When the objects of an inquiry, in any department, have principles, conditions, or elements, it is through acquaintance with these that knowledge, that is to say scientific knowledge, is attained. -Aristotle; Physics (1;1) 14th December 2020 Dear Reader, In the summer of 2014, I was a sophomore enrolled at the University of Wisconsin – Madison…
Category: Issue Three
Leaf-Out by William Olsen
Leaf-Out This earliest aspiration to the serial green overstory is stalled, sticky, stuck, mid-leaf. Our streets have not yet darkened with design, to make summer livable. Daylight is not yet switched off by shade. The bare trees could not turn off the day, but look. Already the coppery color of late fall leaf-rust, these are…
Two Poems by Landis Grenville
Still Life with Sergei Osipov with a line from Frank O’Hara The cornflowers in a green vase easily associated on a table inside— No more miracles until afternoon. I want a quiet life: cans of blueberry jam, dark roast, the semi-cubism of things in rain. No one around to hear me say it.…
Uterus by Þórdís Helgadóttir Trans. Larissa Kyzer
Elí caught his wife sucking chicken with his best friend. Alís had told him she was going to the gym after work, but then he saw their car outside Óttar’s house as he was biking past. Elí knocked on the door; he tested the knob, found it unlocked, and walked in. There they were,…
Erebus Redux by Linda Bierds
Erebus Redux Each name long ago logged. Ice Master. Boatswain. In fading ink on vellum, all: the caulkers and purser, the Newfoundland, Neptune, the monkey, Jacko. The task today? Reanimation, as up from the wreckage divers lift toward the green light of DNA six strands of hair on a boar-bristle brush, and toward…
Engineer’s Dream by Nick Arvin
Three years passed, and the doorbell rang. There was no warning, no call ahead, no email, no text, no mental preparation. I opened the door – Troy. My brother. Me and Troy. Here is the bitter, tedious backstory of fraternal debacle: Older brother stole younger brother’s girlfriend. And, yes, I despised Troy for it,…
The last brother in America by Conrad Egyir
“The last brother in America” is a contemporary adaption and synthesis of historical events that look at the tragedies and contentions that arises from xenophobia, tribalism, and classism within a pluralistic world. The first reference is from a historical 1941 photo titled “The last Jew in Vinnista” and the second reference is from the painting…
Hooke22_3 and other Images by Brad Smith
Re-presentations of MRI data from day 54 human embryos. Embryos from a collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine were imaged using MRI. The three-dimensional image data points were reformatted to confound the spatial dimensions and present a new visual presentation and thus a new interpretation of the original subject. Smith explores the…
Inseparable Connections: A Conversation with Jane Hirshfield on her new collection Ledger
By Justin Balog Jane Hirshfield’s latest collection, Ledger, released March 10th, 2020 from Knopf, is a record of our responsibility to the climate and social justice crises as inhabitants of a global community. The consequences then, of these global crises, are at the center of the speaker’s musings in Ledger, which span from considerations of…