Poetry by Kate LaDew
I am in my apartment, wondering if it’s time to go home, if it’s normal,
safe to see my parents so often, to waste money on two rooms that clutch with fingers.
reading the bible in short bursts, completing some prerequisite of childhood,
I listen as Jacob is close to blaspheming. »
“I haven’t thought about why there aren’t a lot of poems about being a father by male poets. I don’t know why that is. But (he laughts) I would be happy to be called one of the first poets to go into that. »
Fiction by Thomas Kearnes
Tweak makes you ambitious. You fire off paragraph-length texts to friends you haven’t seen in months. You have marathon online chats with guys you’d love to fuck but know will flake. You disclose your extensive sexual history to men whose first names. »
So full that sort of knowing—
the sudden finality of a truth
as crisp and resonate as Beethoven deaf
ear to the floor of your late thirties.
The cats sleep through the walls
listening for. »
Nonfiction by Mary Catherine Owen
“1977 film in which Luke Skywalker uses the Force in the struggle between the royal houses of York & Lancaster.”
I know this one. “Before & After”. »
Most dances are cries. Try to pin them in place.
Look away from ash—a boy and a girl
loving that boy: screams and statues
flash-frozen against a night sky bleached. »
Fiction by Benjamin Roesch
Linda and Roger weren’t married anymore. They weren’t officially divorced yet, either, but it was only a matter of time. And she’d only invited Roger over to. »
Poetry by J. Joseph Kane
The sword fighting was,
like most traditions, ill-advised.
The blades were real,
one a samurai the other a Greek replica,
edges sharpened. »
Nonfiction by Christi R. Suzanne
I stood on the Hawthorne Bridge overlooking the Willamette River and imagined my death. I felt the chill on my tear-streaked cheeks as the wind. »
Poetry by Teresa Chuc Dowell
The word, though spelled incorrectly, is mine. I cross it out in my own time and in its space, the brown earth, I will grow flowers,. »
a story by Jd Hamilton
Brett goes to war and comes back as a folded flag. There’s a check too, for a little over $38,000. Brett’s life insurance after government taxes.. »
poetry by Paul Siegell
football buffs / in Philadelphia’s aviaries vault the beer-can
casualties / of another round of fumbled punt returns.
parking authority tyrants / toy with every block possible
along Philadelphia’s /. »
Inner villanelle of a father-to-be without his Xanax
Father-to-be, you are not a villain.
Hell, black bile does not blackball from mating.
But you know, they’ll be your children. »
The Splinter Generation is now accepting submissions of interviews with people you wouldn’t ever talk to. Find someone you wouldn’t ordinarily meet, or someone you disagree with on almost everything and have dinner, or a drink, or an email exchange. Record it, transcribe it, edit it down, and send it in.
Why? Remember when you were. »
Her Name is Sarah
When Randy drifted in for dinner with her baby
tangled in the rosary scars of her arms,
pressed against the dust of her breast,
everyone wanted to see. They softened
their eyes, their smiles, the way people do
when they look on a baby sleeping,
a baby who has not cried in two days,
a baby whose eyes ooze. »
Being diagnosed with cancer and experiencing chemotherapy at age 25 dramatically changed the priorities and course of my work. Prior to this illness, I made narrative-based images about local history and my neighbors. Now, the stories in the work have emerged directly from my own body and memory, and the history is my own. »