The great debate between his family was this: who was responsible for the fact that he had not lived up to anyone’s expectations?
PHOTOGRAPHY & ART
POETRY
POETRY
PHOTOGRAPHY & ART
Exposure
By Curt Richter
Out of the many Southern writers whom Richter photographed across the past two decades, we’ve chosen twenty-five who have awed and inspired us.
POETRY
Listening and Other Poems
By Ellen Bass
I listened with my spine, with the soles of my feet, the whorls of my fingertips. I listened as though I woke on a savannah to a lion’s roar.
POETRY
Requiem
By Michelle Bitting
Isn’t it nice to think tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes yet? The stains on your skin, really wounds rubbed clean, rolled in clover.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
Conversations with Death
By Danielle Blau
I bit my tongue Don’t forgetYour umbrella. At
The fair.
POETRY
Two Girls Bathing and Other Poems
By Ama Codjoe
Carol points to a spot on my back. I resist the urge to hide my breasts. She wears her nakedness like it has been woven from air.
POETRY
Praying Naked and Other Poems
By Katie Condon
It wasn’t guilt I felt. Maybe it was loneliness. Maybe it was my own desire to be desired, since, if a man wants me, I know I have at least a little worth left.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
The Orchid Casket and Other Poems
By Norman Dubie
I forgot to detail that the jumper leapt from beside the hanging Monet into a wild hailstorm, tree limbs falling all around them.
POETRY
Emo, 2005
By William Fargason
Here we were, seventeen, more pissed than we knew what to do with, lost in the sweat of the crowd and the noise of the music, thankful for the distortion.
POETRY
The Visiting Room
By Caits Meissner
We shuffle through the metal detector as one dumb animal. We spread. Kneel. We’ll come out missing parts.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
The Land of Five Rivers
By Faisal Mohyuddin
In Urdu, the clock tower is called Ghanta Ghar, meaning Hour House, which sounds just like our house. However, nothing of it is ours.
POETRY
The Truth the Dead Know
By Anne Sexton
Gone, I say and walk from church, refusing the stiff procession to the grave, letting the dead ride alone in the hearse. It is June. I am tired of being brave.
POETRY
Ruth Stone Explains the Book of the Dead to Sylvia Plath
By Christian Teresi
I did what I could to hush the knot and rope, the truth of gravity. There are not enough idiomatic expressions to converse flawlessly with the dead.
POETRY
POETRY
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
POETRY
The New Dark Ages and Other Poems
By Chase Twichell
The day’s adventure was a trip to the Horses’ Graveyard. Only the locals know where it is. You have to walk far from the pink-white tourist beaches.
POETRY
On Seeing Damien Hirst’s “Kingdom of the Father”
By Laura Wetherington
The butterflies hang grotesque: House paint obscures the edges, black paint licking down their iridescent fur.
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
Two Poems
By Ocean Vuong
Ocean, don’t be afraid. The end of the road is so far ahead it is already behind us. Don’t worry. Your father is only your father until one of you forgets.
iPOEMS
NARRATIVE 10
iPOEMS
Winter 1940
By Sarah Wedderburn
Goldfinches spring in a throng from the thorn. Their fat little squadron, full throttle for freedom, rides airwaves before us.
In Defense of Ballin’ on a Budget
By Marcus Wicker
Damn, Will—they’ve got you sounding mighty Uncle Phil in these streets. Like the still calling the Ketel One cheap.
NARRATIVE 10
An Interview
with Don Lee
Your cure for when the spirit flags?
Friends, exercise, and nature. Even better all together.
FICTION
FICTION
FICTION
FICTION
Still Here, Still There
By Richard Bausch
The American believed this was his death—this that turned out to be his luckiest chance: a savior from the other side.
FICTION
Possessions
By Gail Godwin
Deep down, below the level where right and wrong stayed separate, I was awed at myself for being able to summon such wrath.
FICTION
Gethsemani
By Austin Smith
In the abbey, no one took him for a lapsed bohemian who played jazz records and danced naked.
FEATURES
NONFICTION
NONFICTION
FEATURES
Robert Stone and Kate Chopin
Stone’s Adaptation of The Awakening
We went in search of the missing pages from Children of Light and found them in an archive of Stone’s papers.
NONFICTION
Saving Planet Earth
By Bill Barich
Our subscribers tended to be fervent activists, hardcore eco-warriors in the mode of Edward Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang, or delicate souls who ate no meat.
NONFICTION
Christian Soldiers
By Hal Crowther
A tough cookie, this warrior-priest, who talked about his eleven-plus years in prisons the way scholars talk about graduate school.
READERS’ NARRATIVES
CARTOONS
CARTOONS
READERS’ NARRATIVES
Pondicherry
By Chandra Ganguly
We embarked on a three-day train ride from Pondicherry in the southern tip of India to Shillong at the northeastern tip of Assam.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2017-06
By Various Artists
New laughs from Pat Byrnes, Charlie Hankin, Farley Katz, Mary Lawton, and Gordon & Miller.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2017-05
By Various Artists
New art and humor from Curtis Edwards, Rina Piccolo, Julia Suits, P. C. Vey, and Kim Warp.
