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Unruly Bodies
Best-selling essayist and novelist Roxane Gay, author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, curated this pop-up online journal in April 2018, featuring 24 contemporary writers' reflections on embodiment and how it is policed by society. Contributors include Kaveh Akbar, S. Bear Bergman, Kiese Laymon, and Carmen Maria Machado.
Until We Meet Again
By Richard Eric Johnson
Barriers in place
go no further
people cars trains
stuck in time
coiled razor wire glow
bad present
faces tense
eyes perplexed
anger multitudes frustration
shout deafened ears
cold heart finger tips
trigger-touch guns
silent wet eyes
lips blow kisses
across The Wall
Untitled (“mother’s now…”)
mother's now
translucent glowing
coldly by this aging
winter sun
autumnal under
a puzzled cloud
forgetful of both
time and place
her hand cold
as fresh chicken
Copyright 2009 by Hugh Hodge
Critique by Tracy Koretsky
As I begin my tenure as poetry critic here at Winning Writers, I find myself looking towards the future. That is why, of all the many beautiful and intriguing poems that arrived in my mailbox, I picked this SMS text poem by South African poet Hugh Hodge.
You may ask, "What is an SMS poem?" and, perhaps querulously, "Um...why?" I'll admit I did.
SMS, just to make sure we're all on the same page—or, er, screen—means "short message service"—what most people simply call "texting," that apparently all-absorbing and reportedly thumb-nerve numbing activity that has people all over the world hunched over their cells and squinting.
Although the technology was developed in the early 1990s, implementation was slow. But by the year 2000 there were 17 billion SMS texts (yes, that's a "b"). One year later that number was 250 billion, and the millennium was born.
By 2005 the number of SMS transmissions overtopped the trillion mark. And as you might imagine, with all that communicating going on, it wasn't long before poets joined the party.
Enter "cell phone poetry", or "SMS poetry", or the like, into a search engine and you will discover sites offering "funny" or "sexy" examples, many of which you are free to copy. Far and away, most listings are for seduction poems, small offerings to send last night's date. This is comforting. Apparently, the "function" of poetry, as the Marxist critics would say, has not changed much since the early work of John Donne.
But even if the message hasn't much changed, clearly the medium has, begetting orthographic innovations sometimes called "textese" or "slanguage"—abbreviations slashed almost beyond recognition or symbols substituting for letters, such as m8 representing the word "mate". Though oft decried, these devices are lent a degree of legitimacy, indeed gravitas, by world-renowned Cambridge linguist David Crystal in Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 (Oxford University Press, 2008), to which this essay is greatly indebted.
According to Crystal, the first competition for text poetry was offered only two or three years after the arrival of texting by The Guardian, which claims to be the world's leading liberal newspaper. Early adopters though these liberals may be, note that, despite the distinguished panel of judges, the contest and its results are relegated to the technology pages.
Still, the games had begun. A second and more lucrative prize from The Guardian soon followed, then a sister city project between Antwerp and Leeds, a Tasmanian prize, a Filipino one, fourteen from the British forum, txt2nite.com, even a new Dutch literary foundation dedicating to awarding De Gouden Duim (The Golden Thumb)!
All right then, let's play! But what makes an award-winning text poem? Well, obviously, like any text message, it must contain no more than 160 characters. Beyond that, the judges from that original Guardian competition offer some insights; among them, the suspense created when one can only read a single line at a time, and the necessity of an unequivocal opening. As in all poetry competitions, judges enjoy a fresh approach or subject. Nevertheless, I wonder if some of the salient characteristics specific to this new type of poem may have been missed in their commentary—notably, the impossibility of stanzification. Also, wouldn't such a poem, by its nature, be epistolary?
This month's poet, Hugh Hodge, who, as a computer programmer and editor of South Africa's oldest literary journal, New Contrast, is no stranger to either technology or poetry, found himself in such insufficiently charted territory that he felt the need to include his own rules (no textese, message must be sent) and explanation along with his poem.
What is immediately striking about his poem is its subject matter. It is not about dating, not humorous, nor self-referentially about texting itself—none of the cliché SMS topics.
