“The Cave-In, The Empty” by Tiffany Promise
“Girl-shaped things guzzle Sylvia Plath
SlimFast shakes for breakfast
eat their own fingernails for lunch”
“It’s Out of Your Hands” by Patricia Canright Smith
“On the walk home redwings shrill as you hum the “Bogoró ditse” (sixth movement, “Rejoice, O Virgin”), which starts in a slow, solemn whisper and then soars into an exalted alto duet. You would love to sing that duet, but Fred will recruit professionals. You altos joke that Rachmaninoff must have had an alto mistress, because the Vespers gives all the gorgeous melodies to them. The sopranos, who normally get all the gorgeous melodies, joke that they don’t mind being your accessories, but they do.
You tie your raincoat around your waist. The sticky things pull, which makes you hunch over, which makes you think about old age. A rare sunny day in a birdy wetland—at least you’ll be able to do this when you’re old. You think, I suppose it’s time to think about death.
And that’s enough of that.”
“Test Strip for Maximum Black” by Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren
“Once, I was my brother’s subject. He controlled
time, light moving across
my face in steady increments”
“At the Reservoir” by Stephanie Striffler
“This morning I watched a kinglet
—a bird so quick it often evades
human gaze—flit only a foot
from my husband’s face. I watched
the corners of his eyes lift.”
“Border Crossings” by Brittany Micka-Foos
“Jerry is curled around the steering wheel, his head pivoting back and forth as he contemplates passing. He edges closer and closer to the truck’s rear bumper, when an errant rock dislodges from behind its left mudflap. The rock hits their windshield like spit in the face. “Motherfucker,” Jerry mutters. To Miriam, it looks like practically nothing, just a faint indent in the glass, but she knows that by tomorrow it will have spread across the windshield. Somebody will have to repair it.”
“Wild Indigo” by Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren
“Dark still. Her father loads her arms with bottles of the Jersey’s milk,
and wordless, turns her out under the stern Iowa stars.
She is hardly taller than the snowdrifts.
Stocking-capped head down, she sets out to meet the disapproving wind.”
One Finch Singing Review by Jennifer Dorner
“The speaker of the poem, “V. Simon the Cyrene,” admits, On all sides I am jostled / by witnesses of an execution. / They say the man had a knife / and the guards shot him down. Drawing poetic (if sobering) parallels between the Nazarene and the dead man (both killed by the state), Watson experiences painful realities that probably more closely resemble those of marginalized communities in first-century Jerusalem than the canonical Gospels portray.”
“My Mother Delivers the Milk, 1930” by Stephanie Striffler
“Dark still. Her father loads her arms with bottles of the Jersey’s milk,
and wordless, turns her out under the stern Iowa stars.
She is hardly taller than the snowdrifts.
Stocking-capped head down, she sets out to meet the disapproving wind.”
“1979” by Maureen D. Hall
“Say you thought you were pregnant. But you’re eighteen, newbie freshman on campus, hours from your boyfriend, hours from home. Wise enough to bring a couple of pregnancy tests with you to school, ones you made the boyfriend purchase at a drugstore miles from your hometown because, you know, people talk. But this is 1979, and those tests don’t work until you’re a few weeks along. It’s not like today, where you blink and find out you’re pregnant before you even miss a period. If you’re retro enough to still be menstruating.”
Via Dolorosa and Advent Wreath Review by Jonathan Fletcher
“The speaker of the poem, “V. Simon the Cyrene,” admits, On all sides I am jostled / by witnesses of an execution. / They say the man had a knife / and the guards shot him down. Drawing poetic (if sobering) parallels between the Nazarene and the dead man (both killed by the state), Watson experiences painful realities that probably more closely resemble those of marginalized communities in first-century Jerusalem than the canonical Gospels portray.”
“Echo” by Jessica E. Pierce
“I never thought I’d leave
until I realized it was okay
if he only remembered me as a weight.”
“St. Elmo’s Fire” by Katherine P.F. Holmes
“Gauging others’ happiness by her own preference for company, Will’s mom took Will’s introversion for depression. Her mom always nudged her to make friends. Meet boys. Make boyfriends. Will wondered if teen pregnancy would’ve set her mom at ease, convinced her of Will’s joie de vivre and put to rest her insistence on the pixie cut.”
April 16 – Virtual Reading of Poetry and Prose from Issue 35:1 – Register now & help us spread the word
Wednesday, April 16th – 5:30 p.m. Pacific time – Register now to receive the event link and updates Join us for a free virtual reading featuring poets and prose writers from the latest issue of CALYX Journal as they bring their words to life. This is a time to gather, to listen, and to celebrate
May 15 Panel: Art & Writing Under Duress w/ Eula Biss, Elizabeth Cooperman & Jaydra Johnson
Thursday, May 15th – Zoom5:30-7:00 pm Pacific – 8:30-10:00 pm EasternZoom Registration Opens April 15 – This is a free event Join us for an insightful panel discussion exploring the resilience, creativity, and necessity of women’s voices in times that challenge artists and writers. New York Times Best Selling Author, Eula Biss, is the author
Fragment and Shore: An Interview with Jennifer A. Reimer by Piotr Gwiazda
CALYX is excited to feature an immersive new interview with poet Jennifer A. Reimer by Piotr Gwiazda. Reimer’s new collection, Keşke (Airlie Press, 2022), features poems that are, in Gwiazda’s words, formally inventive, often dialogic if not multivoiced, working with lyric and epic traditions. His interview with Reimer covers her experiences in Turkey, the modern retelling