James Kelly Quigley
Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories James Kelly Quigley James Kelly Quigley oscillates between a writer who paints and a painter who writes. Instagram: @jameskellyquigley She Knows
Addy Gravatte
Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories Addy Gravatte Addy F. Gravatte (they/them) is a queer + trans experimental collage artist/poet/screenwriter in the Bay Area whose work concerns body horror, sexuality, and translation. They are currently working on a text-image hybrid thesis centered around the body as material as part of the MFA program at California College of the Arts. Hailing from Virginia, where they grew up in the north and received their BFA from VCU in Richmond, they spent two years in France teaching English before moving to San Francisco, where they currently teach at SFSU. They spend their free time with their dog, Teddy, avidly consuming pop culture. Instagram: @adddddy37. Gub Dog Gub Dog
Carrying Instructions
Carrying Instructions by jane putnam perry To dowse is to search, with the aid of simple handheld tools or instruments, for that which is otherwise hidden from view or knowledge. The British Society of Dowsers Dowsing is very literal. The key to asking the right question correctly is to first realize that one question is almost never going to get the answer. The American Society of Dowsers ~ 1. I receive a neuropsychological report as part of legal proceedings after a head-on collision with a car. This is a page from that report. Dowsing Question Putnam genealogy from the author’s family Bible 2. From: Jane P. PERRY <jpperry@*******.***> Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2022 1:44 PMTo: Diane Rapaport <diane@*******.***>Subject: Family History Research Query Dear Diane Rapaport, I hope you are safe and well and have everything you need. I am interested in discussing your services for Family History Research. Specifically, I would like clarity on two family stories. We are purportedly related to the Putnams (who isn’t if your family lived in Salem Village in the 1600’s). My middle name is Putnam, and my Great, Great Grandfather Horatio Perry (b. 1816) married Serena Putnam (b.1818), which explains it, but I would like help learning which branch of the Putnam tree Serena came from, especially because of family story #2. My mother told me we are related to Rebecca Nurse, who was accused of being a witch in 1692 by the Putnam family and who was executed by hanging in Salem, Massachusetts. I have begun research numerous times and have collected all manner of scraps of paper, as well as some family ephemera, but I feel in a vortex. Are my needs of interest to you? Take care and please be safe, Jane Putnam Perry Dowsing Question I feel in a vortex. Are my needs of interest to you? 3. mud sticks weighting my lineage I come from soul sacred soil a mystery of possibilities fractured fissured clay like a heart hardened under horror generations of passed down hurt clotted footsteps of the booted seeking relief from their rage and harms saturate the blessed threshold draw into the cracks rest my language holiness is mindful blood and water and ethers exhumed the short-eared rabbit nibbles tender rain-soaked, sun-lifted leafing what kind of cloud calls out a vertical stack like layers under my feet exhale this d’earthly drought 4. Re: Progress Report External Inbox Diane Rapaport <diane@*******.***> Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, 7:25AM to me Hi Jane, I have confirmed that Rebecca Nurse was not your direct ancestor, but you are a cousin of her great great grandson, Benjamin Nurse, because one of your Putnam great-great etc. aunts married Rebecca’s great grandson. I’ve also found the deed of Benjamin Nurse’s sale of the Rebecca Nurse farm to your 5th great grandfather Phineas Putnam in 1784. The Nurse homestead became your family homestead. That homestead remained in your own Putnam family for generations thereafter. You are directly connected to the land that Rebecca Nurse and her family called home. As to the 1692 Putnam accusers of Rebecca Nurse, the published Putnam family history that I’ve mentioned, which seems pretty reliable (and I’ll send you copies of relevant pages with my report), has some extended commentary about your 8th great grandfather Nathaniel Putnam. As you undoubtedly know, Nathaniel was a supporter of Rev. Samuel Parris and believed in witchcraft, but Nathaniel signed a petition in support of Rebecca Nurse in June 1692. He did accuse two other women of witchcraft, however, both of whom were executed. Best regards, Diane Diane Rapaport