Less fortunately though, the poem opens with some difficult syntax. Follow me here: if the "mother's now translucent glowing" is a compound noun as suggested by the possessive, then it is the "glowing" which is cold. If, more probably, the noun is intended to be "mother", then the meaning is either "mother (is) now translucent (comma) glowing" or "mother (is) now translucent(ly) glowing." Or perhaps the noun is "now" and "mother" is an adjective modifying it.
This may appear nit-picky, but confusing syntax at the beginning of a poem can be off-putting. The reader cannot enter properly. And when the reader is a competition judge with a large stack to get through, your poem may not get the patient response you desire.
My favorite lines are 4-6. I like especially the juxtaposition of winter sun/autumnal. Is it winter or autumn? If it is winter, then aren't we done with autumn? Wait, I'm confused about time here, which is, of course, the point. The reader participates in this confusion. Furthermore notice how each word has an "n" and the "u" and "l" sounds both unify the phrase and propel it forward to the next line, creating a full movement from sun to cloud. Additionally, there is the personification of "cloud" serving double-duty as a metaphor for mother.
Lines 7 and 8, in comparison, are uninspired. They are also explanatory. Mom's confused about time; we've got that. The participation we enjoyed as readers is undercut when prosaically summed by the author. I recommend the lines be struck.
What really makes the poem successful for me are the final two lines which move the poem to an unexpected place with their disquieting image. The chicken may be fresh, but it's dead. And actually, if it were recently dead, it wouldn't be cold. This image is not merely unappealing, but troubling, because it is something as dear as mother's hand.
However, it is not only that final image that leaves me troubled. There is the question of what my response might have been had the poet not informed me of his medium. How does contextualizing a piece affect that piece? Remember, Marcel Duchamp's urinal would have been merely that, had he not signed it. Translations, arcania, invented forms, or resurrected ones require context, but when does context become gimmick?
And when does the need for context disappear? Will we ever recognize an SMS poem as readily as we do a sonnet? Some industry experts predict the volume of SMS messages to be 2.4 trillion by 2010. According to Julie Bloss Kelsey, "twitterzines", like the recently inaugurated Thaumatrope, are avidly seeking—and paying for—160-character fiction and poetry.
On the other hand, other analysts predict texting will be a short-lived trend, with video messaging soon to replace it. So perhaps we'd best get our thumbs working.
Where could a poem like "mother's now..." be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
PANK Magazine's 1,001 Awesome Words Contest
Entries must be received by September 30
Edgy, contemporary literary journal offers at least $200 for creative writing (one prize across all genres), up to 1,001 words; top prize amount is partly contingent on fees received, ranging between $200 and $750
Firstwriter.com International Poetry Competition
Entries must be received by October 1
UK-based writers' resource site offers prizes up to 500 pounds for poems up to 30 lines (published or unpublished); enter online only
Abilene Writers Guild Contest
Postmark Deadline: November 30 (don't enter before October 1)
Texas literary society offers prizes up to $100 in a number of genres including rhymed and unrhymed poetry, short stories, articles, children's literature, and novel excerpts
In addition, here are two sites that specialize in SMS poetry:
Copyblogger
This copywriters' and bloggers' advice site offers occasional prizes of iPods and gift cards
txt2nite
Online forum collects funny and poetic text messages
This poem and critique appeared in the September 2009 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Up from the Root Cellar
The root vegetable, as metaphor for the unearthing of secrets and the renewal of aging bodies, unifies this satisfying chapbook from Cervena Barva Press. In Woodworth's inventive poems, nuns peeling potatoes could be fantasizing about Marilyn Monroe's striptease; a woman puzzled by hints of her father's infidelity might try to call her childhood home by speaking into a rose shaped like an antique telephone.
US Font Map: The United Fonts of America
This entertaining article at The Statesider shows a map of 222 typographical fonts named after US locations, some with quirky stories behind them. (For instance, Georgia, one of the more common fonts used today, got its name from a tabloid headline that read "Alien Heads Found in Georgia"!)
