Inspired by Atreyee Gupta’s essay published in ISSUE 08. “At first all I see are the giant oaks and stately spruces, the way the manzanita branches distort themselves while the birches guard over this viridescent empery. They are a gleeful bunch of misfits, cradling each other’s roots, vying for the slightest glimpse of light, growing, […]
Read moreNeyat Yohannes on “I’m Very Into You” by Kathy Acker and McKenzie Wark
Recently, Carrie Brownstein—actor, comedian, author, and one-third of Riot grrrl band, Sleater-Kinney—posted a snap to Instagram showcasing her copy of I’m very into you laying atop a red background sans any commentary. It’s no wonder that Brownstein didn’t include any words with her picture because this intimate book has a way of rendering the reader […]
Read moreLesley LeRoux on “The Filaments of Heather” by Heather Goodrich
This isn’t the domestic sphere you know, the one you’re told about. This is a deconstruction, a dismantling, a tearing apart. This is a doing away with expectations – a refusal of the woman’s “role.” In The Filaments of Heather, author Heather Goodrich’s chapbook from Sad Spell Press, we find a woman ridding herself of […]
Read moreVagabond City Interviews Do Nguyen Mai
DO NGUYEN MAI, name written family name to first, is a first-generation Vietnamese-American poet and musician residing in the Los Angeles Area in the United States. In her free time, Mai can often be found researching Southeast Asian history and teaching Vietnamese to young children. Mai is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Rambutan Literary, […]
Read moreBethany Mary on “The Female Gaze Is Cool” by Alexandra Wuest
Alexandra Wuest’s chapbook “The Female Gaze is Cool” advocates for the elimination of tunnel vision, for a new perspective that shouldn’t be so new. The female gaze is so often an internalized male gaze, a reflection of how other men (and women) see women. But the female gaze should be its own gaze, and these […]
Read moreNeyat Yohannes on “Hair,” by Amy Narneeloop
“I have curly HAIR now” is a statement repeated on several occasions both as a simple description and eventually as a triumph in the titular section of Amy Narneeloop’s Hair. In this chapbook that serves as the index to Narneeloop’s ever-evolving parts, the award-winning, genre-bending writer documents her relationship to her body with matter-of-fact language […]
Read moreEDITORS on EGGS
This is an apology. I’ve been throwing my hair over my shoulders for too long. Sometimes, I remember how to be still. I’ve tried, but I don’t know how to talk about her. Last summer, my nails were short and I spoke to people about who she was. The backyard of my parent’s home and […]
Read moreHOOFBEATS by FISAYO ADEYEYE
It’s the talons stabbed and spread through the nervous system that keep the mouse twitching and give it the performance of life. A boy reads the forest floor: A bouquet. A pitying. He reads the horizon: an unkindness.
Read moreBANANAS by CORY ASHLEY
GOOD HAIR by JASMINE COMBS
Parts of me are burning in dad’s ashtray. Tuffs of coiled hair engulfed in flame. Clink of hot-comb against stove. Crackle of fire against pomade. The house is smoky with the burning of my hair the flattening into submission the taming of the wild black the Saturday ritual.
Read moreENBY by CORY ASHLEY
SEE ME by CORY ASHLEY
ATHEIST by MICHAEL COUNTER
he was my religion where no god could exist laid slain in his spirit each time his hands pray upon me words baptized in tongues tithed offered in remembrance of we
Read moreMY MOTHER by KATHLEEN RADIGAN
Met my father in summer at some wedding. She won’t say if they kissed or felt clairvoyant twinges during Vows.
Read moreHOW IT FEELS TO BE A GAY BOY by ERIC CLINE
insert a metaphor about paper cranes, their wings open wide as their creases can go before ripping and pulp beaks breach the earth.
Read moreLETTER TO MARYAM by MILLIE GUILLE
I was staring at a map when the men came, measuring the width of Calcutta with a thumb as they told me to stand and led me away. The blindfold smelt of cardamom and I remembered my mother’s shoe-size and the warmth of her body […]
Read moreBORROWERS by KATHLEEN RADIGAN
Since my mother lives inside me, I bake a lemon cake and frost it with a blunt knife. In weeks of frizz and fat rattles I knew her as my Other. We’re two people, she said. Start hardening. In autumn she taught me to use a shower. Hot bullets over her breasts. Our bathing suits […]
Read moreDISSOCIATION AS TIME TRAVEL by FISAYO ADEYEYE
Rolling coins & cat eye marbles An excess of gold Do not be afraid: of how the body lingers after light, how your teeth ache in the cold The soft burn of your muscles pulling away from one another The deck loses suspension & our knuckles their suspense The tissue paper. Your pupil’s blood- orange […]
Read moreFROM THE TREE by MJ SANTIAGO
When will I be rich enough to visit Mexico again? Maybe I should have stayed poor so I wouldn’t have to hear about your trip to India between your second and third years of college and how good the mangoes were I would rather claw my own ear drums out than hear you say I […]
Read moreHOMEWARD by MJ SANTIAGO
The cat disappeared for two weeks and came back with one less ear: I was the cat. When someone bumps into me on the subway I want to yell, I came from the swamp, and emerged cleanly, ready with an extra row of teeth.
