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 […]
Read moreTHE VAGABOND TAPES: Spring Desideratum
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 more