US Legal Forms
Clearinghouse for over 36,000 legal forms that are free or available for purchase online. Includes state-specific forms. Writers will appreciate the templates for contracts, rights assignments and intellectual property filings.
V.A.
By Terry Severhill
Very aggravating
Sitting here at 2 North,
V.A. Regional Medical Center, La Jolla
Waiting—
God, how many hours, weeks, years
Have I spent waiting on a reluctant
Government?
Signs—
Signs all around—
"Depression"—
Well yes it is—
This whole fucking place is.
"Cognitive Mood Disorder Clinic"
Huh? That sign pisses me off for some reason.
"Psychiatry Emergency Clinic"—
Why don't they just say—
"This place is for all you pissed off
Rage filled, bummed out assholes"
but that would just be another sign.
Under the sign
"Depression"
They list 9 signs.
I have 7.
I'm so depressed by the revelation.
I got here early—
That must be a sign of something.
I wasn't the first. Just a kicked-backed black dude about my age—
A regular—the doctors and staff know him by name.
More "clients/patients" trickle in—
A couple look like WW II vets.
Only one looks under thirty.
I'm nervous—
I'm nuts—
I'm just a "little" crazy.
Ha. Ha.
Why else would I be in 2 North?
(2 North is a walk in psychiatric clinic, 2 South is the lockdown ward)
Valancourt Books
Founded in 2005 by partners James Jenkins and Ryan Cagle, Valancourt Books is an independent small press dedicated to the rediscovery of rare, neglected, and out-of-print fiction. They specialize in gay titles, Gothic and horror novels, and literary fiction.
Valparaiso Poetry Review
A publication of Valparaiso University in Indiana, Valparaiso Poetry Review is a well-regarded online literary magazine of poetry, reviews, and criticism. Journal has been published since 1999; currently, the archives that are free to read online go back to 2010. See website for review submission guidelines.
VCU Medical Literary Messenger
VCU Medical Literary Messenger is Virginia Commonwealth University's twice-yearly online journal of creative writing about medical themes. The journal aims to promote humanism and the healing arts through prose, poetry, and photography.
Versal
Visit their blog for the editors' thoughts about their submission review process and the wide(ning) aesthetic that Versal seeks out. Contributors have included Peter Shippy, Jennifer Chapis, and Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé.
Verse Daily
Similar to Poetry Daily. Visit for a new free poem each day. Verse Daily selects from review copies of literary magazines and books. Web Monthly page links to poems on the Internet. Both famous and lesser-known poets are represented. Publishers, send review copies here.
Verses Scribbl’d in My Burning House
By Katherine J. Leisering
While reviewing 17th c. surveyor map holdings, Massachusetts librarian Emma Loade discovered this first draft of Anne Bradstreet's "Upon the Burning of Our House". Footnotes are Miss Loade's.
Asleep was I, to dream of love
When three floors below to me above
Rose cries of, "Fire! Fire! my dear!
Get thy derriere outta here!"
Before I flew, toward door as dart,
My pen grabbed I close to my heart,
And put to scorch'd paper few brief verses,
In between some well placed curses.
Thought I, nightie now well heated,
"The hell with poems!" I'd become unseated.
Rising swiftly pray'd I to God,
"Please! Spare for me my bod!
And allow me like, you know, to step
Outside real quick and call a Geico rep."
We are covered well 'tis sure
For occasions ill, e'en backed up sew'r.
And should no payment come or stall late,
I shall but compare costs with Allstate.[1]
How didst such flames begin a-firing?
Was it ubiquitous faulty wiring?
Or mayhap pyromaniac parson[2]
Who lately'd been accused of arson?
My goods turned to ashes thus
Will ne'er make me Gloomy Gus.[3]
Though friends they may become aloof
Refusing meals if there's no roof.
Then shall we simply move up windward
To summer digs on Martha's Vineyard.
________________________________
[1] I, too, have Allstate.
[2] Parson Thurgood Mulch racked up a record thirty-three trips to the neck pillory in 1652 for setting trash can fires all over Plymouth.
