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10 Questions

10 Questions for Elena Karina Byrne

- By Abby MacGregor

A god, speaking to anyone
who wants to listen, paints apart
this person from that limb, this ceiling
from that sky, this mouth inside a child’s mouth
like those TV puppets that scared
me, sitting wood-jaw & vertebra upright in the lap.
—from “The Neighbor’s Dog Would Not Stop Barking”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1)

 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I presume you mean when did I first start writing poetry? I was twelve. I had a marvelous teacher that brought the imagination into the classroom. Before that, it resided in the art room, at home, and in museums. So, my first poem turned out to be like a painting. Then, fast forward, some bad stuff in 8th grade,...

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10 Questions

10 Questions for Jennifer Gibbs

- By Abby MacGregor

“My father calls in tears to tell me that two burly paramed­ics have just wrestled my mother to the ground, strapped her into a straitjacket, and forced her inside an ambulance. I am, in this moment, on a meditation retreat. Never in my life have I gone on a meditation retreat. And never since.” —from Marigold, Spring 2018 (Vol. 60, Issue 1)
 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The first piece I ever wrote was an unfinished novel, when I was nine. I taught myself to touch type on my mother’s electric typewriter, then decided I would compose a novel on that magical mystical machine. I remember the tingle of excitement as I tapped the words. The manuscript proceeded dramatically, though...

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10 Questions

10 Questions for Lorraine Boissoneault

- By Abby MacGregor

“Emma has only ever seen him in dreams, which is strange because she read somewhere that the human brain can’t create new faces; it just pulls from the features of strangers. But she would’ve remembered his face if she’d ever seen it on a human: eyes that pro­trude from their sockets; thick eyebrows that meet above his painfully crooked nose; curly, mussed hair that cascades around his cheeks; skin so grimy she’s not sure of its native color; and a shiny scar that bisects his lips, starting to the left of his nose and ending at his chin.”
—from “Hit and Run”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1)

 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
If we’re going way...

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10 Questions

10 Questions for Joshua Michael Stewart

- By Abby MacGregor

Today a man pressed a pillow
over his 7-month-old son’s face,
then strangled the baby’s mother
(who was also his 16-year-old daughter),
called his mother, confessed,
then drove out into the woods and shot
himself in the cab of his pickup.
—from “Quills”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1)

 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
One of my first poems was called “When the Surrealist No Longer Remembers His Dreams.” It’s one of those what-would-you-tell-your-younger-self kind of poems, except the younger self that was being addressed wasn’t me as a kid, but my younger self as a zombie, because I felt that kid I once was died a long time ago. I was...

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10 Questions

10 Questions for Adam Sweeting

- By Abby MacGregor

“A few years back, I took my daughter and her best friend apple picking in central Massachusetts, where we enjoyed a picture-perfect early fall afternoon. It was the kind of day that shouts NEW ENGLAND—slightly cool temperatures, glorious foliage, and apples waiting to be picked. Our timing could not have been more perfect. The year’s weather had proved ideal for apples, with no late frosts, suf­ficient early summer rains, and a storm-free August. A bumper crop followed, one of the best in decades, and we returned home rich in fruit.”
—from “Lost Flavors: Climate Change, Poetry, and New England’s Apples”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1)

 

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write...

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Volume 60, Issue 2

Front Cover by Kate Durbin, Unfriend Me Now!, 2018. STILL FROM 3-CHANNEL VERSION OF UNFRIEND ME NOW! (c) Kate Durbin.
Courtesy of the artist.

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