on the drive back home i ask if the moon is following us an eyelash on my cheek my mother tells me to make a wish the moon isn’t following us we’re circling around it at five i drank tea from a saucer so i don’t stay up at night my palms orange henna an […]
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Blueberries for Sal – Robert McCloskey – 1948 In preschool we had a raised table full of old paper egg cartons. Plastic eggs that opened and closed, revealing baby dinosaurs in primary colors. I carried multiples in my shirt, pulled up with my little girl belly button showing. That was the year I pinned my […]
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This month’s featured artist is Sarah Dahir, an illustrator based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sarah began her project Nawaal Illustrations a couple of years ago, her first experience with professional illustration after drawing for herself for years. Sarah is interested in the relationship between women (she grew up with three sisters), and especially Black women. […]
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Tariq Thompson is a Black poet from Memphis, Tennessee. He attends Kenyon College, where he is both an Associate & Social Media Intern for The Kenyon Review. He also serves as the Social Media Editor for Shade Literary Arts. He is the recipient of the 2020 Adroit Prize for Poetry and the Academy of American […]
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It may sound odd to say that Lyd Havens’ poetry collection, Chokecherry, is an absolute joy, when every page expresses a deep lingering grief. Their haunting words take root and take flight, as they float through years of both traumatic dreams and a nightmarish reality, wrestling with painful memories before learning to be thankful for […]
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In an interview published by Asian American Writer’s Workshop, poet Kim Min Jeong tries to describe her peculiar style of poetry: “I mean… my poetry, it’s not beautiful. I’m sure I can come first at an ugly contest but I can’t win a beauty contest. I am confident I can make things ugly the best.” […]
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What does it mean to long for a home? What does it mean to feel that craving while also craving a 7-11 soda? How many miles do you have to drive and how many weird foods do you have to eat before you feel a sense of your true personality? MJ Santiago’s new book, Swallow, […]
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BAHR Magazine: “an online literary creative platform dedicated to amplifying the work of writers, artists, and creatives of all kinds. Based in South West Asia and North Africa, we accept submissions from around the world though we champion this region’s creators and prioritise their work. We particularly encourage those with marginalised identities to submit. We accept […]
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Noémie Klein is an emerging French illustrator, whom we discovered by chance on Instagram. Her work is inspired by spirituality, nature, and ancient philosophies, and has been gaining more and more attention lately. Noémie is an illustrator of the inside. She wants to make ideas into images, and her illustrations translate abstract concepts into shapes […]
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Zuri McWhorter—born and rooted in Detroit, Michigan—is carving out a place for her work as a writer, photographer, and filmmaker. Since 2015 she has self-published two poetry collections, Woes of a Well Lit City, and Not too Far from China. In 2017, Zuri started her own lit and art zine for independent creators, Juste Milieu. […]
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Divya Victor’s poetry collection Curb digs into the layers of community in United States suburbia, with a direct intensity that documents pervasive assaults against immigrants who settle here. She opens with a personal admission of her own mother being afraid all the time, of all places being the same in their lack of safety. We […]
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I am finding myself more able to reflect on my childhood thus more considering the notion of girlhood. I know this means I am ageing, but it also means I am considering my gender: did I choose girlhood, is there agency in recalling my past as such? And what’s next? BINT, selected by Aria Aber […]
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One complaint I’ll often hear after recommending books to friends is that the work is too sad. “It’s too depressing,” they’ll say, not only about fiction that heaps ever escalating acts of tragedy upon the reader (as in Yanagihara’s A Little Life) but also nonfiction, especially those of political or sociological focus. It is a […]
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Lucas Peel is a big mouth moonlighting as an adult. He is a negligent plant father and can also have a little salami as a treat. His work is forthcoming in the next software update of the iPhone 7 notes app. Lucas lives in Honolulu, Hawaii and sometimes tweets @lookchrlz. We don’t know what he […]
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& on Saturday, before we squished plums in our fists and rubbed the color on our mouths—as if we could afford to replace our hunger with a bruised beauty—and took pictures of ourselves with so much flash our mouths looked like flowers in the parched desert of our bodies, we walked to Chinnamma’s home that smelled like girls and sweat. She […]
