Outlook Good! Mikki Aronoff and Katherine Silver-Hajo __________ Math exam looming, me procrastinating, I tune in to the probability of a passing grade like a luminous radio dial, unfazed by the static of Long John Silver’s tatty parrot, shoulder-bound but hankering for a branch, squawking salty bilge—Pieces of nine! Pieces…
Read MoreCannibal Chelsey Wright __________ After “Scarf Fetish” by Heather Ryan Kelley __________ There are red scarves hanging on a laundry rack in a secret market,watching one be sold and exploitedto a plump model with good taste and a man with blue-tinted teeth. His blue-tinted teeth remind me of the album…
Read Moreen route Jerry Sloan __________ After an art installation by Heather Ryan Kelley __________ you drink water to take pills (favorite mug, borrowedseven years ago from a communal kitchen, shows the cover of Dubliners by James Joyce) and walk to the gallery, past storefront signs for the suicide hotline (“call/text…
Read MoreAfter a Painting by Heather Ryan Kelley Michael Robins __________ —for my brother We might stare, crowding the high,storybook windows, our worrytold in the pictures of us kids. If Iam six & you’ll be eleven: if a threadround my little finger at breakfastor a napkin made honest with a ring.Already…
Read MoreInnocent Eye, 2000 Madeline Ricard __________ After the painting by Heather Ryan Kelley __________ Pasted onto patchy paper worth morethan I could afford when I was in art school,photocopied Barbie legs meet my gaze. The black & white legs flutter and danceon top of cursive letters — ii, f, jjj,…
Read MoreArtist Statement Heather Ryan Kelley __________ The image of a single object can succinctly communicate an idea; and when that object is a book cover, a host of associations- invisible on the painting’s surface- can be embodied. The book covers I have chosen to paint are those with which I…
Read MoreBudding Jianqing Zheng __________ After Yasunari Kawabata’s “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” __________ Kids are catching bell crickets,their colorful lanterns are floating everywhere on the riverbank.Soon, a boy jumps up shouting, “Anyone wants a grasshopper?”Some boys run toward him, but he keeps shouting until a girlemerges, murmuring she wants…
Read MoreAbby Manzella __________ Photos by Abby Manzella __________ At a Highway Seventy-Five fields blur after harvest corn is scythed hay bales sag Stop. Thoreau yourself with a pause and a pace. Take in the fading light. Dried grass and setting sun speak of endings and death or nature appreciation. The choice is yours. __________ Between the…
Read MoreZebulon Huset __________ Written as part of the Exquisite Cento project with Jessica Huset __________ [Only lines from Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, and Script for The Lost Boys] They are speeding along a moon-lit beach(ocean air!)redolent and roly-poly as a sperm whaleHey, dude. My beach. My wave—it is speckled with…
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