Gathered Together in the Dark, Part 2: A conversation with artist Trinh Mai
The ability to bring thoughtform into lifeform is a characteristic of being made in God’s own image.
Gathered Together in the Dark, Part 1: A Review of Atomic Theory 7: Poems to my Wife and God
By locating questions of faith and doubt within the atomic, these poems enact a theology where the divine resides within instead of above the physical world.
Everything on the menu looks wrong + To Kiss Again After So Long
Pace Taylor's visual art appears in Issue No. 56: Expression.
The Wasted Things
When I find the maggot-fetus on the floor of our shower, I feel intensely fearful that our skin is something that is almost all gone, almost all out;
Trumpet Joy
Now, if it’s cold or raining, my son opens his bedroom window and points his horn outward to make certain Mr. Wei can hear.
The Two-Body Problem
Brandon Thurman's poem "The Two-Body Problem" appears in Issue No. 56: Expression.
Your Grandmother's Antique
Your grandmother, whose mouth you know so well, once told you the body will listen when the earth speaks.
Papa's Tallit
It was also a good thing I had no idea what Papa was saying because every morning he thanked God he was not born a woman.
Ghost Feathers
The cold in the laundromat is specific. It is a broken-radiator cold, Buffalo, New York cold, the rotten-side-of-the-holidays cold, the cold you feel when a spirit is close.
Avalon
I know now what it means to be full to bursting with eager limbs, tears, and milk. I know, too, what it means to stretch something open with my own fullness by way of desire.
Thirsty
At his room next morning they said, “He wanted us to tell you he was always thirsty. Now what do you figure that’s about?”
Horizon
The snow is thick, alive and panting, a roaring wall of white in the space between my father and me.
A Poetry Editor’s Guide to Ruminate
I’ve tried to quantify my time here. In close to six years as poetry editor, I’ve read and evaluated near 10,000 poetry submissions, worked with over 250 poets, and co-edited twenty-four issues. However, I can’t quite quantify what I’ve learned from Ruminate—the community it’s extended to me, the people I’ve learned from and with along the way. In preparing an editorial handbook for the two incredible poets who will soon take up my position, I tried to distill the essential duties of being po...
Nova
She said nothing, placed a hand on his forearm. Already their spirits were shrinking, an unletting of birthday-bright balloons.
Sign of the Times
Openings are one part mystery, one part miracle. Who’s to say when they will occur, or what will result.
Given Light and a Mother Who Was Always Dying in Secret
Dragonflies can tell the real stars from glint on lake-surface. They fly to lesser suns, their wings open to duty, dipping to mire.
Rewriting History
It’s hot, air thick / as maple syrup, and mosquitos feast / on any flesh they find. Our bites bleed / blue as we lie in the grass
On bee-ing free: racial justice, surviving apocalypse, and paying attention
White supremacy doesn’t just uphold police brutality and mass incarceration, migrant detention and colonial extraction on Native land; it’s death-dealing and ordinary and wants to last forever.
The Wind
Our parents rode in the enclosed cabin of our classic white Ford truck. They were talking but we couldn’t hear them. They never looked back to see us and we knew there was no room for us up in that sweetly, quiet cab.
To Remember A Stranger
The more people I have met, the closer I have been to suffering. Many times, this makes me want to not meet more people, and, in fact, un-meet people, like a girl in a video I resent having seen or a boy in a gas station at which I didn’t have to stop.
Writer's Habits: The Importance of Non-Writing Writing
...if you saw me by the side of the road, perhaps taking a photo with my phone of some wild grapes, you wouldn’t think I’m writing, but I am—more non-writing writing.
For the good of those who love him
Saul’s father sits down next to him, lights Saul’s candle and pats his leg. He’s always more affectionate in church, like he’s forgotten his normal behaviors. Distracted by the possibility of God, he remembers Saul.
Hazy Skies
Where I am living now, the seasons have no pivot... Springs are mercurial, senselessly violent in their cold and snow. I experience winter here like a death, wait endlessly for a green that will outgrow my grief.
On bee-ing free: racial justice, surviving apocalypse, and paying attention
White supremacy doesn’t just uphold police brutality and mass incarceration, migrant detention and colonial extraction on Native land; it’s death-dealing and ordinary and wants to last forever.
Self-Deception in the #PublishingPaidMe Marketplace
If I think too much about the racial inequalities in the publishing industry, it might push me to the point where I stop writing.
Our Hands Are Bowls of Dust
Clemonce Heard's poem, Our Hands Are Bowls of Dust won second place in the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and is featured in Issue 49: Mattering.
A Scream
It seems insidiously cruel that we don’t get to be asymptomatic carriers for the prejudice and hatred that others infect us with.
When the Good Lord Willed the Creek to Rise
Charnell Peters's poem appears in Issue 42: Forming One Another
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