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(after Taylor Swift) This week my whole body has rejected reality, an apocalypsewithin an apocalypse, and I know better than to ask for help. I lived so long walling myself in with cassette tapes, frightenedof the madwoman beneath my own skin. I don’t think I know what crazy means anymore but certainly you know […]
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The worst part of the video:The wasp laying eggs inside the caterpillar. A small thing, aDefenseless thing, limbless,And a sharpness on top of it–Its beating wings, itstwitching abdomen, the footage playingDouble time,As to show the process quicker,As to not bore the viewerWith a death as slow as this. In my dream you came out of […]
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Etel Adnan Poetry Prize: “Every year the University of Arkansas Press accepts submissions for the Etel Adnan Poetry Series and awards the $1,000 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize to a first or second book of poetry, in English, by a writer of Arab heritage. Since its inception in 2015 the series has sought to celebrate and foster the writings […]
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When I’m lying in my bed with the comforter smushed against my body instead of his skin I dream of the times I was bad. This must not be mistaken for reveling in my bad behavior, it’s not something I consciously do. The dreams come like bugs crawling on my skin. They bite. I scratch […]
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yellow balloons heavenly release opening chair scene of juno pomegranate peel post-smoke spit i’m bleeding out, my legslowerbackintestines twinge, cramp and i can’t stand laugh breathe and i sob into the boiling shower floor. hip throb. my wrists, ankles, knees, stiff fingers, spinal cord coated, ember-encased. needled skin, set aflame, tamped out in bath water—a relit […]
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Having stripped off the skirt and the jewelryand wiped off the lipstick amidst the beard, eyes and body cleansed of all adornmentsfussed over and fought for against stubborn family elders, yet fawned over by kind friends,I dip my fresh old self into the warm still water over and over for the attendant’s amen,and when they […]
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I do not trust myself to be loved by a stranger, so I pose in lingerie for my close friends and wait for one of them to fall for it. Jo tells me i’m on queen shit and Ryan says that I’m iconic and someone inquires where I found my lime green lace. And I am full until the fizzing returnsin my belly, and reminds me what a […]
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Jabulile Mickle-Molefe is a writer and diviner whose work is often rooted in music, myths, or philosophy. Their work has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, petrichor journal, and Triangle House Review and is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review. Find them on twitter at @jmicklemolefe.
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Alice Cloutier-Lachance’s work bears a striking resemblance to Francesca Woodman’s. Alice is an emerging Canadian photographer, and, coincidentally, she is friends with Monse Muro, whom we interview for our January 2021 issue. She creates mysterious, monochromatic photographs of her friends and family, sometimes blurred, so as to reveal just enough to keep us wondering. She […]
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Carlina Duan is incredible at something that I find very difficult: building enormity and emotional honesty from a seemingly average moment. There are many places our work can come from—trauma, love, etc—so often, I consider a poem an event. When I read poets like Mary Oliver or Aracelis Girmay, I see that we can make […]
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Danielle Rose’s poetry collection at first & then is a short and sweet exploration of both physical and emotional shift. In only thirty pages, we gain a world’s worth of insight into a beautiful transition from darkness to striking light. The first poem opens with a suicide, the stillness of a fallen woman’s landing and […]
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Cave Canem Poetry Prize: “Launched in 1999 with Rita Dove’s selection of Natasha Trethewey’s Domestic Work, this first-book award is dedicated to the discovery of exceptional manuscripts by black poets of African descent. Winner receives $1,000, publication by Graywolf Press in fall 2022, 15 copies of the book, and a feature reading. Both the winner and runner-up […]
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For this month’s interview, we talked to Ludi Leiva, a multidisciplinary artist based in the Pacific Northwest. Ludi (short for Ludmila) mainly works as an illustrator, and her vibrant illustrations featuring intriguing human figures have appeared in Vogue, them., Twitter, and exposed in the streets of New York. In addition to being an artist, she […]
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Em Norton is a poet from Toronto. You can find Em on Twitter @_emnorton and read more at patreon.com/emnortonwrites.