[3] "Gloomy" Gus Standish (Miles' nephew) briefly dated Anne Bradstreet before tragically choking on a Thanksgiving turkey bone and succumbing in the arms of an Indian.
Vestal Review
Vestal Review pays 3-10 cents per word for accepted stories. Submissions should be 500 words maximum and have a plot.
Vetch
Launched in 2015, Vetch is an online literary journal of poetry by transgender authors. Essays and book reviews should take the poetry of trans authors as their subject. It was founded by the poet Liam O'Brien and is edited by writers from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Editors say: "Vetch seeks work by trans poets in trans language. This is not to say that trans people have a single way of speaking to one another, nor that trans language is by necessity revolutionary, but that we seek work that does not bother to translate itself for a cis reader. Vetch seeks work attentive to the ways in which power shapes language, poetry, and relations among trans people. Vetch seeks work excited by imagining a trans poetics, rather than dogmatic about establishing one." See website for email submission guidelines.
Veterans History Project
Library of Congress site collects personal reminiscences from veterans of recent wars. Search archives by time period or branch of service, or find out how you can add your own memories to the historical record.
VIDA: Women in Literary Arts
Award-winning poets Cate Marvin and Erin Belieu founded this online community in August 2009 to address the need for female writers of literature to engage in conversations regarding women's work as well as the critical reception of women's creative writing in our current culture. Formerly known as WILLA: Women in Letters and Literary Arts.
Vietnamese Reds
A string of red paper lanterns cast harsh shadows
upon a pagoda of silken Bodhisattvas, snapping
pleats of paper like peacock tails for American GI's.
Their celadon features light opium pipes, pouring
flowery rice wines; while pregnancies out of wedlock
are punished by lying in the street as elephants trod
on stomachs until garments are the color of cay-cay.
Still, born of this night are offenses more colorful
as the essence of jackfruit and pungent curries
stain winds. A river bleeds like a long cut, split open
by the evils of Reds and Capitalists alike. Junks
carry small explosions of orange as black clouds lift
from woks and grenades. Nearby a curious red rain
falls on banana leaves, where a child has followed
a scuttling blue crab over a landmine. Beyond
Saigon, a field of casualties lay splayed in the wake
of "conflict" resembling war. Their vampire smiles
appear to be stained with betel nut, but not.
Burlap bags swollen with shrapnel, bleed rice.
Jasmine and napalm float upon the moist dark:
marriage of dove and vulture. A people governed
by fate question virtues, as Confucius scratches
his head. A staccato beat sounds for the dead
from a drum said to be stretched with human skin.
Cay cay: a fruit similar to a persimmon that produces a dark pink juice that is used as a cosmetic and a paint and sealer for paper fans.
Copyright 2004 by S.K. Duff
Critique by Jendi Reiter
This month's critique poem, "Vietnamese Reds" by S.K. Duff, surrounds us with a world of brutal illusions, where beauty and cruelty intertwine like the blossoms and dragons on a Chinese urn. The finely observed details create an atmosphere that is almost oppressively real, a feat that helps compensate for the lack of narrative development.
This is a poem of disguises and shape-shifting, where grains of rice can be mistaken for shrapnel, and woks and grenades give off identical smoke. The clash between the ancient Vietnamese civilization and modern American warfare adds yet another layer of disharmony between appearance and reality. Duff subtly suggests that the war itself is enabled by deception, as when politicians refuse to call things by their real names: "[A] field of casualties lay splayed in the wake/of 'conflict' resembling war."
The poem demands close attention in order to comprehend what is being described. It's easy to be dazzled by the sensory profusion and fail to spot the deadly reality beneath. It would be nice to deceive ourselves that the bodies' lips are red with betel nut, a sensory indulgence, "but not." Duff is a master of restraint. My favorite example of chilling understatement:
...Nearby a curious red rain
falls on banana leaves, where a child has followed
a scuttling blue crab over a landmine.
Death is everywhere in this poem, but rarely named outright. Even the execution of pregnant girls is masked with the pleasing, impersonal image of decorative dyes.
