Arlene Ang is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent being a collaborative work with Valerie Fox, Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (Texture Press, 2008). She lives in Spinea, Italy where she serves as staff editor for The Pedestal Magazine and Press 1. More of her work may be viewed at www.leafscape.org.

Aaron Balkan lives in New York City, home to many women. He is known for his work with tacosavantgarde.com.

Brynne Barnes took her B.S. in Biopsychology and Cognitive Science from the University of Michigan and her M.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University with an emphasis in poetry and children’s literature. She currently lives in Ann Arbor and teaches freshman writing courses as an Adjunct English Professor at Adrian College.

Rebbecca Brown currently teaches at Hunter College in New York City.  Her work has appeared in Confrontation, American Literary Review, 88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, Eclipse, New South, The Means, and Concho River Review (among others).

Ashlynn Browning is a mixed media artist whose work centers on line and its ability to convey emotional information.  She is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and has exhibited at New York’s CUE Foundation and Lincoln Center.  Other recent exhibitions include Hallway Projects, San Francisco, CA, Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC and Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC. Browning has received grants from the Vermont Studio Center, the United Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her work was featured in the 2009 Southern edition of New American Paintings. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her work is represented by Flanders Gallery.

C. S. Carrier’s the author of After Dayton (Four Way Books, 2008), Lyric (horse less press, 2007), and The 16s (Katalanché Press, 2007). He lives and works in Hartford, CT with a Chihuahua named Merwin.

Amy Catanzano is the author of Multiversal (Fordham University Press, 2009), selected by Michael Palmer for the Poets Out Loud Prize, and iEpiphany (Erudite Fangs, 2008). Her poetry and prose have been published in literary journals such as Conjunctions, Volt, Denver Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky, La Petite Zine, and Colorado Review. Her writing is also included in the anthology, A Best of Fence. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she works and teaches in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. 

Laura Cherry’s chapbook, What We Planted, received the Philbrick Poetry Award. She co-edited the anthology Poem, Revised (Marion Street Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including LA Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Waccamaw, Switched-on Gutenberg, and The Vocabula Review. They have also appeared in the anthologies Present Tense (Calyx Press), Vocabula Bound (Marion Street Press), and Letters to the World (Red Hen Press). Cherry received an MFA from the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers.

Alex Cigale’s poems recently appeared in The Cafe, Colorado, Global City, Green Mountains, and North American reviews, Drunken Boat, Hanging Loose, McSweeney’s, and Zoland Poetry and are forthcoming in Eleven Eleven, Gargoyle, Redactions, Tar River Poetry, and 32 Poems. His translations from the Russian can be found in Crossing Centuries: the New Generation in Russian Poetry and in The Manhattan and St. Ann’s reviews. He was born in Chernovtsy, Ukraine and lives in New York City.

Olivia Cronk’s work has most recently appeared at elimae and Parcel and is forthcoming in Jubilat and Ox Family. Her chapbook, Gazooly, can be downloaded at www.beardofbees.com. She reviews poetry for Bookslut and teaches at Oakton Community College and Northeastern Illinois University. She lives in Chicago.

Shome Dasgupta lives in Lafayette, LA and teaches at South Louisiana Community College and University Of Phoenix Online. His writing has appeared in Magma Poetry, Frame Lines Magazine, The Dead Mule, Lit Chaos, and elsewhere. His fiction has been nominated for The storySouth Million Writers Award and The Best Of The Net 2009. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University-Los Angeles.

Peter Davis’ book of poems is Hitler’s Mustache.  His next book of poems, Poetry! Poetry! Poetry!, is forthcoming from Bloof Books in Spring of 2010. His recent poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming in, journals like Double Room, Jacket, Sir!, Sixth Finch, Fou, Forklift, Ohio, and Action, Yes. He lives in Muncie, Indiana and teaches at Ball State University.

Matthew Falk lives in Bay City, MI, where he works for Mayapple Press and wears the same shoes every day. Short stories and poems written by him have appeared in various venues, both in print and online.

Stephanie Ford is from Boulder, Colorado, and lives in Los Angeles. Her work has been published in Cream City Review and is forthcoming in Red Mountain Review.

