Poetry

Lycanthropy

Poetry by Phillip B. Williams

Riding home, I spotted a wolf
dead on the road’s shoulder, a streak
of blood gossiped that it had been dragged
from the highway’s flat, black portal and back
onto the thin dimension splitting asphalt and. »

Ritual of Salt

Poetry by Abigail Templeton

A former lover enters my apartment window and says
“You always did look better in blue.” He starts taking
photographs of my surroundings—an obnoxious habit.
It is night and there is no one left on the block except
him and me, this former lover who is a gate that won’t. »

Southbound

Poetry by Melissa Carroll

I.
The seatbelt clicks as we listen
to sweet crushing water under tires,

headlights flicking in puddles
where strangers safe in steel shells
intersect and continue. »

Restraint is the New Black

Poetry by Eric Steineger

It’s out there alright, wafting through yards. Making its way
to the pit of your stomach. Perhaps if it were a chainsaw
you’d jump. Not just an aroma. It could be a tiger’s eye
a girlfriend once gave you. Or maybe the object in question is
too wide for a pocket, like a photo album that. »

Ghazal (left behind)

Poetry by Lisa Cheby

Peeling apples meticulously, each skin intact, left behind.
Except for the seeds, you devoured the cores, not even extract left behind.

The turtle knows patience. Her movement unheard in whirls of chaos.
She emerges with stillness, the ebb of the Pacific: left behind.. »

Our Best of the Web Nominations

The Splinter Generation is pleased to announce our Best of the Web Nominations for the last year. A big thanks to all our contributors, and a special congratulations to Amber Sparks, LaToya Jordan, and Timothy Marsh!

We’re going to take a well deserved break until the New Year, though we may be posting a bit here and there.. »

Seeing as It Is

Poetry by Ocean Vuong

In the hospital room’s white
indifference, a small girl waits
while gloved hands unravel layers
of gauze from her eyes.
She will see for the first time
the objects we’ve limited
through naming. The gauze. »

Three Sorts of Madness

Poetry by Matthew Ostapchuk

I.
Beside the boulevard staircase
a sepia flower woman sits, sells
stalks for a nickel, answers you
vacantly, the way a cat might
or mightn’t. Looking at her sideways
one can tell she’s tatters and. »

The State of Red, A Poem by Mandana Zandian

Editors’ Note: Back in their spring/summer issue, The Atlanta Review brought us “the very first poetry from inside the pro-democracy movement in Iran.” We asked the editor, Sholeh Wolpé, if we could reprint a couple of the poems.

And then she said yes! This is the second of those poems. »

Douglas Kearney Discusses the Page Versus Stage and other questions from The Black Automaton

I wanted to go back to the lab, and try to write poems that would demand the eye, demand a reader. And not only demand it, but reward it.

I’m not even going to lie to you; I want to be a poet people remember.

It is totally possible that one day I’m going to feel I’m sick of writing about black face and minstrel shows, and race, and I will write a poem about seeing my wife coming out of the swimming pool.. »

Religion, A Poem by Amy Motlagh

Back in their spring/summer issue, The Atlanta Review brought us “the very first poetry from inside the pro-democracy movement in Iran.” The spring issue contains a powerful, moving, and devastating collection of poems. In fact, we asked the editor, Sholeh Wolpé, if we could reprint a couple of the poems.

And then she said yes!. »

Sixteen Gauge

Poetry by Alyssa Ogi

My grandmother could not understand
why I’d want metal shoved through my ear cartilage,
the first in family history with intentional holes.
I said “there’s no. »