M.K. Foster
September Requiem: In Which Sköll Swallows the Sun

M.K. Foster - September Requiem: In Which Sköll Swallows the Sun

Poetry
M.K. Foster’s poetry won the 2013 Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, has been recognized with an Academy of American Poets Prize, and has appeared or is forthcoming in The Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose,… Read more »
Sean Prentiss
All the Varieties of Hunger

Sean Prentiss - All the Varieties of Hunger

Fiction
Sean Prentiss is the author of the memoir, Finding Abbey: a Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave. Prentiss is also the co-editor of The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre: Explorations in… Read more »
Virginia Konchan
Christina’s Field

Virginia Konchan - Christina’s Field

Poetry
Virginia Konchan is the author of Vox Populi (Finishing Line Press) and the short story collection Anatomical Gift (forthcoming, Noctuary Press). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Best New… Read more »
Douglas Smith and Jen Town
Composed in the Form of Falling

Douglas Smith and Jen Town - Composed in the Form of Falling

Poetry
Douglas Smith was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His first book is Judgments. His work can be read in Quarterly West, Cimarron Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Washington Square, Mid-American Review,… Read more »
Amy Collini
Definitions

Amy Collini - Definitions

Creative Nonfiction
Amy Collini’s essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Slice, Indiana Review, Soundings Review, Pithead Chapel, Rappahannock Review, Ilanot Review, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. She lives in… Read more »
Jill McDonough
Enchantment

Jill McDonough - Enchantment

Poetry
Jill McDonough’s books of poems include Habeas Corpus (Salt, 2008), and Where You Live (Salt, 2012). The recipient of three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, NEA, NYPL,… Read more »
Karen Skolfield
End of Evolution

Karen Skolfield - End of Evolution

Poetry
Karen Skolfield’s book Frost in the Low Areas won the 2014 PEN New England Award in poetry and the First Book Award from Zone 3 Press. She received the 2015 Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the… Read more »
Matt Broaddus
Home

Matt Broaddus - Home

Poetry
Matt Broaddus is currently a first year PhD student in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his MFA in creative writing from New York University. His poetry has… Read more »
Tally Brennan
How We Live

Tally Brennan - How We Live

Fiction
Tally Brennan is a recovered computer programmer, happy to have emerged from the cubicle as a writer of fiction. Her stories have appeared in journals including Rosebud, PMS/Poem, Memoir, Story, Room… Read more »
Rachel Jamison Webster
Relating to Time

Rachel Jamison Webster - Relating to Time

Creative Nonfiction
Rachel Jamison Webster is a Professor of Poetry at Northwestern University and author of the full-length collections of poetry, September (Northwestern University Press 2013) and The Endless Unbegun… Read more »
Lynn Gordon
Staying Up All Night

Lynn Gordon - Staying Up All Night

Fiction
Lynn Gordon's fiction has appeared in Epiphany, The Southampton Review, Hobart, Zone 3, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Northern California. Read more »
Sam Katz
The Prisoners

Sam Katz - The Prisoners

Fiction
Sam Katz was born in Korea and now lives in Philadelphia. His fiction has appeared in The Good Men Project, Southern Humanities Review, and Tin House Flash Fridays. You can see Sam waving from a bike… Read more »
Caroline Bruckner
The Song of a Dog

Caroline Bruckner - The Song of a Dog

Fiction
Caroline Bruckner is a writer and screenwriter based in Vienna, Austria. Her short film The Confession won the Student Academy Award and was nominated for an Academy Award (Best Live Action Short) in… Read more »
David Hornibrook
Theology

David Hornibrook - Theology

Poetry
David Hornibrook is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the Michael R. Gutterman award from the University of Michigan. His work has appeared in Day One, Five Quarterly, The Columbia Review, Flyway… Read more »
David Wagoner
Used Doors and Windows For Sale

David Wagoner - Used Doors and Windows For Sale

Poetry
David Wagoner has published 20 books of poems, most recently, After the Point of No Return (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). He has also published ten novels, one of which, The Escape Artist, was made into… Read more »

Enchantment

Jill McDonough

We’re in Eberswalde, where they burned
the synagogue on Kristallnacht, where Ravensbrück
had a subcamp. After the war the East made it into
a club. A perfectly good building; why tear it down?
Before the band plays we walk through, beyond
the Christmas-lit bar, bright stage, to a dark room
of upturned leather club chairs: I think
of lampshades made of human skin.
Darker corridors and doorways, sunken
cardboard boxes, moldy overhead projector.
The doors are heavy. Concrete absorbs
all sound, though we’re only rooms away
from the DJ, dancers, happy hour.
In one room we find thirteen sewing machines,
oak tables. I imagine they’re the women,
under some enchantment. Freed from body,
breath, made into this, and we’re come here
to save them. The music starts at ten.
Kids who come to see the show have shaved heads,
drab jackets, combat boots, tattoos. I’m through,
I’m thinking, want to fly home, cart off
the sewing machines. Scrub one sewing machine
with brushes, steel wool, Murphy’s Oil Soap.
Rub warmed linseed oil in the table’s thirsty grain,
let oak, enamel rest, soak it in on sheets of Sunday’s
New York Times. The stoves are lit for hours,
but we still see our breath. The whitewash, disco
balls, and colored lights are new, but it was cold like this
for them. Our visible breath historically accurate.
We are burning all the coal we want.
Read more »