ISSUE 8.1 welcome issue contents > fiction > nonfiction > poetry contributors interviews featured art our editors Emily Adams-Aucoin“Dismantling emphasizes the truth that is realized by the end of the poem: Creation is not always good. Destruction is not always bad.” laura adrienne brady“Much like cloud-gazing, I began to see shapes and creatures in the cuts of granite or smooth curves of stone.” bethany bruno“We’re only hearing one truth of an entire story, and that truth solely depends on their feelings and memories of what happened. ” mialise carney“I have stolen a teaspoon from Oxford University and a giant ladle from an Italian restaurant in my hometown, which is arguably one of my greatest accomplishments.” Janine Debaise“That’s why it’s important to give every child a safe haven. Sometimes it’s possible for them to escape their circumstances, but not if they stop trying.” darren demaree“The idea of play in poetry is highly underrated to me. Playing with sound and music. Playing with form. Playing with the text as visual.” heather diamond“I wrote this piece to try to express the tensions between feeling safe but not, hope and fear, awe and horror.” shawna ervin“Some poems need to be short and others longer while still others are better as essays. My job is to get out of the way and let each piece be what it is.” halsey hyer“Poems are finicky, wondrous, & absolutely have a mind of their own—I never know when they’ll happen to me.” Ruth Joffre“As a writer, I’m primarily interested in telling stories that center the historically marginalized and defy the status quo.” brandyn johnson“Sometimes I feel inspired to create simply from being on campus and sensing the energy of forward motion.” andy keys“It is, as you say, both wistful and dark. I loved growing up there, but I have also mourned and buried friends and family there.” karl plank“At odd moments, I sense a character and voice start to emerge in my mind. If that keeps happening, I may have to try a longer story.” dani putney“I like to think the personal & political have morphed into one entity when it comes to my poetry.” Q.M.“A large portion of my poems now deals with the theme of displacement.” jim roberts“It’s the baggage no amount of therapy or bourbon can ever shake.” rachele salvini“Being on the run from one’s culture and lifestyle means escape and encounter, but also, often, a Clash.” claire scott“I didn’t want the poem to bog down into too much darkness, so I kept some of the lines shorter.” robert slentz-kesler“I’ve long been a fan of the black box format—the limited space, the tight boundaries, just the spare feeling of it all, and the focus it forces onto character dialogue and movement.” melissa studdard“I started associating the flowers with my kid, the seeds with embryos, my womb with soil. I was struck too, with the idea that not only was I growing the flowers; they were also growing me.” wendy thompson taiwo“It’s a map for my kids to follow and learn how to get free, be brave, feel whole and human, connect to the land, to animals, and be a good steward while on this earth.” sean winn“I do feel that belief in such supernatural occurrences must fill some sort of gap.” nancy lynée woo “Every time we sit down to write, we invite discovery onto the page.” david xiang“The images for me are the rawest form of expression—as close to pure communication as I can get with our language.”
