Mid-journey, turn and look back
at the tracks youâve made, the line
youâve furrowed into mud, into snow,
a weaving cursive through the slop.
Cassy Welburn | THE GOLDEN GATE TO THE MIND
Trees parked on the Boulevard of City Lights wait for the signal to change
from restless rapture to loving outrage at the taking down of his words,
jelly beans of rhyme spilt out in a golden stream.
Trees with arms outstretched like St. Francis drawing the birds in white chalk
across a charcoal sky, statues of the world reaching out for poetry.
Liselle Yorke | ATTACHMENT
i’ve seen it before with potted plants
whose roots expand to bloom in places too small
while others wait to be given soil beyond measure
Maya Clubine | River Bug on the Black Sea
from Life Cycle of a Mayfly, the winner of the 2023 Vallum Chapbook Award The sun sinks down toward the thin horizon. The weary peacock falls asleep inside its crowned flask. The Philosopher sits on a rock and jots a few brief observations about a river bug above the Black Sea. The river bug flies, […]
Karen Solie | DUST
Returning home from evening mass
in the big car,
they were like canal boats then
sliding through the loose gravel, in the back seat
she pushed my cuticles up
with a silver file not unpainfully
House Within a House by Nicholas Dawson | Review by Katia Grubisic
âIntellectual curiosity about oneâs own illness is certainly born of a desire for mastery,â: so writes the American poet, novelist, and essayist Siri Hustvedt. So quotes the Chilean-born QuĂ©bĂ©cois poet, novelist, and essayist Nicholas Dawson as he investigates his own illness, pushing through the multiple layered skins of depression, turning it over to examine it in this light and that, as a prism that might allow some strand of light into the complex, ailing self.
Shapeshifters by DĂ©lani Valin | Review by Nyla Matuk
âThe problem is that Iâm a stranger to myself,â DĂ©lani Valin writes halfway through her dĂ©but collection Shapeshifters, in âWhat are the Ethics of Picking a Stinging Plant?â The third paragraph of this clever, subtle prose poem continues…