Elisa Gabbert is the poetry editor of Absent. She is the author of two chapbooks from Kitchen Press, Thanks for Sending the Engine and My Fear of X, and a forthcoming collection, The French Exit (Birds LLC), as well as co-author, with Kathleen Rooney, of the collaborative collection That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (Otoliths). Recent poems and collaborations have appeared in Colorado Review, Diagram, The Laurel Review, Salt Hill, Jubilat, The Collagist, The Pinch, and other journals. She currently lives in Boston and works as a writer and blogger for a software startup.

Isabelle Ghaneh has been or will be published in several on-line and print literary ventures, including Mastodon Dentist, The Orange Room Review, Best Poem: A Poetry Journal, Pennine Ink #26, Pedestal Magazine, Coal City Review and The Copperfield Review.

Dobby Gibson is the author of  Polar (Alice James Books, 2005), which won the Beatrice Hawley Award, and Skirmish (Graywolf Press, 2009). He lives in Minneapolis. The poems in this issue are from the book Late Makeup Years and Decline (1979-1983), which was written in collaboration with Matt Hart and is forthcoming from Hell Yes! Press in 2010.

John Greiner is a poet, playwright and short fiction writer living in New York City.  His pieces have appeared in numerous international magazines.  Greiner’s plays have received successful runs in New York City, Chicago and Gloucester, MA.  More of John’s work can be seen at http://baronandcrow.blogspot.com in collaboration with photographer Carrie Crow.

Matt Hart is the author of Who’s Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006) and YOU ARE MIST (Moor Books, forthcoming). He lives in Cincinnati. The poems in this issue are from the book Late Makeup Years and Decline (1979-1983), which was written in collaboration with Dobby Gibson and is forthcoming from Hell Yes! Press in 2010.

Nathan Hauke is a PhD candidate at the University of Utah.  His chapbook In the Living Room is forthcoming from Lame House Press (2009).  His poetry has appeared in BlazeVox; Colorado Review; Denver Quarterly; Electronic Poetry Review; Eleven Eleven; EOAGH; Forklift, Ohio; Free Verse; Greatcoat; Gutcult; Interim; New American Writing; Parthenon West; Reconfigurations; The Tiny; Twenty Six; Word For/ Word; and XANTIPPE.

Christine Herzer is a poet and visual artist. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Fence, The New York Quarterly, Pinstripefedora.com, Platform Magazine [India], Wood Coin, Open Letters, Fogged Clarity, Upstairs at Duroc [France], Louis Liard Magazine. Christine received her MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College in June this year. She lives in India.

Elizabeth Horner has poems forthcoming in Red Mountain Review and has also been published in Gulf Coast, POOL, Burnside Review, Caketrain and others. She’s been a scholar at both the Sewanee and Tin House Writers’ Workshops.  She lives in Oakland, CA.

Brent House grew up in Necaise, Mississippi, where he raised cattle and watermelons on the family farm.  His poems have appeared in Colorado Review, Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, Third Coast, and they are forthcoming in Georgetown Review, Bayou, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from Georgia College & State University, and he is completing his Ph.D. at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He serves as a contributing editor at The Tusculum Review and as a limited-term assistant professor at the University of West Georgia.

MC Hyland is the author or co-author of five chapbooks, most recently Residential As In (Blue Hour Press, 2009) and the forthcoming Chaque Soir à Magic City (H_NGM_N Books). Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Slant, Cannibal, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere. She lives in Minneapolis, where she runs Double Cross Press and the Pocket Lab Reading Series.

Becca Klaver is the author of the chapbook Inside a Red Corvette: A 90s Mix Tape (greying ghost press, 2009) and the full-length collection LA Liminal (Kore Press, forthcoming 2010).  A founding editor of the feminist poetry press Switchback Books, she is currently pursuing her PhD in Literatures in English at Rutgers University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Ish Klein’s book, Union! came out  April  2009 through Canarium Press.  Her poems have been published in Make Magazine, The Canary, Gare du Nord, The Hat magazine, X-connect,  Bridge, Spork and are online.  Her films have screened all over the world and at Philadelphia’s ICA.  You can see some of them here:  www.youtube.com/user/ishkleinfilms

Caroline Klocksiem’s poems have most recently, or will soon appear in such journals as Blood Orange Review, Shampoo, Drunken Boat, and Front Porch. A native South Carolinian, she received a BA from University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and a Creative Writing MFA from Arizona State University. She co-edits poetry for the online journal 42opus.

