“Everyone’s mind rushed to give meaning to the box: it was a bomb, most likely, that an audience member had slipped onto the stage during the dark, and it was up to Patti, as leader of Psycho Femmes, to deal with it.”
Category: Poetry & Fiction
[Review] The Historians by Eavan Boland — Nicholas Taylor-Collins
“History betrays, dissimulates, and occludes; a counter-history is required that maintains the openness of wounds and the liveliness of memory.”
[Fiction] ‘Affirmation’ — Annabel Banks
“My clients are wealthy—that goes without saying—but that’s all they have in common, so I must acrobat my way through each conversation, with not a moment’s hesitation as we leap and roll.”
[Poetry] ‘Dream Job’ — Mary Peelen
“Disrupting the dream, a holy terror: an alarm clock rings and I’m jolted back to the taupe world,/back to my day job, where, wholly unencumbered by spiritual dignity, I work myself to death.”
[Poetry] ‘Tradition’ — S.T. Brant
“Every garden graveyards in a season. Take Eden.”
[Poetry] — Louis Glazzard
“There was a truce between you and him/when the unbidden noon hurried in”
[Poetry] — Bernard Pearson
“Between the river/And the remains/I watch as my wife and son/Do the grave chores,/Remove the recidivist,/weeds pressing their suit/Around the marble”
[Fiction] — Margo Berdeshevsky
“I light one, and toss it under the slide.”
[Poetry] ‘Nude, in a Bathroom’ — Aditya Shankar
“A nudity that isn’t an apostolic pendulum/swinging between pleasure and sin.”
[Fiction] ‘Tourists’ — Mark Halpern
“At breakfast, Henry thought he should discuss fatherly matters, but didn’t know which or how.”
[Poetry] — R.A. Allen
“I find him a collectable specimen / for my ongoing study / of longing.”
[Fiction] Passing Through — Ronan O’Shea
“Now, sat in the café, I forgot the general rundown feeling that had nagged at me all morning, and I wanted to stay; happy and nostalgic, with Marcus.”
[Review] The Brown Anthology edited by Sofia Amina — Daunish Negargar
“This anthology is refreshing in its boldness and authenticity, particularly at a time when major publishing houses are tripping over themselves to make promises on Twitter to ‘do better’ in highlighting more authors of colour.”
[Fiction] In the wish factory — Joanna Kaye
“The caretaker sees the world through its wishes; he feels the passage of time this way, he hears the people’s pain, he smells the glacial pace of change.”
[Poetry] — Tom Holmes
“This is where Oppenheimer lived / before he ended the war, / where he read the Bhagavad Gita”
[Poetry] ‘Net Curtains’ — DS Maolalai
“this morning is milk / with a thick mist / of souplight”
[Poetry] — Simon Robson
“the Boots perfume counter assistant looking / like Dracula’s daughter”
[Fiction] ‘The Talented Higgs Boson’ — Mary Peelen
“You have to admit that in this way, the Higgs has sort of a sheen of godliness.”
New Critique 