Summer 2010 Table of Contents
Meek; Wild by Brooke Waggoner
Folk / Indie
A Little Less Kettledrum, Please by D. A. Powell
Hear me, up there in the bleachers? / I may be the least of all the piccolos.
An Interview with D. A. Powell by Andrew Rahal
But… I am all boy, though, you know? I like to set firecrackers off.
Black Dog by Nick St. John
Little Emperor by Steve Earle
Uncut Gem / Exclusive Lyrics
Twelve Steps by Tasha Matsumoto
They rented kayaks in the late afternoon. Thora found the repetitive rowing motion sedating. Crew teams glided past them. They stopped at the Congress Bridge to watch the bats take flight at sunset. They sat bobbing next to each other while the sky bled together in streaky shades of pink and purple and black, like tears ruining make-up. They waited until Aric pointed to a solitary bat that had flown out from beneath the bridge’s arches.
MoneyGrabber by Fitz & The Tantrums
Soul / Indie
[These diamond weeds are], [Again by the windmills' wings], Microscope, and Circle and Rectangle by Maya Sarishvili, translated from Georgian by Timothy Kercher, Ani Kopaliani, and Nene Giorgadze
a thousand drawers would open at once: / medicine, linen, jewelry, and secret-paper drawers, / impish smells emanating
Elephant Medicine by Julian Wayser
The Country We Lived In by Natasha Lvovich
They had lived in a village in Belarus called Shumilino, a tiny shtetl, they were very poor, a mother with four children, a cow, and a garden. This is how they lived. Baba Hannah lost her husband very early and raised all her children by herself, she was illiterate but very, very smart, and when she aged, they took good care of her, until she died at 94. She was wise and diplomatic and when she issued her commands to the family, she called them “wishes.”
Armando by Yaul Perez-Stable Husni
Yesterday, it was a caravan. / Today, it is by car.
An Interview with Glenn Patterson by Claire Burgess
So everything about that story was predictable: getting picked up and put in the back of a police car—you can imagine what might have happened in there, what I was afraid would happen in there—and in the end the police asking me to read my poems. They found my notebook of poems, and they looked through it and asked me to read them, and they clapped and said they weren’t sure what they meant, but they sounded quite nice.
Let Me In by El Perro Del Mar
French Pop
The Joke Seller by Jess Smart Smiley
THE FIGURES, The Latest Standings, and Ghost Story by J. David Stevens
For three years I’d been holed up in a downtown warehouse working on THE FIGURES.
There Ain’t No Easy Street by Steep Canyon Rangers
Bluegrass
An Interview with Steep Canyon Rangers by Zachary Greenberg
It’s a windy day, and we’re on stage in front of the biggest crowd of our life. You can’t see the back of the audience—it seems to go on forever.
November 21, 1937 by César Vallejo, translated by Amy Demas Grunder
My house, unhappily, is a house, / a floor, fortunately, where my beloved / little spoon lives, with its little inscription, / my dear skeleton, finally illiterate, / my penknife, the perpetual cigarette.
Mama Don’t Know by Margo Valiante
Folk / Soul
Pregnant by Keiler Roberts
Inception by Paul Epp
Jazz Symphony
An Interview with Jaime Zollars by Matthew Baker
My final critique in environmental design was by far the worst I’ve ever experienced. The instructor and the guest critic hated everything I had done. I believe their exact words were, “I really hate this, and see no redeeming qualities in it.” Then they decided they would tell me all of the specific things they hated about it and why.
Little Roadie by Chavawn Kelley
Your chest puffed out, you held your shoulders back, your chin floated up. Such joy in a task! I followed and watched.
The Girl and Memory by Alice Neiley
I thought of you pocketing / stones from the snow-rimmed beach, then piling them up all around your house. I / thought of when you stopped cold / as a gull snapped up into the sky, light on his underbelly— / look, you said, and I did.
On My Own by The Smart Brothers
Americana / Folk Rock
Cover Art by Jaime Zollars