To our readers, The Vagabond City Lit staff stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and all those protesting against police brutaality and anti-Black violence. We condemn the police murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Tony McDade as well as the murder of Ahmaud Arbery and the many more Black lives ended […]
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Toxicon and Arachne, the recent poetry collection by Joyelle McSweeney, depicts the short human lifespan with an unconventional consistent darkness. Uniquely refreshing in its morbidity, this work is scattered with the bitterness of losing a child, and McSweeney portrays her grief “the way a crane / dances for its mate / the awkward body / […]
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Meena Alexander has a conversation with literary ghosts in her posthumous poetry collection, In Praise of Fragments. The writings and drawings in this book depict nonlinear, speculative bits about what it means to be alive, present, and home. She invites us on her exploration of the soul in her last few years of life. Many […]
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Emily as Sometimes the Forest Wants the Fire by Darren C. Demaree is exactly the bright, crackling ode that its title suggests. Emily is a dynamic shapeshifter, assuming nature’s many forms, from human to flower to debris. The poems in this collection are certainly heavy with the stumbling navigation of love and vulnerability, but they […]
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We’re thrilled to announce our nominees for the 2019 Pushcart Prize: El Bahr, El Barh, El Bahr by Leena Aboutaleb Gloria In Excesis Dyke by Levi Cain Distilling Discomfort by Hadiyyah Kuma Mom by Heo Su-gyeong translated by So J. Lee Birthright by Natalie Wee One Day I Will Drink the Whole Sky by Cynthia […]
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To celebrate the end of the year, our team wanted to share some of the things we enjoyed reading most during 2019. Clémence Chouteau, Art Editor: 5 BOOKS I READ IN 2019 THAT I WILL KEEP THINKING ABOUT FOR YEARS 1. THE WATER CURE, SOPHIE MACKINTOSH (2019) “We hold hands very tightly, so we can […]
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Awe-inspiring, thoughtful and honest, Gillian Conoley’s selection of poems in A Little More Red Sun on the Human engages us in observation and conversation about the wild state of the world. Her work encourages analysis of the meaning of our lives as humans, our place in constructed society and forced imposition on nature. The weight […]
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Speech, a reflective and well-timed new work by Jill Magi, is quite possibly the delicate walkthrough of life that so many of us secretly wish we had. The speaker serves as a flawlessly observant guide on a linguistic journey, giving us both foresight and hindsight as we wander along a path that is at once […]
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We’re thrilled to announce our nominees for the 2019 Best of the Net anthology. Nonfiction: “Fabric Wound and Unwound” by Tasneem Maher “Fear: A Collage” by Ronny Ford Poetry: “Gaslight” by Christian J. Collier “Yolk” by Cris Iacoponi “On Being Read My Miranda Rights in My Own Hallway”by Linette Reeman “At Beiteddine, Summer 2018” by […]
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Slingshot by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson is a turbulent debut collection that should be on every fall reading list. His poems demonstrate skillful navigation of what it is like to see the world through queer black eyes, opening all other eyes to the alternate visibility and invisibility of this existence, the dangers of being seen by […]
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How would you describe your artistic style? Versace + Arby’s. Tammy Faye Messner + Honey Boo Boo + the Virgin Mary. Key West + Manhattan + the Research Triangle + Hell. Who / what inspires you to create? In terms of who, definitely my partner and my family/friends and other writers/artists I admire. But in […]
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When a home loses its ability to comfort, a person can be left not just searching for a place of safety but also asking what safety really means. Stephen Furlong’s debut chapbook, What Loss Taught Me, approaches such seemingly intractable topics with courage and grace. Taking on experiences of abuse and loss, Furlong shifts adeptly between […]
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Katie: I’ve read What Runs Over a few different ways now– straight through, with pauses, and at random, and it works every which way. The way you work with pace and temper creates this tension that holds a reader and is deeply unsettling throughout. The conversation between pieces, the movement through themes, the return to place and […]
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