS BITS by MADDY KEITH
6 “I like it for its bits,” she prefaced. She sent me Little Expressionless Animals by David Foster Wallace. It was as if she were trying to kill me. She’d gone through the trouble of creating a PDF I could print because she knew how I felt about holding words in my hands in order […]
Read moreTHE VAGABOND TAPES: California
Inspired by Lily Cigale’s poem published in the Winter 2014 issue of Vagabond City. “remember riding bikes at night in northern california remember kissing on various couches but never alone. remember our almost-summer almost-romance”
Read moreLesley LeRoux on “Her Paraphernalia” by Margaret Christakos
Do you remember the way your mother would see you off to school in the morning? Did she sit with you for breakfast, or was she busy in her room, getting ready for the workday? Maybe her own mother used to sit with her for breakfast in the morning, and that’s what’s become routine, along […]
Read moreBethany Mary on “Away Status” by Shy Watson
“Away Status” by Shy Watson is a poetry collection that will lead you away from your comfort zone and straight into something so alarmingly honest, you will want to both close the book and keep turning pages. It is hard and easy to read the words of someone who tells the dark secrets that no […]
Read moreVagabond City Interviews Witch Craft Mag
Witch Craft is a print magazine. They publish twice a year on the equinoxes and publish other tidbits on their blog regularly. They also run Sad Spell Press, where they publish a chapbook series known as Spellbooks and other magic as they find it. VAGABOND CITY: You say that your idea of Witch Craft is […]
Read moreRachel Charlene Lewis on “all girls will not feel pretty at some point” by Elizabeth Tsung
The moment I learned of Elizabeth Tsung’s book, I reached out to her, practically begging to read it. As a girl who spent a good chunk of time and a number of points not feeling pretty, the title called to me immediately. But the book itself, beyond the title, continues to call to me even […]
Read more18 EL VIOLONCELLO by SARAH FRANCES MORAN
I touched raw fingers to the strings. Felt how gasping for air after being hooked, feels. I’m so long out of water. Somewhere in the background Momma is warning, Do not touch… pero, it’s so shiny, so shiny.
Read moreVagabond City Interviews Featured Artist Jaexhin
We were scrolling through Instagram one afternoon and being distracted from everything we’re supposed to do as ~millennials~ in the workforce—and then we came across Jaexhin. The first thing that grabbed us about Jaexhin’s work was the color. It was bold, color blocked at times, and the lines were sharp, with shadows creating major play […]
Read moreSIX WORDS AT THE OLD LOCK AND DAM NO. 27 by ELIZABETH A. DAVIDSON
(I sit on the edge of a bench facing an overgrown field that has been infiltrated by daylilies. Orange heads bobbing above tall weeds and lush grass. Cleverly disguised snipers waiting in trenches. They call them the Ditch Lilly. An old man sits on the bench next to me. Nods his head. Crosses his legs. […]
Read moreNO MANUAL FOR THE QUEER GIRL by DORA LEVY
my dear [ ], a.c. said that fragments are good things to inhabit, so i love you?/ i don’t know what this feeling is, because the last time i had a crush, i wrote songs for someone else in a way of disguising who it was for. (my first published work is really for you.) […]
Read moreTHE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH by ALLIE LONG
When you run your hands across my hips, I suddenly forget it is not a sin to have a body. Each point of contact turns my white skin dingy – something like a tea stain.
Read moreGATHER AROUND OBSESSION by JESSIE JANESHEK
the wooden bridge stretching over black cacti. Remember calves breaking as fast as you can. What do you tell your body paraded? That you’re not satisfied until you’re sick in the dark
Read moreGAS STATION ENTOMOLOGY FOR A DRAGON FLY by EVANA KAELYN BODIKER
Off Interstate-77, she lies on the pavement: belly up, bulging eyes to the exhaust-filled, periwinkle evening sky. This is her deathbed, a ground covered in a ROYGBIV of gum, pressed permanently into the sidewalk by the footfalls of kids on their way back to their magic carpets that take them safely to Disney World. These […]
Read morePICK ME UP by KAYLI SCHOLZ
These knees, will be the pick-me-up when you fall on them. Knees, that you fell upon, crabby and rude in your A,B,C baby swing. You marveled at your mother in her cocktail gown, the shape of her shoes out of your reach. You lay there like a splinter until she picked you up. On your knees, struggling to see. Hide-and-seek […]
Read moreQUESTION FOR A HUMAN by TERRY ABRAHAMS
how is it to carry a weight greater even than the ocean and still float
Read moreAURELIANO by KAYLA EASON
The snow melt tastes of last November’s silent lightening, the blue air of Sierras. This part of California sees a constellation’s thrusted
Read moreBURNING ANIMALS by ELIZABETH BREDER
Tied up in bedsheets, drooling kerosene— This slump is a slow burning fire. Death by boredom or starvation, or By the constriction of your own hands Around the sprig of your throat. Will you stumble, sleepwalking From the burning room or paint a portrait In ash on the mattress? I get up to put a […]
Read moreCRY WOLF by M. MILLER
judge, let it be known, it is so rare a girl cries wolf. the trial is so familiar, so familiar, so familiar (i am so tired) i could script it. ‘promising future’ and ‘boy of strong character’ and ‘first-time offence’. they report his swim times whilst she drowns
Read moreNeyat Yohannes on “Even This Page Is White” by Vivek Shraya
Born in Edmonton, but based in #the6, Vivek Shraya is a an artist whose works span across the mediums of music, film, and writing. She’s put out ten albums, four short films, and three books. An accolade queen, Vivek is a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for her books God Loves Hair, She of the […]
Read moreI WILL NOT BE RETURNING TO CHESTERFIELD MALL by ALLISON DARCY
No, I cannot go back there. It is June, and so, there will be no Christmas lights, or bows on the carousel. And it is late, so, it will be too crowded for me to hear the piano that reverberates on the white tile. That is what I think of: mornings before camp, when I […]
Read moreAFTER THE DOWNPOUR by ELIZABETH A. DAVIDSON
You knew it would be someone, it always is. Before you try and count the times the Ohio River has seeped into your neighbors houses. Before you hear the push brooms hit pavement with a resounding crack. You, standing inside your dry house, just out of floods reach, staring at origami swans hanging in the […]
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