Natalie Knight’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Try!, Octopus, moria, 3by3by3, and Slightly West. Her chapbooks Xenia (Furniture Press) and prairies (Scantily Clad Press) were published in 2009 and Archipelagos is forthcoming from Punch Press. Originally from Western Washington, she lives in Albany, New York and works towards a PhD at University at Albany, SUNY. Her review of Rodrigo Toscano’s Collapsible Poetics Theater is here: http://jacketmagazine.com/38/r-toscano-rb-knight.shtml

Brad Liening is a poetry editor at InDigest Magazine, and he helps run Hell Yes, a DIY press that publishes zines and chapbooks. He lives in Minneapolis.

Jon Link lives in Japan. He edits GlitterPony with the astounding Natalie Lyalin. He has an MFA from UMass, Amherst. He misses you.

Lily Iona MacKenzie has taught expository and creative writing, the humanities, and English, at the University of San Francisco and other Bay Area colleges for over 20 years.  Her poetry, critical and personal essays/articles, travel pieces, and short fiction have appeared in numerous U.S. and Canadian publications.

Kristi Maxwell is the author of Hush Sessions (Saturnalia, 2009), Realm Sixty-four (Ahsahta, 2008), and Elsewhere & Wise (Dancing Girl, 2008). She can currently be found in Cincinnati.

Heather Momyer lives in Chicago where she teaches writing and literature and acts as the Nonfiction Editor of Requited. She reads fiction for Hotel Amerika and her work appears in Moria, keepgoing, ghoti, A cappella Zoo, Robot Melon, and other journals.

Adam Moorad’s writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in 3 A.M. Magazine, Johnny America, Storyglossia, and Underground Voices. His story “Star-Spangled Enterprise” is/was a nominee for Best of the Net 2009.  He is the author of an ebook, The Nurse and The Patient (Pangur Ban Party, 2009). He lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing. Visit him here: http://adamadamadamadamadam.blogspot.com .

Matthew Olzmann is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson.  His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Cortland Review, Margie, Rattle, Minnesota Review and elsewhere.

Oliver de la Paz is the author of three books of poetry:  Names Above Houses (SIU Press 2001), Furious Lullaby (SIU Press 2007), and Requiem for the Orchard (forthcoming from the University of Akron Press 2010).  He is the co-chair of the advisory board for Kundiman.org, and he is the recipient of grants from the Artist Trust of Washington and the New York Foundation for the Arts.  He teaches creative writing at Western Washington University.

Peter Ramos’ poems appear in Indiana Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Verse, The Chattahoochee Review, and Poet Lore.  He is the author of one book of poetry, Please Do Not Feed the Ghost (BlazeVox Books, 2008), and two chapbooks: Watching Late-Night Hitchcock & Other Poems (handwritten press 2004), and Short Waves (White Eagle Coffee Store Press 2003). 

Carly Sachs’ first book of poems, the steam sequence won the 2006 Washington Writers’ Publishing House book prize. She is the editor of the why and later, an anthology of poems that women have written about rape and sexual assault (deep cleveland press 2007). Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry 2004, Another Chicago Magazine, Nextbook, MiPoesis, PMS, The New Vilna Review, The Saint Ann’s Review, and Present Tense. She received her MFA from The New School and has taught courses at George Washington University. Currently she is a bartender and yoga teacher in New York City.

Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s first chapbook, Weed Over Flower, was chosen for publication by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming in: Wicked Alice, can we have our ball back?, FRiGG, Plainsongs, Literary Mama, Poetry Midwest, Dash, Boxcar Poetry Review, slant, Caesura, Gargoyle, and other fine journals. Sadre-Orafai’s prose has appeared in Rock Salt Plum and in the Seal Press anthology, Waking Up American. She currently serves as poetry editor for JMWW and is an Assistant Professor of English at Kennesaw State University.