Professional Genealogist Dowsing Question “How must it feel to find yourself face-to-face with someone who has made it clear that he has the power to bring your world to an end, and has every intention of doing so?” ~ Amitav Ghosh in The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis 5. water in water out reckoning the sacred creation yoni from my childhood bring forth my inheritance wrap my memories sand warm and shaping bury us so only our faces show rhythms spray spirit sun breaks into pieces sparkling lens what a nice day dulse source of minerals harvested in the atlantic eat it raw take my children my mother’s ashes in smooth stones a berm separating water from residence but really connecting the two 6. This window was owned by Rebecca (Towne) Nurse’s birth family, photo by the author taken at “The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning & Reclaiming” exhibit viewed at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, on loan from the originally-curated Peabody Essex Museum exhibit of the same title. Dowsing Question “In moments of injustice, what role do we play?” ~ asked by the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library exhibit “The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning & Reclaiming” 7. strong brown moist loam a history of breaking down and rising the soul spirit of maghemite magnetically removing contaminants sun-lit glittering ripples running like a school of baby mackerel jubilant ribbons of iridescent yellow green a commune of sparkles calling me to the shore to wade amongst the resting matriarchs their manes of bladderwrack breathing with the tide dissolved salts, minerals, and ions not impurities but part of the ancestral sitting with filtered to purity would burn your insides a plop of rain meets ground trickles over stone and soil scrapes against fish and gill carrying this story in ecological DNA 8. Water, a spirit puppet brought forth by the Nonviolent Direct Action Art Team of 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations. Photo Credit: Peg Hunter, journal.rawearthworks.com Nonfiction Home Art by Holly Willis
Scott Dorsch
Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories Scott Dorsch Scott Dorsch is a writer and professional coffee roaster living in West Michigan. His work has appeared in Midwestern Gothic, Dunes Review, Everything Change Vol. III, and translated in Nowa Fantastyka. He served as the fiction editor for Fugue Literary Journal while completing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Idaho. He is currently at work on his first novel and short story collection. Follow him or get in touch at scottdorsch.com. Website: scottdorsch.com Cloudbursts Cloudbursts
Cloudbursts
Cloudbursts by Scott Dorsch You are special. Right now, you are in the middle of the living room with your hands out in front of you like a conjurer. Just above your brow is a cloud about the size of a rabbit, raining miniature rain onto a potted lemon tree. A black sheet hangs from the ceiling behind you and scrolls under your feet. It is coarse and sodden with rain. Your feet, too. Holding this pose is painful, but you do it anyway for your father. Your neck and shoulders ache and that familiar sharp bloom of sparks, of a hand gone numb, is back. But you must stay focused. Be still. You are your father’s favorite subject. You were a subject before you could walk. The uncanny prints of a child producing miniature clouds sell like hot cakes at fairs and gas stations all over the Midwest and make your father just enough money to afford the oils and canvas and printing fees. But it is the commercial jobs that earn him a living. Spray guns, ventilators and satin-finish eggshell are Monday through Friday. This latest portrait could change all of that. It could be a showstopper. The sun radiates over your father’s shoulder onto the easel like a spotlight, illuminating ancient dust above, waves of hair that could be your mother’s. It’s a dramatic illumination: the deep, crow-black shadows in the background, contrasted by the bright, angelic subject summoning rain onto lemons in the foreground. The raindrops clinging to the rinds are bright and phosphoric. The cloud, a near-black. The subject, bored. So baroque yet so surreal, critics would say. Perhaps they will comment on the inspiring use of light, the emphatic, no, deft chiaroscuro. But your father’s aim is more specific than that. His vision is more tenebrous, more Caravaggio, more dramatic than just simple deep shading for the sake of depth of field. He thinks this portrait could make him into something more than just a