Poets who aspire to tackle emotionally charged topics could learn subtlety from "Vietnamese Reds". The author refrains from unnecessary editorializing and trusts his readers to have the appropriate response to the scenes laid out before them.
Yet one drawback of the poem's journalistic detachment, in my view, is a certain emotional coolness. The very title suggests an abstract composition, rather than a human drama. While I'm glad Duff refrained from telling us how to feel, as so many poems about atrocities do, I wasn't sure what the details added up to. The poem is structured as a realistic narrative, but it didn't seem to move forward toward a dramatic resolution. The final image of a drum "stretched with human skin" is one more addition to a catalogue of horrors, rather than a clue to making sense of the whole picture. The poem stops, but doesn't really end.
The closest we come to closure is "A people governed/by fate question virtues, as Confucius scratches/his head." This intriguing yet enigmatic statement left me wanting to know more about how it applied to the specific scenes of the poem.
Is the oppressive fate in question the traditional Vietnamese culture, with its harsh punishment of sexual misconduct, or the modern-day "evils of Reds and Capitalists"? Or is the point that modernity has just substituted one inhuman system for another, rather than bringing individual freedom?
Since there are no characters in the poem—the human figures are either inferred from the physical objects they create, or dead and reduced to objects themselves—the notion of a choice between virtuous and amoral action is hard to read back into the preceding stanzas. Perhaps the author is saying that we commit atrocities when we allow ourselves to depersonalize our actions, to act as if "fate" and not human choices ordered those women to be trampled and those soldiers to be shot.
I also found the first two stanzas to lack a strong poetic rhythm, which made them feel overly wordy. The following is a powerful image, but it seems to be struggling to stand out from a jumble of sounds:
...while pregnancies out of wedlock
are punished by lying in the street as elephants trod
on stomachs until garments are the color of cay-cay.
However, by the third stanza, the rhythm tightens up. The line breaks feel more inevitable, matching the flow of the concepts. This image in particular had all the elegant economy of an Asian brushstroke painting:
Jasmine and napalm float upon the moist dark:
marriage of dove and vulture.
The latter line reminded me of the cryptic, metaphorical names given to martial arts poses, or sections of the I Ching.
Where could a poem like "Vietnamese Reds" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Columbia Journal Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: March 1
A prestigious magazine published by New York's Columbia University.
Foley Poetry Contest
Entries must be received by April 16
Sponsored by America, a Jesuit magazine, yet this contest favors works with a more subtle philosophical/spiritual component, rather than explicitly religious verse.
Pablo Neruda Prize
Postmark Deadline: April 30
Sponsored by Nimrod International Journal, this is one of the most prestigious contests for individual poems. Intense, image-filled work may find a home here.
This poem and critique appeared in the January 2004 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Vigil for Darfur
This moving poem by 17-year-old Sabina Carlson supports Amnesty International's campaign for diplomatic and humanitarian aid to stop the genocidal civil war in Sudan's Darfur region. Visit their website to find out how you can help.
Virtual Literary Events Calendar at the Washington Post
Launched in May 2020, this calendar curated by the books editors at the Washington Post lists online literary events from publishers, authors, libraries, festivals, and bookstores around America.
Vispo: Langu(im)age
Vispo, or visual poetry, is an art form that explores the visual patterns of written language, with an emphasis on appearance over meaning. This site showcases examples of vispo in images, videos, and even a computer game ("Arteroids" by Jim Andrews) where players shoot text fragments with other texts.
VistaPrint
Design your own postcards, greeting cards, business cards, flyers, stationery and promotional materials. Use VistaPrint's templates or upload your own artwork.
Visual Thesaurus
Each word you enter links to other words in a fascinating, shifting web. Great brainstorming tool.
Vitality
Vitality is an online literary journal for poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork with LGBTQ protagonists. Submissions accepted year-round. This is a paying market. They are especially interested in genre fiction with an adventure storyline (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, mystery, thriller, steampunk, comedy, travel, historical fiction) and characters who are nonbinary in their gender identity and sexual attraction. No homophobic slurs or bullying, even by villains; explicit sex; or "tragic queers" (LGBTQ characters dying). Read the full list of the editors' likes and dislikes here.
