“Ask me again / about my doubt”: A Review of Kaveh Akbar’s Pilgrim Bell
by HANNAH ROBERTS Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press, 2021), pp. 80. “Regarding loss, I’m / afraid / to keep it in the story, / worried what I might bring back to life,” Akbar admits in “Soot,” the opening …
by Maggie Goss Ruth drove for hours to the mountains. Her headache, eight days old, moved behind her left eye. She was out of Advil and instead swallowed a tablet of veterinary Tramadol that her dog, recovered from a toothache, … Read more by Alex Wichert I sat in my three-star hotel room and wondered about the best way to kill someone. I hadn’t planned for this—the plot, in fact, was intended as comedy—but certain symptoms of doubt had crept in with … Read more by SARAH LOFSTROM Katharine Coldiron, Ceremonials (Kernpunkt Press, 2020), pp. 134. A novella inspired by the 2011 Florence + the Machine album of the same name, Ceremonials is an ethereal dreamscape of a text. It embodies sensuous transformation in its … Read more by ELLIE RAMBO Walter Serner, Last Loosening: a handbook for the con artist & those aspiring to become one (Twisted Spoon Press, 2020), pp. 189. The “Last Number” from Walter Serner’s Last Loosening, recently translated from German by Mark Kanak, … Read more by Joseph Rakowski Deer season was planned to open in a few weeks, and it was time Lorenzo took his eleven-year-old son to the store to get him his first long gun. He figured this would give him enough time … Read more by MEGAN SWARTZFAGER Eduardo C. Corral, Guillotine (Graywolf, 2020), pp. 72. “Welcome / to la cagada,”– or, “the shit”– one undocumented immigrant trekking through unforgiving desert tells himself in award-winning poet Eduardo C. Corral’s second and latest collection of poetry, … Read more by DEBORAH BACHARACH Dora Malech, Flourish (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2020), pp. 91 Dora Malech’s fourth collection, Flourish, uncannily mixes dark themes with playful language. The darkness can be found on the road the speaker travels en route to a wedding in … Read more by Mary Byrne Atlanta. Springtime, 2004. Late each night, an hour came when the edges of objects and people went runny. It arrived in the interval between the last band’s last song and the closing of the bar. By then … Read more by Daniel Kennedy Levin stared out the window. Despite what time had done to his mind, his sight remained sharp. Soldiers approached in the distance: a line of ants, moving through a pass in the mountainside. The vanguard of their … Read moreWhat About It
He Handed Me a Picture
Ceremonials: A Review
Last Loosening: A Review
Gun Season
Guillotine: A Review
Flourish: A Review
Wanted to Pin to the Wall
The Watchmaker