There is an act of revisiting that takes place at the midpoint of a poet’s journey. Be it mid-career or mid-poem, there is a brief moment of circling back to the peaks and valleys, themes explored and unquestioned, verses written and abandoned. We look to the past to see how far we’ve come. We pay homage to what was in order to pace forward.
Read MoreOne of the cornerstones of SingPoWriMo is that such a gathering would offer otherwise unacknowledged writers, writers who are unknown, writers who have yet to have their presence felt in the poet-o-sphere (if there was such a thing), writers who have not published… Well, this issue is dedicated to you, that writer.
Read Morelearning how to hold your heart is a lesson
in building. what makes concrete: part water
part earth, part portland cement. sculpting:
accounting for all the hands it will take
to shape these towers.
The 10,000 miles that we used to bridge
In a day’s flight now belongs to the past
Once we’d thought that it was impossible
For the world to stop, but look outside now
Everything’s at a standstill, suspended
I am awake and you are asleep.
The dark is full of ugly old fear. I am not sure if
it all belongs to me.
this morning I peeled back the blinds and found peace. in its every elusive iteration. found the blueprint of a laugh. found the damn hair tie I’d lost five months ago, slick in three layers of dust and the stench of courage — of a pessimism I no longer possess; look now.
Read MoreI'd have liked to walk around in your mind
if all the grass didn't make our toes feel so good humming
as if the throat can somehow sorrow
was my education
was my bible study
was Sunday afternoons spent praying for three hours and reading scriptures
I did not understand,
the prayer begins when there is no sin left
to the imagination. done to dust. you don't pretend
at made amends, that your clasped hands
will set the bones, myrrh the wounds, call the dead
to dinner.
there was once an x-men character with wings
pressured to hide them from his own father
he mutilated his mutant body to escape
but his father saw him a fallen angel
needing shifa for his blasphemous existence
where the glue seal runs is where
it is easiest to tear open. along the top seam,
if you put the right pressure at the
fold, the foil will split
open, like that.
as mariners go, there is no more need
to narrate. when the still morning goes out
in its grey sandals, no longer will you
be here – nor your daughters, nor both your sons
you leave in the wards. as they began, then,
as they will be.
do not set aside flowers for the dead
nor well-wishes for those going away —
the living have a greater need than they
could ever claim to have.
In an artistic conversation across mediums and geography, five artists discuss brown masculinity and reflect on the way it intersects with their artistry and personal lives.
Read MoreMonsters have a deep rooted tradition within horror as harbingers of unspeakable terror. Feasting upon the very darkness that fuels the anxiety of unknowns, they are the perfect embodiment of the writer’s fear—presenting themselves as the elusive “unmentionables” set on taking over the mind.
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