Voyage: A Young Adult Literary Journal
Launched in 2020, Voyage is an online literary journal dedicated to young adult literature. They publish new essays and stories weekly, and also host a first chapter contest with a cash prize and literary agent review.
Waiting for Pentecost
By Nancy Craig Zarzar. Winner of the 2007 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest, this poetry collection depicts intimate relationships cleaved by silences, frustrated by communication barriers both psychological and inter-cultural, but capable of being healed by empathy. Divine grace helps some of these characters find the willingness to enter into another’s strange mental world, like the husband who alone appreciates the creative visions of his stigmatized, mentally ill wife. Others remain on the opposite side of the barrier, perhaps because their intentions were not as pure, like the male narrator who is intrigued by his hairdresser’s quiet daughter.
Waiting to Burn
Memorable chapbook whose poems are always about so much more than their literal subject matter. Cleland trusts her readers to recognize the story of an unhappy marriage in a cat's transformation into a dog, or the divine-human power struggle over forbidden knowledge in a guided tour of a factory. This book was one of the three winners of the 2006 Templar Poetry Pamphlet and Collection Competition. Their book design and materials are above-average.
Wake Up Call
By David R. Altman
A gold-eyed predator races through the low limbs,
her kill window only six minutes, just before first light.
Like a Vampire of the Woods,
she must return to her hidden roost before sunrise.
Gliding silently, she sees the unsuspecting cat
curled upon the deck post, its hearing long gone and
senses dulled with age,
now the target of a racing drone, whose radar is locked on.
It strikes quickly; the cat, never to awaken, is suddenly lifted upward,
leaving one family to feed another, creating memories of its ninth life,
now flown like a grocery sack to an unlikely final resting place
high among the branches, far from the deck post
where her kitten sleeps undisturbed,
a lofty sacrifice that will never be confirmed.
Walking Backward
By Diana Anhalt
Late each night, woozy with sleep, my bare feet
traveled blind—knew one room from the next
through warps in the wood, space between
floorboards. Sensed their width and breadth...
For forty years I called that place home.
It still resides in me. The feet are last to follow.
They fumble with the unfamiliar, reject the waxed
surface of a new life, are the last to forgive
my leaving, long to return me to the old home—
unwashed windows, lopsided gate, caged parrots
in the kitchen, geraniums. At night my feet step
back, tread dream halls where faces linger
in mirrors, Spanish echoes down corridors
into a past I left behind. And there you are,
waiting in the entrance. You lean
against the door frame, ask: Como te fue?
How did it go? Red wine or white?
Walt Whitman
This scholarly archive includes complete text of Leaves of Grass plus biographical materials and literary criticism.
War Poetry by David Ray
Mr. Ray was one of the founders of American Writers Against the Vietnam War in 1966. Recent books include 'The Death of Sardanapalus: and Other Poems of the Iraq Wars' and 'One Thousand Years: Poems about the Holocaust'.
War Poets (Wikipedia)
Brief overview of the emergence and development of the contemporary war poetry genre, with links to information on major poets of World Wars I and II.
War Poets Association
The War Poets Association promotes interest in the work, life and historical context of poets whose subject is the experience of war, with particular interest in World Wars I and II, the Spanish Civil War, and the conflict in Northern Ireland. Their website posts announcements of new publications in this field, calls for papers, and literary events (mostly in London).
War, Literature & the Arts
Handsome literary journal published by the English Department at the US Air Force Academy. Features writing by well-known authors such as Philip Caputo, Andre Dubus and Carolyn Forche.
Warnings and Cautions
Website dedicated to identifying scams.
Water on Rocks
By Mary Lou Taylor
Oh, you red planet!
Did you once have beings running around,
keeping herds, building shelters, planting?
Once did you have water?
Spirit and Opportunity—they surprised you.
