Disposable – Walker Thomas

“You can call me Mr. S,” my ninth-grade biology teacher told the class on our first day, “for the sssss a snake makes.” Eyes sunken behind wirerimmed glasses, he had a wide mouth with no lips that I recall, and long, stubble-blue cheeks like leather stretched tight to the bone. While he lectured, a red…

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Ezra Pound: Prototypical Beat? – Michael Washburn

We today tend to remember Ezra Pound (1885-1972) for the immense density and erudition of his work. Pound’s many preoccupations included Confucius, medieval China, Bertrand de Born, the Provençal period, ancient Egypt, the beauty of the Farsi tongue, and his fellow early twentieth-century modernists. Of course, we also remember many unpleasant things about the man,…

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Spiders in the Drain, and Other American Horrors – Brett Bezio

The wolf spider gestured to me from across the tub, unfurling four legs from behind the metal cover obscuring overflow drain to greet me, naked and alone in a foot of bath water. This memory stands in isolation, as remote memories of a young child often are. The memory itself creeps from a drain, simply…

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ONE POEM – Krysia Wazny McClain

    Akademicheskaya Metro Station Sixty-four meters underground: vaulted ceilings whiter than eggshells, chrome shinier than any American diner. Pride of Lenin, who, mummified, did not see it open but extolled its nominal achievement by plaque five meters tall. On the escalator, my hand in a grey fingerless glove finds yours. A second couple kiss…

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ONE POEM – Ottavia Silvestri

bathroom bucolic a pupil, dollop of toothpaste pink blue yellow cotton balls in the static light a gracious not swarming not fermenting pale May Ottavia Silvestri is a political science student that lives in Milan, Italy. In her free time she studies Mandarin and volunteers in a tiny cat shelter (hi Melinda, you’re my favourite…

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Walking, Encumbered: Dispatches – Nicola Sayers

For the longest time, I walked alone. I walked to think. I walked to see. I walked to be seen. I see them, now. They wear pretty summer dresses, or jeans. In winter, brightly coloured scarves. Their light backpacks sit squarely on both shoulders; inside each, I imagine, is a book, a notepad and a…

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