A review of The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground by Collier Nogues (Drunken Boat Media, 2015) While the conventional approach to poetic production is additive, involving the careful placement of words on the void of the blank page, erasure poetry is subtractive, starting with an existing text and deleting material until . . .
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The other mothers covered their children’s eyes. April covered her son’s ears. She might have expected the animal to cry, or to struggle, grasp for breath. But from the bleachers, there was nothing, not even a crack.— from “The Rodeo” which appears in the Summer 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 2). Tell . . .
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“The church looked strangely beautiful in the early morning light. The street between the houses was narrow and darkened the steps leading up to the wooden doors, but there was enough sunlight spilling out from behind the roof, and the Gothic façade—all angles and points and flying buttresses, architecture I’d always believed . . .
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It was the day after Christmas, and watching Danny Splighter skate for the first time in my life was like the holiday was happening all over again.—from “One Way Zebra” which appears in our Summer 2016 Issue (Volume 57, Issue 2). Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written.When I . . .
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“When my mother asked me what in the world I wanted, we weredriving across the Sagamore Bridge. I could feel the vibration.I was ten. My mother had never raised her voice before.” —from “The Light, the Bridge, and the Fish” which appears in our Summer 2016 Issue (Volume 57, Issue 2). Tell us about . . .
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The tarthky was a beast from a different era, from back when the dunes were just a thin sheet spread over a second sea, the clumps of dune grasses bobbing like Lilliputian schooners. An adventurer with the right equipment could pierce the sand, dive through the floating grasses, and swim beneath their . . .
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“Oren loves the supply closet. He loves to go in and close the door behind him, to breathe deep the Christmas scent of adhesive, to run his fingers over the open boxes of Onyx micro-tips, G-2 refill cylinders, and unsharpened No. 2 pencils. He loves to choose these things and, finally, to . . .
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“When you were in her womb, your motherused and sold herself, and after you were pulled out she didn’t stop. For a minute or moreyou did not breathe; and from the drugs she took (now in you) your skinny arms and legs shook. . .”—from “Bad Things” which appears in the Summer . . .
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“The alarming nonchalance of her gesticulation is fascinating. She’s in control, but more than this. She radiates. In her Jordache jeans and home-sewn camiseta, the white earbud wires of an MP3 player draped over her shoulder, she seems outside time looking in. This is serenity. The more he looked, the more radiant . . .
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Sharphurting like stakesor licking so sweet How will you take me?—from “Da morte. Odes mínimas,” which appears in the Summer 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 2). Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written.I started out by journaling, and then the entries turned into prose poems, even though I didn’t really realize . . .
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