Robert Evory
Astronomers

Robert Evory - Astronomers

Poetry
Robert Evory is a creative writing fellow at Syracuse University and the Poetry Editor for Salt Hill and thepoetsbillow.org. He earned his Bachelor degrees from Western Michigan University in Creative… Read more »
Phillip Sterling
Cycling

Phillip Sterling - Cycling

Poetry
Phillip Sterling’s most recent book is In Which Brief Stories Are Told, a collection of short fiction (Wayne State University Press, 2011). He is also the author of the poetry collection Mutual… Read more »
Jeanne Wagner
Graphology

Jeanne Wagner - Graphology

Poetry
Jeanne Wagner is the recipient of several national awards, including 2011 Inkwell Prize and the 2011 Beullah Rose Prize from Smartish Pace. Her poems have appeared in Southern Poetry Review, RHINO,… Read more »
John Drury
How to Stay Awake

John Drury - How to Stay Awake

Poetry
John Drury is the author of The Refugee Camp (Turning Point Books, 2011), as well as two earlier collections, Burning the Aspern Papers and The Disappearing Town, and two books about poetry, Creating… Read more »
Nicholas YB Wong
Museum of Septum

Nicholas YB Wong - Museum of Septum

Poetry
Nicholas YB Wong earned his MFA at the City University of Hong Kong and is the author of Cities of Sameness. He is a finalist of New Letters Poetry Award and a semi-finalist of the Saturnalia Books… Read more »
Peter Leight
Shape Shift

Peter Leight - Shape Shift

Poetry
Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has previously published poems in Paris Review, Partisan Review, AGNI, and other magazines. Read more »
Sarah Giragosian
The Condor

Sarah Giragosian - The Condor

Poetry
Sarah Giragosian is a PhD candidate in Contemporary North American Poetry and Poetics at SUNY Albany. Her poems are forthcoming or published in such journals as Crazyhorse, Copper Nickel, and Measure,… Read more »
Adam Scheffler
Walking Around: The Sixth Wave of Extinctions

Adam Scheffler - Walking Around: The Sixth Wave of Extinctions

Poetry
Adam Scheffler grew up in Berkeley, received his MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa, and is currently a PhD candidate in English at Harvard. His work has appeared in the Colorado Review,… Read more »
Martin Ott and John F. Buckley
What I Watched On My Summer Vacation

Martin Ott and John F. Buckley - What I Watched On My Summer Vacation

Poetry
Martin Ott and John F. Buckley began their ongoing games of poetic volleyball in the spring of 2009. Poetry from their previous collaboration Poets’ Guide to America on Brooklyn Arts Press, has been… Read more »
Philip Fried
Words at War

Philip Fried - Words at War

Poetry
Philip Fried has published five books of poetry, the most recent being Early/Late: New and Selected Poems (Salmon, 2011). Publishers Weekly called this book "skillful and memorable," and Tim Liardet,… Read more »

Shape Shift

Peter Leight

A few days ago I was smaller, I needed to be small enough to disappear, but also to be able to be bigger, stiffening or sticking out, and when I looked in the mirror there was more to it, more of me in it, room for expansion, although it was also something I was responding to, I almost said afraid of, because fear is also useful when it’s convenient to disappear. Shrinking in order to strengthen later on, softening in order to create an opportunity for hardening, because everybody agrees empty seats are useless unless they’re occupied, almost like the mind itself. Of course, I’m still a weight-bearing entity, not perhaps to the same extent, scaling down in order to remain sustainable, although it doesn’t have to be precise like one of those recipes that requires you to weigh everything on a scale or it blows up in your face, and in any case I don’t have a skeleton on the outside that protects me like armor from feeling inside. And I’m not an idealist or Platonist with templates available to me when I need to be creative, and also for purposes of comparison. Even when I’m small I’d like to have room for everything I carry around and need room for, and I’m reserving my rights, because I don’t want to lose them, I want to be able to use them later on.
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