contents
POETRY
Lynne Schilling.
Elysha Snider
Amy Smith
Diane Perazzo
K. DeCristofaro
Kay Bomans
Melissa Laussmann
John Vukmirovich
Rebecca Weil
Andrea Aldrete
Debbie Strange
Marcia L. Hurlow
Samantha Imperi
Michelle DiSarno
Mike Taylor
Lucy Griffith
Zeta Ferrer
Grant Clauser
Cami DuMay
Zeke Shomler
Shane Coppage
Richard Jeffrey Newman
Caleb Edmondson
Sharon Johnson
Tiffany Mackay
Mikael Kales
B. L. Bruce
Praise to the Morning 9
Haiku 10
Autumn Equinox 13
First Frost 14
Migrations 16
Migrating 17
Haiku 21
Tanka 22
With the Rain 25
November is Rain 26
Haiku 29
Night Before the War Sent Us Home 30
The Gingko Drops Her Leaves 33
Why I Go to the Woods 34
Haiku 37
Autumn Aubade 38
Mindfulness 41
Pohopoco 42
Metamorphic Rock 45
Like the Sudden Shock of Cold Water 47
Two Haiku 48
Sunset 52
How to Hold On 55
Nearly Dusk 56
Three Haiku 59
Two Haiku 60
Haiku 63
FALL 2024
ISSUE # 10
ISSN: 2693-5864 (Online) ISSN: 2693-5856 (Print)
©2024 Humana Obscura, an imprint of Bri Bruce Productions. All Rights Reserved. All rights to all original artwork, photography, and written works belongs to the respective owners as stated in the attributions. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and publisher.
Front Cover: Greenhorn by Rose-Marie Keller-Flaig
Back Cover:
Golden Spikes by Amalia Díaz
Swetha Amit
Jayne Marek
Foster W. Donnell
Libré Cory
Before I Was Born I Was the Sky 66
Moving On 69
PROSE
Emily Uecker
Gail Hosking
Silent Float 44
Maine 51
ABOUT HUMANA OBSCURA
Humana Obscura is an independent literary magazine that seeks to publish the best of new, emerging, and established writers and artists in what we like to call the “nature space.” As our name suggests—”obscured human”—we focus on poetry, short prose, and art where the human element is concealed but not entirely absent, aiming to revive the genre of nature-centric creative work in today’s modern world.
ART
Rose-Marie Keller-Flaig
Amalia Díaz
Emily Rankin
Lisa Cassell-Arms
Jocelyn Elizabeth
Heidi Spitzig
Anne Kulou
Jess Cherofsky
Greenhorn FRONT COVER
Bliss 20
Silence 36
Golden Spikes BACK COVER
Rose 24
String Theory INSIDE FRONT COVER
Frost 67
Nightlights 8 Morning Web 61
At Home Here 11
Take Flight 50
Distorted Sunset 53
Beauty in the Breaking 57
Ferns 12
Dewdrops 15
Faith 18
Scattered 23
Humana Obscura’s mission is to publish and promote the best nature-focused work of today’s voices and talents, seeking work that is unexpected, real, evocative, yet subtle, with strong imagery and sense of place. The publication’s intention is to inspire readers and enrich their lives while providing an inclusive space for elevating the voices and creative work of its contributors.
Founded in 2020, Humana Obscura is published online and in print four times yearly, and features work by artists and writers from around the world.
David A. Goodrum .
Mandy Merkel
Azeb Hameed
Karin Wegmann
Rosie Feather
Rosemary H. Williams
Kelly Schulze
Kayla Marie Anley
Kristin Camitta Zimet
INTERVIEWS
Tiffany Mackay
Through the Trees 32
Desert Squall 27
Passage 28
Countercurrents 31 Movement 43
Intense Autumn Feeling 35
Veil 39
The Space Between 46
Liquid Gold 40
Silent Glow 49 Web Wonder 62
Missed 54
SUBMISSIONS
Humana Obscura accepts poetry, prose, and art. Submissions are considered on a quarterly basis and can be sent through the publication’s online submission manager at www.humanaobscura.com/submit.
INQUIRIES
For questions regarding submissions, or for general inquiries, please see the FAQ page on our website or please contact: editor@humanaobscura.com
CONNECT
X: @humanaobscura
Instagram: @humanaobscura Facebook: @humanaobscura
features
cover artist
ROSE-MARIE KELLER-FLAIG
Rose-Marie Keller-Flaig lives in the south of Germany. Nature is a natural part of her life. The optical limitation of macro photography enables her to direct the viewer’s eye to what is essential for her in the photographed object. Her aim is always to trigger feelings and associations that she herself felt when taking the picture, also in the viewer of these objects. To intensify this effect, she sometimes abstracts the motif by intentionally moving the camera. Check out her work on Instagram @blendenglueck.
featured artist JOCELYN
ELIZABETH
Jocelyn Elizabeth is a mixed-media artist, writer, and mom living north of Boston, Massachusetts. She earned her B.S. in Management with a concentration in Human Resources and B.A. in French from Fairfield University. Her work is inspired by the people and places that are meaningful to her, with a focus on abstraction and the natural landscapes of coastal New England. She was an artistin-residence at Chateau d’Orquevaux, France, in 2024 and her work has been published in Uppercase Magazine, Click Magazine, All She Makes Magazine, Humana Obscura, and In Her Space Literary Journal.
featured poet GRANT CLAUSER
Grant Clauser’s sixth poetry book, Temporary Shelters, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Greensboro Review, Kenyon Review, and other journals. He’s an editor for a news media company and teaches poetry at Rosemont College.