Twin robots hunkering down on opposite flanks,
busy poking at rocks, maneuvering, searching soil,
mining for minerals. They didn't go away.
Spirit hung around five years, then got stuck.
Opportunity soldiers on, a ten-year-old, golf-cart-sized
robot, exploring, working Endeavour Crater, looking
to see if you were once warm and wet.
Opportunity spotted a rock called "Esperance,"
filled with clay minerals. Acid water, undrinkable,
once flowed across it. Hey, Mars, we know you had
a wet past. Today you're cold and dry.
Earth needs to know your history. Let that Opportunist
be a geologist who walks around your surface, uses
a hammer on the inside of a rock, digs in, picks up
dust particles. Mars, get ready for your close-up.
Water Street
By Naila Moreira. This poet and science journalist's second chapbook marries the majesty of High Modernist style with a humble attention to our nonhuman neighbors on the planet. Like Yeats and Eliot, she speaks with prophetic sureness about cosmic themes, but where they might have recoiled from nature's messiness into the cool chambers of intellect, Moreira shows us the fatal consequences of such detachment. She quickens our conscience to protect our fragile environment, then invites us to be awestruck by meteor showers and comforted by the cycle "of being and of killing, of eating and of rot", as our tiny breaths "fuse with the world's bedlam of respiration".
Water, rising.
By Sally Stewart Mohney
for Vinings
Waking in the night to a thunder-full
of dark. Green stage rises as you sleep,
crests a high angry orange. Rushing sluice
groans and juices over moss banks. River feels
coarse grain of pasture grass on its underbelly.
Horses pulled from half-graze. Neighbors in
sudden red kayaks witness mattresses, chairs
and sofas tossed in a slow, painful ballet. Stormwater
mud-gullies into your street belly-level. Like watershed
creatures, you find alternate egress. Folks collect in pluff
mud at tide's edge to watch churn boil: dam of net,
leaves, rope. Warped door. Pool toys. Hopeful raft.
Copters cast shaking shadows. Your fingers trace
the dull floodmark on a bowering honeysuckle stand,
nurse the remains.
Wave Mechanics
By Dana Curtis
(i)
I don't have the math and I become more
and more convinced that no one has
the green ribbon given to everyone just
for participating. When we were
undressed by the water, satisfied
as if this was anything other
than a revolutionary new
interpretation that might be called:
pastoral or pictorial or labyrinthine
and what question will finally be
revealed as our shadow, our
hours in the light cast by
the new oven, the old
reality—castanets are what
we hear in this endless ocean
of grass dotted with horses and
fish—they're still flipping on the
oxygen and they might never
stop. I take down my hair. I take
the final dictation. I have not taken
the temperature of what will come.
(ii)
I don't have the math and I don't see much
chance of ever receiving a line of
integers like diamonds. There seems
more chance of paying the rent
then a deposit of numbers appearing
at my door. I'm experiencing the
poverty my husband always said I deserved.
If the universe doesn't give it to you then
you don't deserve it: look at me. There can be no
reconciliation if both sides of the equation
are wrong. I was sleeping in the park
while the stars let out shrieks of
contentment, of justification—
it was cold or it was
not cold. I was or was not.
This is what is integral
for a long-lost daughter lost again
and I know what the world will
give me this time.
(iii)
I don't have the math but I do
have a disease—all about
perception. I'm looking
through the glass of what used
to be water. It's the wave
form and the hand in the air
signaling departure or return or
symbolic particles because they
look like they need to be there
and what will I do because I have
the math without numbers, the
numbers without significance;
it's a standing spherical demonstration
of what I saw in the dark—
the darkest room where there might be
nothing to hear because we sit down
with all our notations meaning so much
to us. It is a disease
of the light.
Waxwing
Waxwing is a thrice-yearly online literary journal promoting the tremendous cultural diversity of contemporary American literature, alongside international voices in translation. They seek to include American writers from all cultural identities alongside international voices published bilingually. Waxwing currently accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations. Authors published in Waxwing include Cortney Lamar Charleston, Amy Dryansky, Jeannine Hall Gailey, and Oliver de la Paz.
