Special FeatureJoanna ValenteCorie Rosen, poetry, special feature

Corie Rosen: False Memory

Special FeatureJoanna ValenteCorie Rosen, poetry, special feature
Corie Rosen: False Memory
Photo: Joanna C. Valente

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

The Red Door

 

The first time I saw you again, we’d sat,

spoken as if it were days, not years, gone.

The white cloth at the table’s edge laid flat

a field of our former love forgotten.

 

It was easy to imagine it then,

building our house (children, more and more and—

magic that might have been!)

Red, I’d thought, the only color for our door.

 

A red-doored house, filled up with our love’s hours.

Now, in my stilled home, no child of mine smiles,

and I wonder what might have been (ours, yours).

Only, of course, there is no house, no door.

 

What do you put in a place hope’s abandoned?

False memory of a red door, and nothing.

Corie Rosen's work has appeared in Arts & Letters, Crab Creek Review, and Juked, among many other places, and has also been anthologized, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and featured on NPR.  Her first book of poems, Words for Things Unsaid, is forthcoming from Aldrich Press in 2020.

Special FeatureJoanna ValenteKailey Tedesco, poetry, special feature

Kailey Tedesco: To Suck Dry

Kailey Tedesco's books She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publications) and These Ghosts of Mine, Siamese (Dancing Girl Press) are both forthcoming. She is the editor-in-chief of a Rag Queen Periodical and a performing member of the NYC Poetry Brothel. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You can find her poetry featured or forthcoming in Prelude, Prick of the Spindle, Bellevue Literary Review, Vanilla Sex Magazine, and more. For more information, please visit kaileytedesco.com. 

Special FeatureJoanna ValenteKailey Tedesco, poetry, special feature
Kailey Tedesco: To Suck Dry
Special FeatureJoanna ValenteAshley Mares, special feature, poetry

Ashley Mares: Unclean Hands

Ashley Mares is the author of Maddening Creatures (Aldrich Press, forthcoming), The Deer Longs for Streams of Water (Flutter Press) A Dark, Breathing Heart (dancing girl press), and Killer (Ghost City Press, forthcoming). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Stirring, Whiskey Island, Sugar House Review, Glass Poetry Press, Prelude, PANK, and others. She is currently completing her J.D. in Monterey, Ca, where she lives with her husband. Read more of her poetry at ashleymarespoetry.wordpress.com and follow her @ash_mares2. 

Special FeatureJoanna ValenteAshley Mares, special feature, poetry
Ashley Mares: Unclean Hands
Special FeatureJoanna ValentePhilip Schaefer, special feature, poetry

Philip Schaefer: Everyone Else’s Darkness

Philip Schaefer’s first collection of poems Bad Summon won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from the University of Utah Press and will be released Summer 2017. He is the author of three chapbooks, two of which were co-written with friend and poet Jeff Whitney. He won the 2016 Meridian Editor’s Prize in poetry and has work out or due out in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Thrush Poetry Journal, Guernica, The Cincinnati Review, Salt Hill, Bat City Review, The Adroit Journal, Baltimore Review, and Passages North among others. He tends bar in Missoula, MT.

Special FeatureJoanna ValentePhilip Schaefer, special feature, poetry
Philip Schaefer: Everyone Else’s Darkness
Special FeatureJoanna ValenteGary Charles Wilkens, special feature, poetry

Gary Charles Wilkens: Edit the Sad Parts

Gary Charles Wilkens’ first book, The Red Light Was My Mind, won the 2006 Texas Review Breakthrough Poetry Prize. His manuscript Fayetteville was a Finalist in the 2014 Moon City Review Poetry Contest. His poems have appeared more than 70 journals and anthologies, including The Texas Review, Moon City Review, Passages North, the Adirondack Review, James Dickey Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, and Midwest Quarterly. His fiction has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, and Pale Ghosts Magazine. His day job is Associate Professor of English at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Special FeatureJoanna ValenteGary Charles Wilkens, special feature, poetry
Gary Charles Wilkens: Edit the Sad Parts
Special FeatureJoanna ValenteBrian Alan Ellis, poetry, special feature

Brian Alan Ellis: Endorse Me on LinkedIn as a Domino’s Pizza Quality Tester

BRIAN ALAN ELLIS runs House of Vlad Productions, and is the author of three novellas, three short-story collections, two books of humorous non-fiction (Sad Laughter is forthcoming from Civil Coping Mechanisms Press), and Something to Do with Self-Hate, a novel. His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, Talking Book, and Queen Mob’s Tea House, among other places. He lives in Florida, and tweets sad and clever things at both @brianalanellis and @HouseofVlad.

Special FeatureJoanna ValenteBrian Alan Ellis, poetry, special feature
Brian Alan Ellis: Endorse Me on LinkedIn as a Domino’s Pizza Quality Tester