INSIDE
THE FRONT COVER: STRING THEORY, EMILY RANKIN
Emily Rankin was born in Riverside, California, and attended university in Texas, where she received a BFA in 2011. Her body of work deals with the tangles of human emotion and understanding, the intuitive messages of dreaming and subconscious exploration. Her work has appeared in such publications as Gasher, Wild Roof Journal, Raw Art Review, Metonym, Meat for Tea, Landlocked, Black Fox, Zoetic Press, Hey I’m Alive Magazine, and Rattle. She’s based in New Mexico. Learn more at eerankinart.com.
ON THE BACK COVER: GOLDEN SPIKES, AMALIA DÍAZ
Amalia Díaz is a botanist and photographer born in Bogotá, Colombia, who is in a constant quest for the extraordinary in the magic of the ordinary. After living for almost 10 years in Austin, Texas, and returning to Colombia with a PhD and a passion for photography, she is convinced that we develop multiple visions that allow us to approach the world from different angles. She is constantly in the pursuit of those daily images that evoke the warmth and sensitivity of human spirit in a world in need of kindness and compassion.
letter from the editor
Dear Readers,
It is with immense joy and gratitude that we celebrate the tenth issue of Humana Obscura, our magazine dedicated to celebrating the beauty of nature and our connection to it through poetry, prose, and art.
What started as a humble idea during the early days of the pandemic has blossomed into a vibrant community of creators and nature lovers, bound by our shared passion for the wilderness, the seasons, and the wonders of the natural world and our place in it.
Over the past ten issues, we’ve had the privilege of showcasing the voices of writers and artists whose works capture the delicate interplay between humanity and the environment. Each page of this magazine reflects our collective awe at the world around us, and it is your continued support and contributions that make this journey possible.
As we step into the next chapter, we are more inspired than ever to continue sharing these moments of natural beauty and creative expression with all of you.
Thank you for being a part of this remarkable milestone. Here’s to many more issues to come!
Happy reading,
Bri Bruce Founding Editor-in-Chief
about the editor
BRI BRUCE (who writes under the pseudonym B. L. Bruce) is an award-winning and two-time Pushcart Prize nominated poet living and writing along the California coast. Her work has appeared most recently in The Sunlight Press, Riverstone Literary Journal, Bivouac Magazine, Blue Heron Review, and The Lakeshore Review, with haiku widely and internationally published. Bruce is the author of four books, The Weight of Snow, 28 Days of Solitude, The Starling’s Song, and Measures. Her fifth book, Blue California Sky, was released in June of 2024 from Finishing Line Press. Connect with her on Instagram @b_l_bruce and on X @the_poesis.
NIGHTLIGHTS, LISA CASSELL-ARMS
LISA CASSELL-ARMS is a fine art photographer focused on capturing the wonder and beauty of the natural world and our changing relationship with it. She reinterprets landscape and explores our perceptions and experiences of natural space, oftentimes finding dialogue between images by combining them across time and location. CassellArms discovered her love of photography as a young teenager. An early Polaroid camera and the complete Time-Life Library of Photography provided great early inspiration and self-education in the mechanics, principles, and history of photography. Her work has exhibited in galleries and online.
PRAISE TO THE MORNING
LYNNE SCHILLING
For Caitlin
Who knows what a life holds? Right now my whole world hangs on black tree limbs lying against the blue of dawn.
LYNNE SCHILLING is a retired academic who has been writing poetry sporadically for over thirty years. Until recently, she wrote mainly for herself but has recently started publishing her work. She lives in Connecticut surrounded by trees and gardens that have a distinctive beauty in every season.
HAIKU
ELYSHA SNIDER
autumnal mist a robin’s song leads the dawn’s chorus
ELYSHA SNIDER is an educator, mother, and writer. She has an MA in English from the University of Calgary, and her work has appeared in the Canadian Literature journal, Impostor: A Poetry Journal, filling Station magazine, and Poetry Pause. Originally from Southern California, she currently lives in Alberta with her family.