sideshow amongst the beer-can artist at the fairs. He may be hailed as the surrealist Rembrandt of Michigan. Perhaps he could sell more than just postcards and 10x12s, earn an honorary degree from Western or be invited to shows in high-rise New York or the Tate Modern. It could wretch him out of the gaff tape scrum and suffocating fumes of another credit union. Out of this sad cabin, north of town. Perhaps even your mother will come back. Perhaps. It has been ten days and oil has yet to touch more than just swatches and thumbnails. A house is only as strong as its foundation. His eyes dart from subject—you—to the parchment laid in his lap. He crosshatches your cheeks with charcoal in rough, staccato strokes, lifting the portrait to the light every so often to check his work. Satin-finish eggshell forever ornaments his curly black hair (it’s where you get your curls). Satin-finish eggshell hazes his jeans and even his bare feet. Satin-finish eggshell is his scent, his aura. You can’t remember a time when he wasn’t pocked with paint. He works in near silence. Never speaks. Music is distracting. Kids are distracting. You find his new mustache distracting. It seems to be an extension of his wispy nose hairs. Look away. Don’t laugh. Don’t look him in the eye. He hates that. You don’t want to agitate him. He moves like the weather in November. Mercurial, cold. Warm when you don’t expect it. You never know what father you will get. Producing clouds—controlling clouds—requires deep focus. Keep watching the dust dance in the light like krill. Imagine you’re at the bottom of the ocean, the cloud a turtle. Ignore the pain in your shoulders and feet. The feeling has always been ineffable, this making of clouds. You tried to explain it to your mother when you were eight. She was looking out the window when she asked about it. You told her that you could sense the clouds in the room like fish tugging at a line, and you just need to pull them into view. Like this, you said, lifting your hands overhead. A small loaf of a cloud appeared. She smiled. It kind of itches. Stings sometimes. Like static, you said. You’re losing the cloud. Concentrate. There’s a meaty scar on your lower lip from biting it. Tongue the scar tissue and stay grounded. Listen deeply to what’s around you. You can’t lose this rabbit-sized cloud. Your father is so happy with this one. He said it is perfect. Focus on the pencil strokes, the ticks of rain on the lemon leaves. On the texture of the black sheet below you. Your feet. The fan whirring in the other room. The clicks of juncos outside. The brawl of grackles and blue jays. The crying of gulls overhead. The gulls are inland. Storm is coming. Or is it you? Sometimes you can’t tell the difference. The birds make you restless. Behind your ear is a tickle, an itch. You swear it’s a spider. A thick one, like the ones that splay your windowsill at night. Wait for a break in the glances from your father before moving to check. You don’t want to upset him. Minutes pass before your father finally huffs, looks away, and bends to swap his charcoal pencil for a tortillon. He pushes up his glasses and tugs at his mustache. As he rubs his eyes, reach to inspect your nape. “Don’t,” he says without looking. You stop. Shudder. The rabbit-sized cloud expands by an inch, as if it were shocked, hair now standing on end. The rain tightens into a finer mist. Your father raises a brow. Deep breath. Focus. The grackles in the yard. The rain expands. It’s audible once again on the floor, the
jane putnam perry
Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories jane putnam perry jane putnam perry, she/her, guest on unceded Lisjan Territory (Oakland, CA), auntie, member of 1000 Grandmothers, and a colonizer and Salem Witch Trials accuser, writes and creates art to recognize harms done and alive and pathways to mend with White Snake Diary and in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Oaklandside, The Gloucester Times, Paper Dragon, Alluvian, Still Point Arts Quarterly, The RavensPerch, The Bluebird Word, Glacial Hills Review, The Mail/The New Yorker, The Mantelpiece, Gyroscope Review, and several academic publications including Outdoor Play. Jane’s “Echo Bridge” was a 2021 audio poetry finalist in The Missouri Review, and “The Liminal Diary” was a 2023 Nonfiction finalist at Choeofpleirn Press. Find Jane at janepperry.com. Website: janepperry.com Carrying Instructions Carrying Instructions
Belle Dorcas
Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories Belle Dorcas belle dorcas is a collage artist from Michigan. Her work is meant to visualize feminine chaos. Website: belledorcas.com Instagram: @belledorcasandfriends And She Flowers Camera Head
