Month: January 2013
Refraction: Table of Contents
by Hall Jameson
Editor’s Note: Each Wednesday, over four weeks, we will be publishing one photograph from Hall Jameson’s Refraction series. This is the fourth in the series. (more…)
When Soul Mates Meet
by Sara Backer
Two street lamps
light the parking lot
from opposite
directions.
The lot has emptied
down to your car and mine.
On the asphalt between them,
twin shadows overlap
and form a darker umbra
in the exact shape
of a canoe.
We step inside,
startling the fish.
Sara Backer, author of the novel American Fuji, has been honored with Djerassi and Norton Island Artist Residencies. In the past year, her writing has been published in Blueline, Ellipsis, The Pedestal, Gargoyle, Clockhouse Review, Cream City Review, and as a featured poet in Conclave: A Journal of Character. For more information, links to online work, and a cool slide show of Japan, visit her web site at http://www.sarabacker.com.
I so love the ending to this piece. Can you describe how you arrived at that ending? I wrote this poem in a Duluth dormitory where I was staying for a workshop led by Ted Kooser. The view from my window looked down on the parking lot. One night, I noticed the shadow between two cars formed an elipse with pointy ends. I took on the challenge of trying to describe that. I failed. The other poets didn’t understand how the shadow worked. I kept bringing drafts into workshop until I overheard one poet comment to another: “I’m so sick of shadows.” Hurt, I found myself missing my partner, whom I knew would immediately get my canoe metaphor. Then, I flashed on what I was really writing about: not an interesting shadow, but the magic of finding someone who understands your imagination. As a fan of Charles Simic, I wanted to make a wild surreal leap without rumination. I wanted my final image to contrast with artificial lighting and asphalt, to reveal an alchemy that defies all odds—something wondrously alive. Editor’s Note: Each Wednesday, over four weeks, we will be publishing one photograph from Hall Jameson’s Refraction series. This is the third in the series. (more…) Who will I be like when the air runs out? Perhaps I’ll be a garden fugitive from Pompeii, flash baked before the fumes can kill me. (more…) Editor’s Note: Each Wednesday, over four weeks, we will be publishing one photograph from Hall Jameson’s Refraction series. This is the second in the series. (more…) Your parents say Yes because, after eight months of marriage counseling, they want to make a decision that has not been prescribed to them. (more…) Editor’s Note: Each Wednesday, for the next four weeks, we will be publishing one photograph from Hall Jameson’s Refraction series. (more…) She told him, in those dangerous moments after sex, as they lay in his bed, bodies damp, her breasts bruised like fingered fruit, a trickle of semen on her thigh, about the things she hadn’t known. (more…)Refraction: Dream
by Hall Jameson
What We Learn From Their Bones
by Sybil Baker
Refraction: The Daily News
by Hall Jameson
Nilotic Landscape
by Cody Klippenstein
Refraction: Desensitized
by Hall Jameson
Maroon Knickers
by Mary McCluskey
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2023. Submit here.
Upcoming
09/09 • Rae Gourmand
09/16 • Chiwenite Onyekwelu
09/23 • TBD
09/30 • TBD