Issue #2 - May 2021
poetry
Edited by Diana Kamau, Sofia Cabaj-Guerra and Emily Baird
“Modern Cyphers”
by T Lawrence
“Lowly”
by Keith Kennedy
Bio: Keith Kennedy writes and rights wrongs. His wife, though left-handed, helps a little.
Artist Statement: Subversion, my favorite of all the things, requires constant deconstruction of norms. Most of those norms deserve the harshest and most un-attenuated pillaging.
“ᐊᐢᑮᕀ askîy Land”
by Angela Hibbs
Bio: Angela Hibbs is the author of four books, most recently Control Suppress Delete (Palimpsest). Her work has been translated into Russian and French. She was awarded the 2010 Joseph S. Stauffer Prize. She was a runner up in the 10th annual IFOA Battle of the Bards.
@hibbsangela on Twitter
“Short Essay Ending in Simko”
by Adam D. Weeks
Bio: Adam D. Weeks is an undergraduate student at Salisbury University, the social media manager for The Shore and a reader for Quarterly West. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has poetry published or forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Poet Lore, Sugar House Review, Sierra Nevada Review and elsewhere.
Artist Statement: My writing centers around the appreciation of art as the way of understanding the world. My poetry consists of elegies for our natural world, calls to action for artists to continue making powerful work, and inventive formal choices to challenge and rework what poetry can do through strange explorations of things such as the potentiality of aliens and the blending of poetry and punk rock lyrics.
“Columbusing”
by Ami Patel
Bio: Ami Patel (she/her) is a queer, diasporic South Asian poet and Young Adult Fiction writer. Her work can be found in the Unchaste Anthology Volume Two, the Madwoman Etc Zine Issue Two, and They Rise Like A Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets.
Artist Statement: In reference to your commitment to the fight of being "anti," I am constantly working to destabilize the presumed poetic gaze in my poetry. As a queer femme of color, I see my effort to center the "marginal" in my writing as a subversive and political act.
Follow @amiagogo on Instagram, Twitter.
“What Are You Even Doing Here? I Mean, What Story Do You Want to Tell?”
by Abe Becker
Bio: Abe Becker's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Fourteen Hills, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Juked, and other publications. He is the Poet Laureate of Awkward, (according to someone who should know), and a Grand Slam Champion of the Berkeley Poetry Slam and Cal Slam. Abe enjoys petting cats and dogs in Oakland, CA.
Artist Statement: I like to think my work encourages readers to own their privilege and uplifts and affirms the dignity of all people but especially disabled people and other oppressed groups. I also hope my work feels honest and somewhat vulnerable and can nudge readers in that direction.
@abebecker on Instagram
“cognitive dissonance”
by Ashley Hajimirsadeghi
Bio: Ashley Hajimirsadeghi has had work appear in Into the Void Magazine, Mud Season Review, Rust + Moth, and The Shore, among others. She currently reads for Mud Season Review and EX/POST Magazine, is the Playwriting & Director’s Apprentice at New Perspectives Theatre Company, was a Brooklyn Poets Fellow, and is the co-Editor in Chief of Juven Press. She can be found at http://ashleyhajimirsadeghi.squarespace.com/.
Artist Statement: As a queer Persian-American, in these poems and all of the work I do, I aim to push back against conventional norms and white-centric views of what a poem should be.
Twitter: @ashleynassarine
Instagram: @nassarine
“Humble Request”
by MK PUNKY
Bio: A founder of the 80's hardcore punk band The Clitboys and the author of 13 books, most recently The Unexpected Guest, a memoir of befriending and housing a homeless neighbor, MK PUNKY works for social justice from Los Angeles. Twitter: @MKPunky1
Artist Statement: Genuine progress -- defined as social justice for all -- is the through-line in all my work.
