Danielle Kessinger
Pry Apart a Single Pane

Danielle Kessinger - Pry Apart a Single Pane

Poetry
Danielle Kessinger has work published or forthcoming in Bartleby Snopes, the Drunken Odyssey, Burrow Press, and the anthology Jack’s Porch. She has lived and written in the mountains of Colorado,… Read more »
Jackleen Holton Hookway
Happy Pills

Jackleen Holton Hookway - Happy Pills

Poetry
Jackleen Holton Hookway’s poems have been published in The Giant Book of Poetry, and Steve Kowit: This Unspeakably Marvelous Life, and have appeared or are forthcoming in American Literary Review,… Read more »
M. Ann Hull
I Know the Science of the Thing:

M. Ann Hull - I Know the Science of the Thing:

Poetry
M. Ann Hull has published work in 32 Poems, Barrow Street, BOXCAR Poetry Review, Fugue, Mid-American Review, Passages North, and Quarterly West, among others, and has been awarded the Academy of… Read more »
Sarah J. Sloat
Industry Lap Dog

Sarah J. Sloat - Industry Lap Dog

Poetry
Sarah J. Sloat lives in Germany, where she works in news. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Birdfeast, Beloit Poetry Journal and DMQ Review. She used to run every day and… Read more »
Mary Peelen
Interim

Mary Peelen - Interim

Poetry
Mary Peelen lives in San Francisco. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Bennington Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Gulf Coast, The… Read more »
Krysten Hill
Knives

Krysten Hill - Knives

Poetry
Krysten Hill is an educator, writer, and performer who has showcased her poetry on stage at The Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Blacksmith House, Cantab Lounge, Merrimack College, and many others. She… Read more »
Avram Kline
Labor

Avram Kline - Labor

Poetry
Avram Kline lives in New York with his wife and son. His poems, stories, and essays can be found in jubilat, PANK, Fence, Big Big Wednesday, Transom Journal, The Common, Juked, and Spoke Too Soon,… Read more »
Jenna Le
Standing Between My Parents at Manatee Lagoon

Jenna Le - Standing Between My Parents at Manatee Lagoon

Poetry
Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011) and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Anchor & Plume Press, 2016). Her poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translations appear or are… Read more »
Lisa Rosinsky
That Dark Center

Lisa Rosinsky - That Dark Center

Poetry
Lisa Rosinsky is the 2016-2017 Associates of the Boston Public Library Writer-in-Residence. Her poetry appears in Measure, Prairie Schooner, Hunger Mountain, Iron Horse Literary Review, and various… Read more »

Knives

Krysten Hill

There was something about watching
a boy on the train platform pull a switchblade
on a smaller version of himself
that made me wonder what the lesson was.
When the smaller boy got rushed
and the crowd made room, I thought
for sure he caught the end of it
when he screamed like the boy he was, all of fifteen
in clean Nikes. The smaller boy was fast
and when there was no show of skin, no pooling proof
on the platform, even he said really
at the miracle of his unslashed coat.
It wasn’t that he could’ve been a student
in my class chewing on his pen before answering
my question about what Baldwin meant
when he said, One must say Yes
to life, and embrace it wherever it is found—
and it is found in terrible places
, and another
student said after the cops shot his friend,
they handcuffed him and let him bleed out
on the sidewalk, another said she keeps a machete
behind her bedroom door when her mother is home.
How small I sounded when I told them to be careful.
How words can feel useless in a knife fight, how weak
I looked screaming stop with my back against the wall,
while an older man pushed the bigger boy back
at the smaller boy, saying, stop dancing and do it.
Read more »