Morgan Lucas Schuldt is the author of the poetry collection Verge (Parlor Press: Free Verse Editions, 2007), and two chapbooks: L=u=N=G=U=A=G=E (Scantily Clad Press, 2009) and Otherhow (Kitchen Press, 2007).  He lives in Tucson where he edits the online literary journal CUE (www.cuejournal.com), and the chapbook series CUE Editions.

Rachel M. Simon lives in Yonkers with a dog with one white paw.  She teaches at SUNY Purchase College, Fordham University, and Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (among other places).  Her chapbook, Marginal Road, is available from Hollyridge Press and her full-length collection, Theory of Orange, won the Transcontinental Prize from Pavement Saw Press.

Nate Slawson edits the online magazine dear camera and designs books for Cinematheque Press. He is the author of the chapbook A Mixtape Called Zooey Deschanel (L4, 2009) and recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in diode, Typo, Forklift, Ohio, Cannibal, DIAGRAM, Corduroy Mtn., and other places. He lives in Chicago.

Lee Stern lives in Los Angeles. He was born in Chicago. He doesn’t know what city he will die in. But, he thinks, it’ll probably be within walking distance of one or the other.

Michael Stutz has recently contributed to The New York Times, The Dark Horse, Steampunk Tales, The Chrysalis Reader, The Emerson Review and Quick Fiction. He’s a former Wired News correspondent, the author of the tech bestseller The Linux Cookbook, and has recently completed a novel about the net generation.

Steve Timm is the author of Disparity (BlazeVOX Books, 2006) and two chapbooks, Averrage (Answer Tag Home Press, 2004) and Stragetics (Bronze Skull, 2006), and his poems have been in a wide variety of print and on-line journals. He teaches English as a second language at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Fritz Ward is a recent poetic transplant to the Philadelphia area. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Arts and Commentary, Agni Online, Swink, Salt Hill, Blackbird, Diagram, Small Spiral Notebook, and The Journal, among others. He holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where he served as a poetry editor for the Greensboro Review. He works at Swarthmore College.

Ruth Williams is currently a Ph.D. student in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati.  Her poems have recently appeared in jubilat, Barrelhouse, Knockout, 42 Opus and are forthcoming from Redactions and Barn Owl Review. 

* thanks to Joy Division, The National, Joe Pernice & The 6ths for their help in assembling this issue.

I blooming ever more gravely

blooms before you

so the furrow of origin

turns under    plumes

a bride  when the bluffs are plucked 

is pulled from the rib of man’s side

|

I am that bird

I’m drawn from your rib

your side is a flung wide ridge

|

where is origin?  where heat

or blade or ruse of exaggeration?

|

my Thou is the dithering of ridges flung open

my Thou is a stasis of incomprehensible approach

my Thou is for whom the talus ascends

|

dusking sheets loom over a pastel cliff

cactus    columbine   scree   in a flourish

one could almost loose a life

my Thou is a tender uproot

|

when the buttes are lifting up

and the field of origins slips under

come Thou

|

come Bride

or {come} bird waters

or just flay it out

|

my rib is afloat in fen

|

my Thou you’re the bloom of my mouth

So she rolled up her sleeve and bit

that arcade afternoon which ended in Ron’s Tattoo Parlor.

She’s tried to dust and bleach her ghosts before.   

Whistles and bells still ring her ears, bitten silver nubs

tuned to an orchestra of noise—skeeball, air hockey. 

With all the tickets, her purple sawdust teddy angled under her arm.

Now those ghosts are inked and named—

One thing I know is she’s always loved names.

Her imaginary cat is Djuna, a goddess with fur

lapping cheekbones cold, winding her bottlebrush tail

against anything hard.  Barnabus and Blinky.  Dedglow.

Oh Lord, she begs, please violate my rotten walnut

with something light, something lacy, rid this anchored head. 

To Yet Another Shower

I liked it so much better when we lived next to

Mr. Trodell’s Joint for Underage Boys—A Sanctuary.

Those boys played cards in their undershirts,

Spit mostly, and dragged long and slow

on their cigarettes just to taunt. 

They saw me watching every afternoon—

I’d sit on the landing with lemonade in frosted glasses

and watch the shoulder slaps, wiping each other’s hair up

off their foreheads.  Sometimes, the boys lent me

a smoke.  I’ve kept those cigarettes in my nightstand since. 