Read moreBIRTHRIGHTS by KYRA WOLFF
In Minnesota during the silver season she married a frozen swimming pool masquerading as a Great Lake.
Read morePRETAS by HALEY CLAPP
Years and years and you– my shrivel-handed, my ever-praying buddha monk, seek samma ditthi, tasked with pulling splinters from a mother’s memories.
Read moreFEATURED ARTIST: JO YEH
When we saw Jo Yeh‘s work in Paper Darts, we knew we had to have her. Her artwork is stunning, the imagery fresh and a spin away from collage as the unexpected is linked and bound to produce bright, undeniable beauty. The women in her work are living their lives and happen to be captured […]
Read moreLesley LeRoux on “Shadow Songs,” by Christopher Morgan
There are typically two things I like to do after reading a book of poetry for the first time, especially when it’s for a review. First, I come up with a first-impression word cloud – it may be only one word or a few, but it’s meant to sum up the general feeling I have […]
Read moreBethany Mary on “Eating Alone at Chipotle” by Carmen E. Brady
If you are searching for the perfect book to read while eating alone at Chipotle, I would recommend Carmen E. Brady’s “Eating Alone at Chipotle.” One person even tweeted at Brady @therealcbrad to admit to the tragicomedy of reading it while eating alone and spilling food all over the pages. You can cry from spices […]
Read moreRachel Charlene Lewis on “I WANTED TO BE THE KNIFE” by Sara Sutterlin
Sara Sutterlin’s I WANTED TO BE THE KNIFE is an escape from pretentious, bullshit dude poems. If anything, it is the answer to these poems. It gives us a look at cum from the other perspective. What does it mean to be spewed upon instead of doing the spewing? This sounds legit disgusting, and I […]
Read moreNeyat Yohannes on “(MORE THAN) DUST.” by Jamie Oliveira
Jamie Oliveira is a traveling visual artist and writer. She is also an activist for women’s healing, which is beautifully apparent in her work. Her latest project, (more than) dust. is a powerful photo book that serves as a platform for sufferers of emotional abuse. The book came into fruition thanks to funding from a […]
Read moreMY KENTUCKY/SNAKE SEARCHER by CM KEEHL
I was all need you were out dog licking wound & ok/ so I’m destroyer all pressure pace move right through mouth & more do you swoon over Camus or coke & cum turn home melted ponder under slither fingers fighting fodder what kind of blood am I to you with war zipping hard underneath
Read moreBLOOM by KRISTIN CHANG
I touch myself like a wound & my skin spits up its color like blood. It’s beautiful to feel darkness unattended in the body. To love the backs of our hands, to forget what will end us. I bruise the underside of my tongue
Read moreATROPA BELLADONNA by SYDNEY MCNEILL
black leather boots kick fine soil down from a cliff-side perch – disperses into an ill-coloured cloud, the way my brain feels.
Read moreBLOOM by ABBY CARON
Feminism is a really big part of who I am, so I love to incorporate that into my work by making it very much based on strong women. Art and creativity are the most important parts of my life, and I think that more emphasis on the arts is needed across the world and in […]
Read moreNOW GO AND LOVE SOME MORE by COCO WILDER
They tasted open to me. Her fingers tasted open as chopped lemons; me squeezing the juice into the cuts until she says stop, it’s okay. Fill me with you instead. And I say, awesome, I’m glad you’ve agreed. Time for me. Then all the smoke blows: I every destination of direction.