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Aditya Vikram (he/they) is a queer poet and spoken word artist. They spend their Sundays writing and dancing on the terrace of a rented house in Lucknow, India. They won the Kommune National Story Slam last year, and have performed at several other regional and national festivals. Their work is published or upcoming in Verse of […]
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When they cleared out my gutI couldn’t do anything. I was staring at the ceiling blowing kisses. The ceiling ran away. My arms fell off in a very sexy way.It doesn’t matter. My legs are the only part of methat I want to survive. Maybe that wasn’t direct enough. I am dying very soon. Even looking like […]
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After Frank O’Hara is even better than making vegan pumpkin pie like I did last Novemberor filling my stomach with stone fruit samples at the embarcadero Saturday market partly because in your 19 year old you’re like raw almondspartly because of my affection for you, partly because of your affection for the jetboilpartly because of […]
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In Bermuda, there are hibiscus plants blooming roadside under the uninterrupted sun; their petals are soft, blood-red bijous, pinpricks of bloodletting yielding forth from a small forest of dark green leaves; their harmless pistils strikingly clear; their stigmas and styles sitting a short distance ahead of their golden stamens. It is a miniscule, unassuming detail […]
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Ghost Tracks, the second chapbook from Sneha Subramanian Kanta, was published in December of 2020 from Louisiana Literature Press. In an interview with The Shore, the poet cites her fascination with Kingdom Animalia—“Cognitive biology taught in school often disregards the fact that ‘human beings’ belong to the Kingdom of Animalia,” and so her collection seeks […]
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A dance and meditation in book form, No Knowledge is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body by Asiya Wadud shines light on the shadows between harsh borders. She navigates not only the rush of the physical world, but also the more subtle flow of time and memory. Her collection is wistfully historical, rife with […]
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Even from its opening sentence, Elle Nash’s new story collection, Nudes, shapes the reader’s expectations. “It began when she moved in below their apartment,” Nash writes, “or maybe it began a week after when the boyfriend came downstairs to ask for a cup of sugar for a cake, or maybe it began a week after […]
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Animal Heart Press Poetry Chapbook Contest: “There’s no theme – write what speaks to you, and comes from the innermost depths of your soul. What sparks your intensity, your passion, your curiosity, your anger. Tell us about it. We’re looking for 25-40 poems that fit tightly together. If some of the poems in the collection […]
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I fuck Darren. Submerging in his wrap-around body; gnawing at his sneaker limberness; surrendering into the smell of his Ralph Lauren perfume; clinging to him like a koala cub, as he thrusts himself into me, my head on his shoulder beside his 29-oz.-steel-can-neck, my left hand slipping down his bare head, my fingers pausing in […]
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Monse Muro‘s photographs are displayed in a beautiful layout on her Instagram page, whose description reads “borrower of souls for a click or so”. Monse also borrows time, inviting us to stop what we’re doing and take a moment to look around us. Monse is a Mexican-born photographer. She lives in Tio’tia:ke, Canada, where she […]
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The penultimate poem in Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize via The American Poetry Review, is a short piece that ends with a brusque suggestion: “You could write things down just as they are, / just as you see them. You could try that.” Were it that easy! […]
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Jackie Wang’s poetry debut, The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void, delivers a fascinating mix of fantasy and reality to start off the new year. Many of these poems have a startling beginning – frequently we enter in the moment of a catastrophe, whether it is a natural disaster, attempted murder, […]
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Animal Heart Press Poetry Chapbook Contest: “There’s no theme – write what speaks to you, and comes from the innermost depths of your soul. What sparks your intensity, your passion, your curiosity, your anger. Tell us about it. We’re looking for 25-40 poems that fit tightly together. If some of the poems in the collection […]
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I sat and there a scatter of bushes, earth & one purple flower fled like jazz notes, the station he listened to & something his fatherused to listen to, pre & post a lotof things. One night I asked if it hurt, his father & the silence& he said no, nothing ever only hurts. We continued to […]
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after Michael Garrigan Sometimes I thinkwe went therein a dream (together still) lodgedinside the sleepingbody of the boy I used to be. Jory Mickelson is the queer, nonbinary author of WILDERNESS//KINGDOM, the inaugural winner of the Evergreen Award Tour from Floating Bridge Press and winner of the 2020 High Plains Book Award in Poetry. Their publications […]
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I have told you this before.There are no beginningsto be found here. Here,there are only reflectionsof birdsong in passing wind,only layers of ash in place ofsky. Should your body unravel,it will do so in layers.Be sure to catch the bonesas they fall. Stop waiting for signs.That is to say, stop listeningfor blood. You must understandthat […]
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Mara Beneway is a poet, illustrator, and educator from New York. Her work has appeared in the Bread Loaf Journal and Gandy Dancer. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of South Florida.
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Photographer Neha Hirve grew up in Pune, India, but that was only one of her many homes. Neha moves a lot. She has lived and studied in the USA, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and many other places. The relationship we have with the land we live on, and the people who are trying to redefine that […]
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Adroit Journal Gregory Djanikian Scholarship: “We annually recognize six emerging student or non-student poets as Gregory Djanikian Scholars. All emerging writers who have not published full-length collections are eligible (regardless of age, geographic location, or educational status), and are encouraged to submit. Writers with forthcoming debut full-length collections are eligible so long as collections won’t […]
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The VCL team is thrilled to announce our nominations for the 2020 Pushcart Prizes! Creative Nonfiction: – Girls and Other People by L Scully– Homegrown by Iris Yu Poetry: – Reverend K.F. Lord Reveals The Spectre Of Newby Church, 1963 by Cassandra de Alba– Unremembering by Kavi Kshiraj– Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104 by Esther Sun– nightmares […]
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It’s been such a difficult year. As it comes to an end, the VCL team wanted to highlight some of the art, writing, and other things that brought us some joy and comfort this year. Clémence Chouteau, Art Editor 5 Things That Made 2020 Kind Of Okay 1. FUNNY WEATHER: ART IN AN EMERGENCY BY […]
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