But the best was when one would lean over

the other to help with a hand—

too young to notice the closeness.  Oh.

We know gears are supposed to turn,

but we forget their teeth, that to pull

they must bite into another.  

Last month, the workers at the axle factory

went on strike. Without the axle,

there is no car.  Without the carloads

of workers at noon, the sandwich shop

down the block shuts its doors,

kills its lights. Behind the sandwich shop,

a dumpster filled with bees.  

My wife is allergic to the stinger.

Lodged in human skin, the barb is lost

to the bee. The bee then dies.  

And if enough of them fail again

to find the hive, that dies as well.    

go. The chickadee I pinned and framed.

            Cut away:

a bantam plane slips behind the spire.

Can you catch the shape note singing?

            A trace

and it should be a simple survey – a harness

to hold wine – yet every time the reel

            catches.

Ticonderoga, I’m offering you

a threepennyworth ransom for

            something.

For something, the detective was last

seen in a too-big blazer: then blizzard:

            pan shot.

We have established some seams,

that birds too bleed under claw.

            For blizzard,

we might have used puffball and pinch;

the eye entering a three-sided model or

            low-angle

and smeared with rotting fronds.

The inhabitant has stuffed plumes, pebbles:

            sequence:

in the seams of a too-big blazer. The plumes

are spattered. With wine. Focus, then

            crane out:

aerial, the voices drifting from the plane.

The fort demanded and given in no name.

In the Fall the Threshers Came

Being in damp

We became quarrelsome and cranky

            There were buffalo wallows

Not yet become part of our vocabulary

Air on screened balconies advanced

            So funny and wise

Olive showed me

The baby in the big china wash bowl

            She then climbed on the rack

I simply couldn’t speak

Air or foggy weather

            Never allow it to go crosswise

When we heard the sleigh

Started by a virus

            He reached out

To grab the lamp glass

We rode back to the granary on a load of grain

            Mother had a new side-saddle

Long heavy skirts really

Soaked up the water

            Always place the sheaf

Head first on the carrier

Miss Matheson tinkled a little bell

Most of us were constrained

To get him to stand alone

            How tall she had grown

My skin was crawling as with night’s own ants.

The death certificate read “Toxic Syndrome.

Luck be a lady.”  I cowered at the prospect.

The pair was dancing in a drunken stupor,

rolling around the sawdust on the floor.

They wooed each other well who fought so long.

Sixteen knocks on my nape with a hammer,

the shirt off my back!  Boy, I feel stupid,

ankle deep in dip-shit, my ass in a sling.

A sock to my gut!  Where the sun don’t shine!

Don’t take no genius to figure that out;

I had been barking up the wrong tree.

Let it burn baby!  Make him belly ache!

The living daylights.  I was like “Whoa!”

When she leaned over wrong I bopped her.

“What’s the damage then?” I bawled, proceeding

to plunk down my wife on the carving board.              

“Never date a chick with more tattoos than you.

I done it once and lived to regret it.

You can keep the change!” and I laughed so hard

I had to loosen my leather sarong.

Composed in Late October, Grand Canyon

Paradise dashes itself upon the rocks

having fallen in love over winter’s precipice

with the dusk-tinged-dimpled eminence of moon.

The stars hunkered down in their dark firmament

under the blanket of evening hanker after

a solid night’s work stirring from the day’s sleep.

.

Flush among the brash cliffs and jagged crevices

the river wends its way through the dim recesses

of the side canyons while the proud bighorn

slumber in pairs on the wind-blown mountains:

even the peaks lay down their heads on their arms,

crouched behind their desks in elementary rows,

and the rocks withdraw their pockmarked faces

abashed by their smarmy, sangfroid girlfriends.

Yes, indeed, the seeds of paradise are dozing

amidst this aimless night’s bright promises.

Did I tell you already that God and his sister

are sitting on heaven’s throne in stone temples

along with their deputies in Thebes’s kingdom?

The eyes of Isis and Osiris, Wotan, Zoroaster,

Bright Angel’s luminaries, glimmer, dimming.