~ highlights and recommendations from recent issues of literary journals ~
by Mark Danowsky, Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal
*
Typishly
https://typishly.com/2018/08/30/a-man-drops-by-to-pay-his-rent/
Cathryn Shea – A Man Drops by to Pay His Rent
[excerpt]
That’s Hayden in Johnny Guitar.
I would offer coffee, preferably laced with aquavit or rum.
*
Rogue Agent
http://www.rogueagentjournal.com/ebowers
E. Bowers – I’m Trying Not to Get Caught
[excerpt]
I want to line the
walls of my room with glass,
so I can live a fragile
and dangerous life.
*
Dodging The Rain
https://dodgingtherain.wordpress.com/2019/12/29/tim-staley-a-gentle-white-depression/
Tim Staley – A Gentle, White Depression
[excerpt]
I wonder if worrying
about living
a long time
wicks away the fun
from actually
living.
*
Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
Spring 2020, Volume 31, Number 1
http://mobiusmagazine.com/poetry/riotact.html
Ian Wiley – The Riot Act
[excerpt]
Friends who are whiter than I am say
that when I don’t shave for a few days
I look like a terrorist.
*
Guernica
https://www.guernicamag.com/practice/
Jane Hirshfield – Practice
[excerpt]
Women’s push-ups,
from the knees.
They resemble certain forms of religious bowing.
*
Hobart
https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/joe-rogan
Elizabeth Ellen – Joe Rogan
[excerpt]
I wasn’t ever going to be on Joe Rogan or NPR
I was always going to be lonely because I didn’t know how not to be
An asshole.
It was the one thing I was really good at
So maybe I could be a comedian, after all.
*
The Rumpus
https://therumpus.net/2020/05/rumpus-original-poetry-three-poems-by-ugonna-ora-owoh/
Ugonna-Ora Owoh – Complexity
[excerpt]
I mean too much things can’t exist one place at once.
It must be my body making all this space for itself and yet accommodating.
*
The Offing
https://theoffingmag.com/poetry/the-strangers-guide-to-brothels-of-philadelphia-1849/
Rita Mookerjee – The Stranger’s Guide to Brothels of Philadelphia, 1849
all pearls and lips: little delicacies
ready to win you with the flute or piano
but when you are not visiting they amuse
one another even more
*
Puerto del Sol
https://www.puertodelsol.org/single-post/2020/05/08/Three-Poems
James Kelly Quigley – Getting Over It
[excerpt]
You call it a process of becoming
more fully human. How we’re sustained
when these corridors of grief & the wax
museum at the end of them collapse
into something hot & dense. You say
you can’t recontextualize a landmine.
*
River Heron
Issue 3.1
https://www.riverheronreview.com/chad-frame
Chad Frame – Harmonica Man
[excerpt]
She tells me
the body can still hear for ten minutes
after a person dies. I’m terrified
of this, though I have no idea why.
*
semicolon lit
Issue 3, Winter 2020
https://www.semicolonlit.org/daniyel-wiggins-poetry
Daniyel Wiggins – Late Afternoon One Sunday
[excerpt]
she only knows Dad wants you inside now.
trapped between the plastic and cold metal.
*
The Broiler
Issue 31
https://theboilerjournal.com/2020/01/04/elizabeth-leo/
Elizabeth Leo – Lichen
[excerpt]
Trillium will bloom and the march brown mayfly too.
This is maybe as close to quiet as I can get
*
The Baltimore Review
Spring 2020
https://baltimorereview.org/index.php/spring_2020/contributor/andrew-kozma#Transplant
Andrew Kozma – Transplant
[excerpt]
I blamed distance, the body I never saw, but the earth
of his ashes follows wherever I go. A coffin I can’t escape.
*