Some decades ago I unwittingly fathered a baby girl. Through some trick of fate or the magic of genetics, that baby girl helped me develop into something loosely resembling a poet. I say “loosely” because part of me believes that…
A Conversation with Tasha Cotter
An interview by Alicia Cole. Tasha Cotter is the author of the poetry collection Some Churches (Gold Wake Press, 2013) and the chapbooks That Bird Your Heart and Girl in the Cave. Winner of the 2015 Delphi Poetry Series, her…
Guest Post: The Art of Construction by Shaina Clingempeel
Oftentimes, people picture the modern poet as an outspoken individual. This individual shares even her early scraps. I, however, differ from this image. Throughout college, I dreaded the workshop circle. While I like the concept of collaboration, I struggle to…
Guest Post: Laryngitis by Diana Conces
Laryngitis is, of course, a temporary loss of voice. You try to speak, and what comes out is this awkward, hollow hiss, like a particularly disgruntled ghost dragging a rusty pitchfork across a chalkboard, and then everyone around you puts…
Guest Post: A-merica, our home and native land… by Garreth Chan
I spent two months of my summer entangled and confused in an endless jungle of a fantastically exotic city. Glass and cement twisted into a permanent tango, childish handwriting in chalk emblazoned across uneven sidewalks, slowly scrubbed away by the…
Guest Post: Pull That Trigger (and I Don’t Mean Guns) by Tobi Alfier
In the old days (think Centennial by James Michener), I was afraid of nothing and no one. I flew hot air balloons, jumped out of airplanes, was kicked awake by the police while sleeping on a pier in Monte Carlo,…
Guest Post: Lying in Poetry, or Hey! Guess What I Dreamed Of by Babette Cieskowski
It started and ended with dolphins. As a child, when asked by my mother what I dreamed about the night before, I would lie and say I had the most spectacular, mythical adventure doing something relating to dolphins. At ten…
Guest Post: Too Complicated for You by Gene Goldfarb
The conclusion of an interaction with your doctor, or any doctor, or any other medical professional, is often likely to be a bill you don’t understand. We hope it would instead be your good health, but I must leave that…
Guest Post: Breaking News, Breaking News by Gene Goldfarb
If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself with nothing better to do during the election season than tuning in for some news, you might end up at CNN. This is not a recommendation, far from it. I propose to…
Guest Post: Inner Structures by Seth Jani
At twenty-eight I have quietly, and without much explaining, maneuvered my life into a position where I can easily focus on writing. This means I currently work a slightly-better than minimum-wage service industry job with limited hours and as few…
Guest Post: A Life in Poetry Ain’t for Sissies by Peter Serchuk
Now into my sixth decade of life and my fourth decade as a serious writer of poems, I can say without hesitation that my life in poetry remains the most exhilarating, depressing, titillating, frustrating, constructive, destructive, enlightening, and numbing experience…
Guest Post: Revision: Knowing When to Swing the Darlings-Axe by Allie Gove
One of the first things that really struck me to hear from a writing teacher was this: “there is no good writing, only good re-writing.” As a first semester student in my first Intro to Creative Writing class (because yes,…