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AUTHORS 

Taylor Byas

A. Prevett 

Chelsea Dingman

Emily Pérez 
J.David 
JK Anowe 
Joanna C. Valente 

Joshua Young
Luiza Flynn Goodlett 

BIOS + EXCERPTS

A. Prevett (they/them) is a human from Atlanta. Their work has been featured in or is forthcoming from Sixth Finch, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, and others. Currently, they are pursuing an MFA in poetry from Georgia State University, where they serve as editor-in-chief of New South.

From Still, No Grace 

​

That’s how it felt.

I could have counted every blood cell in my body.

It’s pageantry—this being. Reticent 

but thrumming. A ball-gown in full flare, 

a perfect spinning O. No. A frog’s first breath 

after giving up its tail, a bird the moment it decides to take 

off. Purposeful. The first time—It was like that. 

It was not like that. 

Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Her second poetry collection, Through a Small Ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize (University of Georgia Press, 2020). She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.

From What Bodies Have I Moved by
 

Crows in Market Square

On the eastern side, snow breaks
& I’m another empty mouth in a blur
of empty mouths. Crows like peasants 

collapse on the street near Black House. I envy
its refusal to assimilate. How sandstone 
changes coats & owns the dark like night

skies. Into a collar, I tuck my chin, afraid 
to look. Afraid that I won’t be able to
keep walking. Blackbirds at my feet
 
hunt water, a smidgen of blood
to cure winter’s thirst, wings
fraying. I can almost see
 
bone, what could be fingers. Arms 
clasped tightly around my torso, do my ribs 
show? Can I hide on this crowded street?
 
Like a dream, will I wake in a bed, 
black feathers everywhere, holes
where they left my skin bare?

​

Emily Pérez is the author House of Sugar, House of Stone, and the chapbook Backyard Migration Route. A CantoMundo fellow, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Copper Nickel, Fairy Tale Review, Poetry, Diode, and Glass. She teaches English and Gender Studies in Denver where she lives with her husband and sons.

from Made and Unmade 


Because a woman’s word 
                                     can never be proof 
Because I had no wounds on my skin
                                      when I stumbled home
Because my father slept sound 
                      on a pillowcase filled
                                       with dowry gold
                                       and I would not wake him
                                       from this particular dream
Because you’ve heard this before, where boys will be 
                       beasts and girls will be 
                       cloth, torn to ribbons
                       tied tightly in knots or in bows

 

J. David is a Ukrainian-American writer living in Cleveland, Ohio, where they are an MFA candidate in poetry at Cleveland State University. They are the editor-in-chief of Flypaper Lit and serve as chief poetry critic for the Cleveland Review of Books. Their debut chapbook, Hibernation Highway, was released from Madhouse Press in 2020. A Baldwin House Fellow and member of The Sad Kid's Superhero Collective, their work has appeared in Salt Hill, Muzzle, Passages North, The Journal, and elsewhere.

from Hibernation Highway 

 

Tonight, I train-hop into the oily smock 

​

of night. Tonight, I promise we drown 

ourselves in collateral damage. I realize 

we never rode past Erie, so tonight 

I’m finding the point 

where all things meet.

​

the longest. You can only buy sanity 

for so long, yet in the way that death 

is not responsible for sadness

 

I think, neither are we.

 

I looked up.

 

And past the shoreline

 

into the distance and whatever comes next

 

I could see for miles.

JK Anowe, Igbo-born poet, is the author of the poetry chapbooks Sky Raining Fists (Madhouse Press, 2019) and The Ikemefuna Tributaries: a parable for paranoia (Praxis Magazine Online, 2016). He’s an MFA Candidate in Poetry at Purdue University.

From Sky Raining Fists 

say body instead say fracture        the foremost etymology of sorrow bent backwards

      say self-forgiveness    then watch the hole between us refill into an animal

shallower than hunger spent inside-out    once i mistook myself―hard & half-formed in

      my hand    i swear it restructured the world    & gave it a god

​

say stay instead say prey like you’re on your knees    say bullet & i’d take one for you

      if only i get to pull the trigger        whoever said death was our final

destination never for once    saw us crawl like worms―torso & all―through a diagonal

      door out of god    how often we return depends on how willing we are to run off

afterwards        so say death    say birth instead    say of these    which best

      describes exile        a body is not a home

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams, The Gods Are Dead, Marys of the Sea, Sexting Ghosts, Xenos, No(body), #Survivor (The Operating System, 2020), and Killer Bob: A Love Story (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2021). They are the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault and the illustrator of Dead Tongue (Yes Poetry, 2020). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and Joanna is the founder of Yes Poetry and the senior managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine.

from No(Body)


You tell yourself a lot of lies. You do this
so you can wake up in the morning and put on
your lipstick and high heels and pray 
 
to something up in the sky although you don’t
trust the sky anymore and really, the only
 
thing you trust is a man named Fox
but even he disappoints you sometimes. 
 

Joshua Young (he/him) is a writer, designer, and multimedia artist living in Western Washington. He is the author of seven books, most recently, a novella, Little Galaxies (Los Galesburg, 2020). Find him online at joshuabrianyoung.com

from Weekends of Sound: A 764-Hero Mixtape

*

When the fountain quit, you smoked too much 
& claimed I-5 was a small pin-hole just outside 
the window on the drive home. 
I wanted to get you naked, but you wanted to climb 
onto roofs & watch Seattle flicker, you wanted 
to count the places boys could hide bodies, you 
wanted to tell me about skeletons 
& all the drugs you hadn’t done yet.

*
The bridge looked closer from the water.
I could smell cedar & Windex, but you kept saying, 
I smell popcorn. By the stack of tires, 
moths blanketed a body, & you helped me dig. 
We saw no coyotes, 
just dead wasps & bicycle handles. 
History made this happen. 
It was not a hoax for treasure hunters. 
We slouched in the room, reptilic, 
the guilt helping us find a map—
 

Luiza Flynn-Goodlett Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of Mud In Our Mouths (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press) and Look Alive (winner of the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize from Southeast Missouri State University Press), along with numerous chapbooks, most recently Familiar (Madhouse Press, 2024) and The Undead (winner of Sixth Finch Books' 2020 Chapbook Contest). Her poetry can be found in Fugue, Five Points, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. She serves as a Poetry Editor for the Whiting Award–winning LGBTQIA2S+ literary journal and press Foglifter. Her critical work has appeared in Cleaver, Pleiades, The Adroit Journal, and other venues.

from Familiar 

 

I dream a night forest

leaves lit by the moon

as bats flit above—mud

splattered calves burn,

but a light glows ahead,

so I follow until I stand

at the edge of a clearing,

watch myself—younger,

but clearly me—crouch

before a fire, feed clothes

worn that day to flames.

For a moment, her eyes

flick up, and she sees us—

mice in glue, still stuck

here where it happened.

​

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