Harley Chapman
Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories Harley Chapman Harley Anastasia Chapman holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago & a BA in English Studies from Illinois State University. She was awarded the Allen & Lynn Turner Poetry Prize and has been a finalist for the Palette Poetry Emerging Poet Prize and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Her poems can be found in Nimrod International Journal, Atlanta Review, Superstition Review, Bridge Eight Press, & Columbia Poetry Review, among others. Her first chapbook, Smiling with Teeth, is available through Finishing Line Press. Instagram: @rabbitxteeth when i say my father is homeless, i mean: when i say my father is homeless, i mean:
Gub Dog
Gub Dog by Addy Gravatte Dedicated to the Holy Body of Saint Margery Kempe I want my real red blood on that faux pink fur But then it’d be burgundy— I’m too putrid for today Nobody don’t avoid me! Before you are very stupid and then you are smart I have always been a witch And I have always been obliged To tell them I am no When I was young I’d get a creature in my stomach And close my eyes I’d know I’d see My flesh, contracting to its slimmest space, Then expanding to its largest possibly —rapidly contracting, ‘twas gut-stuck between the two Until I remembered my tangible body It was proto-sexual for me! I am gross, oh I am a gross thing. Poetry Home Art by James Kelly Quigley
Patrice Sullivan
Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories Patrice Sullivan Patrice Sullivan lives and works in Phoenix, AZ. She received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and an MFA from University of Pennsylvania. She has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally – including Gracie Mansion, Jim Kempner and Robert Miller Galleries in New York City, as well as the Gallery of Vaclav Spala in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Castiglion Fiorentino in Italy. Recently, she has shown at The Shin Gallery in New York City. Museum and university shows include Carpenter Center at Harvard University, Somerville Museum, Somerville, MA, and Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, Fort Collins, CO, and Rhode Island College, Providence, RI. Sullivan has attended residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “World Views” Program, Alfred & Trafford Klots International Program, Léhon, France, Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony, Scuola Internazionale Di Grafica Venezia, Venice, Italy, and Chalk Hill Residency in Healdsburg, CA. Recently, she was awarded a scholarship for the Manhattan Graphics Center in NYC for the Fall of 2022. Sullivan’s artwork has been reviewed by The Huffington Post, Artscore Magazine, Southwest Magazine, Westword magazine. Her work is in many private collections. Patrice is an Emeritus Professor of Painting at Colorado State University where she taught for twenty-five years. In addition, she was a Lecturer at Harvard University from 1988-1991. Patrice pioneered and taught a study abroad program in Italy through Colorado State University in Tuscany. Please visit my website: www.patricesullivan.com Artist Statement: The figure is the embodiment of the human experience. It is the site of courage, joy, and love; of compassion, fear, and pain; of struggle, loneliness, and frustration, or sorrow; of loss. As a narrative, figurative painter, I use the figure to depict these universal emotions. The images in my paintings are twice removed from reality. In their transfer from the tonal and spatial qualities of the photograph to the textural, gestural, and light qualities of the canvas, the figures acquire a new life. Spatial relationships are altered; details prominent in the photograph become irrelevant. The once poised and fixed portrayal is re-created as a natural and fluid image. However, a component of the photographic nature of the image remains: in the stance of a figure, its engagement with the camera, a certain poised consciousness of being observed. This subtle quality provides a compelling backdrop and removes the facades for the viewer. The family environment is the primary focus. The synthesis of the photographic and the painted image, within the familiar context of the family, invites viewers to explore their emotions and transcend worldly barriers: perhaps recalling a moment from parent- or childhood, perhaps renewing a quest to understand the meaning of our existence. Website: www.patricesullivan.com. Endless Chatter Backyard Pool