Read moreGROWTH by ABBY CARON
I’m constantly being inspired by color and nature. I love how certain colors interact with each other to create for some really interesting effects visually, and I think that color is the single biggest part in my work. If the colors don’t work, then I don’t feel that my art works at all. There’s not […]
Read moreIN THE DEAD OF SPRING by KRISTIN CHANG
A white boy holds his hand like a gun. The earth bleeds out its rivers, I fist a flower. Don’t let them say genesis. Don’t let them say born again. Show me a hunger that names itself and I’ll show you my mouth,
Read moreBETWEEN CULTURE AND AMERICA by FRANKIE CONCEPCION
My friend Phoebe is the first person I ever heard say the word ‘feminist’ in real life. “You know,” she had said, “I think the feminists really ruined it for us women.” It was the first time I had encountered the word outside a YouTube video, or a Tumblr post—my peepholes into American culture in […]
Read moreOKAY, YOU ARE ART by SAMANTHA PEREZ
We met in class. I sat next to her and rested a forearm on the desk, watching her draw a pair of eyes. She looked up. “Can I draw yours?” I wore my hair pulled back into a ponytail, a t-shirt with sleeves that went to my elbows and a bare face; Mallory had black […]
Read moreSLIGHTLY AHEAD OF ITS TIME by SARA ADAMS
FINAL SPRING by SARA ADAMS
ANXIOUS DIVA by HANNAH KUCHARZAK
Anxious Diva puts me up for ransom. I ask her why I can’t feel my body. She just wanted to smell the cake up close. Who can blame her? Herself orbitless, disappeared? Dress sagging below the knees. Miss Charity wearing a ski mask, no panties.
Read moreFALSE TEETH by VANESSA WILLOUGHBY
Even if I run out of water I can still waste light years plotting our ruin with pruning shears. We being beings who shed our skin daily Sometimes during the violet hour to dine On paint thinner and praise temporary faces.
Read moreTWENTY-FIRST by AMY LAUREN JONES
On the picnic blanket under the oak tree my father turned to me and said: “We hope you always come back here,” where the shade eases the Southern sun on our pale skin, where we sit in favor, and I felt this birthday’s finite weight: the ratio of lie to light, and the brevity of […]
Read moreREQUIEM FOR THE MASSES BY RISHIKA AGGARWAL
hair spilling / like crowfeathered blood / razor hums wiping away / ink-scared wrists and mama says / no more girl / no more woman i wake, and she is hanging by the ceiling fan / again. bloodless girl ripping/rippling apart / like still water breaking.
Read moreMALNOURISHED by JACKIE BRAJE
He says things the way spilled milk does, calcium cutting and bone dry, so I cry about it. We stand outside a Mexican diner and an Open sign’s screaming red and blue all over his face as he tells me he needs something more. My
Read moreLesley LeRoux on “Phases” by Danielle Perry
Just reading the author note that precedes Danielle Perry’s Phases (Sad Spell Press), her first chapbook, is enough to spark your enthusiasm over what’s to come. She’s a tarot reader who is “generally amping up her witchiness,” and who couldn’t use more of that in the world? Of course, we wouldn’t expect anything less of […]
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THE VAGABOND TAPES: Wistful
> so you didn’t get what you wanted. >> that’s okay. breathe. there is life left.
Read moreVagabond City Interviews Emily O’Neill
EMILY O’NEILL is an artist, writer, and proud Jersey girl. She tells loud stories in her inside voice because she wants to keep you close. Her work has appeared in The Best Indie Lit New England Anthology, Cutbank, The Journal, Sugar House Review, Washington Square and Whiskey Island, among many others. Her poem “de Los […]
Read moreBethany Mary on Amanda Dissinger’s This Is How I Will Tell You I Love You
If you have ever felt split in half – hesitant but in control, understanding but not understandable – Amanda Dissinger’s This Is How I Will Tell You I Love You may resonate with you. This is a book packed full of duality, guarded warnings and heartfelt admissions, about the complexity of love. Whether the subject […]
Read moreNeyat Yohannes on “Your Sick” by Elizabeth J. Colen, Carol Guess, and Kelly Magee
In this collaborative effort, Elizabeth J. Colen (author of poetry and flash fiction collections, finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in 2011), Carol Guess (author of 15 books of poetry/prose, awarded the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement by Columbia University), and Kelly Magee (author of chapbooks and short story collections, winner of the Katherine […]
Read moreART by FÁBIO MIGUEL ROQUE
I truly believe that art can shape and comment on the world we live in. I’m not a documentary photographer, but I very much appreciate this kind of work, and I think people are really sensitized with some projects. Projects can really change their minds about important issues. I’m thinking of issues with the flow […]
Read moreART by JESSICA TURETSKY
I don’t think that art plays a big enough role in society. I think that it is undervalued in the school system, as well as the professional world. The parts of life that the arts do play into are made that much more vibrant. Art is able to portray culture and bring communities together. I […]
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