“ and Dad who has many words for any occasion didn’t know what he could say to Ethan besides that he loves him, and that yes, he would be honored to speak, but he tells us he doesn’t know what he will say because so far all he has been able to tell Ethan is that he loves him”

“Her hands were trembling a lot and her lips were chattering. She reached for me and I ducked under one of the cables and hunched over the bed. It was the first time I’d ever been that close to her. Her hand was so dry and thin that it felt like I was holding a silk glove, the kind Anne Elliot, in the book, would have worn.”

“to create the correct carmine stain for the soft folds / of a girl’s final dress, her underskirt tied / about her ankles with rope, her slim ankles hidden,”

“ But it is hard work, telekinesis. My sister grows thin and her shoulders roll forward and soon the smallest things make her tired. Just sitting on the couch in our living room, she sucks down bottle after bottle of water, and I imagine her as a wilting plant.”

“The younger sibling and a boy, Jonathan suffered the after-shock. The beatings in the tub with the belt buckle after his father stormed out. He’s told me how his sister comforted him when, finally, the house was dark and quiet and he lay whimpering.”

“You visit a Catholic church and get blessed by Saint Anthony. You confess everything in the stuffy booth and the priest is so horrified that he laughs. You visit a tarot reader and pull the card of Death. Gemini horoscope predicts: Life-Changing Shift of Energy, and you burn the magazine in the sink.”

“Push past the charm of street trams and boxy Trabants, through the smog and cigarette old city air to where she’s passed up pastry and coffee to stroll in peace.”

“Sitting propped against pillows, cradling his dark heavy head, I begin, in a sort of sing-song voice, to list off everyone I can think of in our lives, everyone who loves him.”

“I can view magnified a thousand times. / When my daughter asks why we shelter in, / I tell her it’s because dinosaurs sleep”

Sara Biggs Chaney and Michael Chaney teach at Dartmouth College. Michael is a Professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing and Sara is a Lecturer in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric and the Associate Coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Sara and Michael have published creative non-fiction in Hotel Amerika and Sycamore Review. Their visual poetry has recently appeared in Redivider, Puerto Del Sol, and Quarterly West.

“Closer, I see she holds a pitchfork buried in the body of an enormous rattlesnake writhing incomprehensibly down four wooden steps as its tail draws fast and meaningless symbols in the dirt.”

“She belongs to a Wine-of-the-Month Club. Her nail polish never chips, not even while washing dishes, which her husband always does anyway. If she knew, she would probably deem me unfit to babysit—as if I’d actually squeeze him until his ribs cracked like delicious little breadsticks.”

“I should tell you a few truths— we had been drinking, we had synthesized what other black inks we’d etch onto our skins, we were saying, “​protect your magic,” ​ or other things about healing and bodies. We were scantily-clad, bikini tops for shirts, and reeking of a freedom fruit that spoils only in black girl pH.” 

Kito Fortune is one of the best poets in the world. He unleashes rhymes, wordplay, metaphors and dynamic performance, as he invites you into his world through poetry. Although he grew up in Los Angeles, his family is originally from Guyana. He was a member of the poetry slam team at Da Poetry Lounge for three years in a row.  Also in 2018 Kito finished in the top twenty of the Individual World Poetry slam. He was the slam champion at Da Poetry Lounge for two years straight. Kito enjoys sports, anime, and video games and his poetry is influenced by his melanin, and his Christianity.  Kito uses words to paint a vivid picture of his life.  

Interview by CooXooEii Black.

Tiana Clark has published the chapbook, Equilibrum, and a full book of poetry titled I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without The Blood. She has won numerous awards and has been published in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, and The Washington Post(just to name a few). A fellow Nashville native, I had the pleasure of watching her career flourish and expand over the years. We officially crossed paths at Sewanee School of Letters where she was my professor in the summer of 2019. We spoke about pantsuits, rage and isolation in the age of the pandemic.

Interview by Massey Armistead.

Photo by Crystal K. Martel

Hûw Steer is writer, historian, and comedian from London who holds an MA in Ancient History specializing in the study of ancient science-fiction. His first novel, The Blackbird and the Ghost, was an SPFBO finalist in 2019 and Ad Luna, his second novel, released on July 4th of this year. His short stories have been published in The Future Fire and UCL’s Publisher’s Prize.

Interview by Kalib La Chapelle

“You should’ve seen me—my smooth white hips, / the way they slung cold around powder-slick metal, /  the way I whispered Hey there honey, you look so sad in the ears of men waxed with whiskey /  and a taste for mink and plaster.

“My girlfriend Sasha has been fired from her temp job for pressing her boobs against a glass conference room wall, 26 floors up. Our heater is broken, and so is our oven.”

“Back when she and I shared a body, I thought too much about all the things that could go wrong: an infection, a genetic mutation, a single cell dividing abnormally. I exercised, meditated, gave up coffee and took my vitamins, knowing that whatever was happening inside of me, inside of her, was largely beyond our control. At every doctor’s appointment, I braced for bad news. Thankfully, luckily, none came. “

“An enactment of the truth, proof that our skin will always revolt in such a way? Black girls, black women, are there, in those six seconds, silent, waiting, invisibly unleashed, always present and living, fighting to be alive.“