We Are Not Numbers
We Are Not Numbers is an ongoing archive of personal stories from emerging Palestinian writers. Launched in 2014, the project trains Palestinian journalists to reach an English-language audience. Its mentorship program pairs young Palestinians with experienced writers to help shape and publish their narratives. WANN's goal is to help people outside Palestine understand the lived experiences of occupation and exile. Their logo was redesigned in 2024 as a kite to reference the poem "If I must die" by the late Dr. Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in 2023.
We Are You Project
The We Are You Project is the first comprehensive 21st Century coast-to-coast exhibition depicting current Latino socio-cultural, political, and economic conditions, reflecting triumphs, achievements, risks and vulnerabilities, affecting all Latinos "within," as well as "outside" the USA. It is also the first 21st Century art movement that cohesively combines Visual Art, Poetry, Music, Performance Art, and Film making, amalgamating these diverse art-forms into one ("united") socio-cultural artistic Latino voice, which utilizes ART to confront current challenges and opportunities that are faced by contemporary Latinos and Latinas throughout the USA and Latin America. Featured poets include Raphael Montañez Ortíz, Colette Inez, George Nelson Preston, and Gloria Mindock.
We Love You, Charlie Freeman
By Kaitlyn Greenidge. This ambitious, unsettling debut novel delves into the secret history of primate research and race relations in America. The Freemans, a high-achieving middle-class black family, accept a live-in position at the (fictitious) Toneybee Institute in rural Massachusetts to teach sign language to a chimpanzee. Their narrative is braided with that of Nymphadora, a maverick black schoolteacher in the 1920s who was seduced into taking part in the Toneybee's questionable experiments. In both timelines, the black protagonists' lives unravel because they underestimated how the white scientists saw them, too, as animal test subjects.
Web Del Sol
Locus of the new literary art. This enormous site publicizes outstanding new poetry and fiction.
Web Hosting Rating’s Top 100 Web Design Resources
Freelance website developer Lisa Sanovski reviews service providers on her Web Hosting Rating site, which includes this extensive list of her favorite resources for fonts, graphics, stock photos, logo editors, and other web design tools.
Website Setup: 10 Best Website Builders
Website Setup is web designer Robert Mening's tech support site for artists and small business owners seeking to set up their own website or blog. Authors who are weighing the pros and cons of a custom design versus website-building software will benefit from this list, updated annually, of the most user-friendly and cost-effective site builders.
Websites and Blogs About the English Language
At her blog English in Progress, educator and translator Heddwen Newton maintains this list of her favorite websites for word nerds. Links include style blogs, etymology resources, and news sites covering linguistic trends.
Wedge of Blacktop, Saturday, 1955
By Paul Scollan
All they could wish was this wedge of blacktop
by the back-porch stoop of this matchbox cape
in this shirt-cling evening of a dog-day swoon,
the breadloaf radio set out on the rail,
the longneck beers, dead soldiers on the stairs,
Blanche kicking high in her grease-stained dress,
her great girth tweaking like she's traveling light,
Chaz winging free right into tomorrow in
his busman's pants, his spit-shined shoes,
a sleeveless top, sweet jazz in his moves
to the toot of Duke in "It Don't Mean a Thing,"
and a switch of the dial to slow it all down
to arms ringing round to doo-wop sounds could
roll honey up the hill of the house next door.
Weird Old Book Finder
This quirky search engine designed by tech writer Clive Thompson browses Google Books to show public-domain books from the 18th century to the 1920s, one at a time, based on your search terms. Rather than a straighforward research tool, it's a vehicle for finding unusual texts and illustrations to spark your imagination. Before using it, read Thompson's blog post about how to get the most out of your search.
Welcome Table Press
Welcome Table Press publishes anthologies of contemporary and classic literary essays, and the periodical pamphlet series Occasional Papers on Practice & Form, which features transcripts of lectures on writing and teaching the essay form. See website for free downloads of excerpts from these publications, as well as an annual contest judged by Robert Atwan, series editor of The Best American Essays.