AT HOME HERE, JOCELYN ELIZABETH
FERNS, HEIDI SPITZIG
AUTUMN EQUINOX
AMY SMITH
the heart of a dark morning the light of a single star suspended in stillness the rise and fall of this breath
AMY SMITH is deeply influenced by the land, the elements, and by the questions that arise as she wonders about the world. She finds poetry in the tiny cracks between things—between hand and pen, between paper and ink, between oddly connected kin. She writes because writing roots her into spaces that feel like home.
HEIDI SPITZIG (she/they) is a poet, photographer, and crisis counselor living in the Finger Lakes region of New York with her partner, 8 cats, and a 14-year-old corn snake. She has taught workshops on healing using various creative outlets and holds a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology. She’s an avid nature-lover and can often be found far in the forest, reading poems to trees or any rock that will listen.
FIRST FROST
DIANE PERAZZO
first frost forms— a bloom of ice crystals that coat brown and wilted leaves and cover broken black and angled stems in weary autumn fields
the faint November sun is filmy and milky white— a cataract-covered eye in the sky so high its gaze offers cold comfort
and then, morning light grows wind sways geese fly away and first frost fades
leaving a gilded glistening as earth turns in its great spiral dance around the sun
DIANE PERAZZO is a poet, legacy writing facilitator and eco witch. She is co-creator of the art and poetry exhibit “Sowing the Future: Women Farmers + EcoAgriculture” and author of the chapbook Six Poems for Healing (illustrated by the late Amara Hollow Bones). Her poetry has been published in earth-based spirituality and ecology-focused publications. For many years, Perazzo was a writer/editor focusing on health equity, mental health, and climate change. As she eases into her elder years, she is focused on crafting verses and stories that strive to echo the magical and mythic voices of the living land and her beings.
DEWDROPS, HEIDI SPITZIG
MIGRATIONS
K. DECRISTOFARO
There are voyages in nature, which we call migrations.
The goose makes it our business to notice as it announces its journey south, a good captain knows he cannot charge for a whale watch in February, and park rangers protect the native milkweed to feed the fourth gen monarchs.
But every day, billions and billions of fungal spores join with the wind and travel for thousands of miles down the jetstream, through the troposphere, and into our lungs, which is a trip longer than a horse would take to water, or a man would take to God. And we don’t call it anything.
K. DECRISTOFARO is a poet and multidisciplinary artist living in Boston, Massachusetts, with her cat, dog, and partner. She is a hobbyist green witch, an herbal tea devotee, a horror film enthusiast, and a joyfully queer force of nature. Her work can be found in publication by Querencia Press, Beyond Queer Words, Nightshade Publishing, Bottlecap Press, and more. Find DiCristofaro on Instagram at @herbalteapoetry.
MIGRATING
KAY BOMANS
A torn feather, crane-gray, falls silently, while the resonant calls fade in the distance of a cold autumn sky, alight in gold
KAY BOMANS is writing again after a long hiatus, returning to a realm which has always been woven into the very core of herself. Determined to mend the torn threads, she has been making slow and tentative but also persistent and sure steps back to that part of her, where words are spun into poems.
FAITH, ANNE KULOU
ANNE KULOU is a self-taught neurodivergent artist starting to write poetry in childhood to express her non-dualistic experience of the natural world, profoundly interwoven with her inward journey. In 2022, she added photography as an equally powerful and subtle medium of creative expression, as another way to say the unspeakable. She seeks to immerse into that shared realm where dualisms dissolve, where connection and wholeness become tangible. Her work is published in a photo book and three magazines. She lives in Germany and works as a forensic psychologist and trauma-sensitive Gestalt psychotherapist. Find her on Instagram: @_ankulou_, @_ankuaos_, @_ankuords, @_ankulogue_.
humana obscura
BLISS, ROSE-MARIE KELLER-FLAIG
HAIKU
MELISSA LAUSSMANN
rising early humming river sounds in the dawn mist
storm brewing— the smell of flowers in my teacup
MELISSA LAUSSMANN resides in a small town in Texas with her daughter. When she’s not in the campus library where she works, you can find her playing mahjong, taking long walks outdoors, watching movies, or reading classic Japanese haiku. You can find her poems in journals such as Three Line Poetry, Haiku Journal, Cold Moon Journal, and Poetry Quarterly
TANKA
JOHN VUKMIROVICH
With the drought, the reds, yellows, and blues of early June became the browns of autumn. On the solstice, the green rains returned.
JOHN VUKMIROVICH is an independent scholar, freelance writer, and book reviewer. In 2000, he earned his PhD in English from Loyola University Chicago; his dissertation was on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. His essay, Loren Eiseley, The Hidden Teacher, appeared in the winter 2023 issue of Catamaran Literary Reader. His book reviews have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement and the Journal of American Studies. He has also published numerous op-eds in the Chicago Sun-Times on educational, environmental, and economic issues. His poetry has appeared in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and Presence, among others.
SCATTERED, JESS CHEROFSKY
JESS CHEROFSKY’s work focuses on Indigenous rights and supporting the healing of biocultural relationships. Cherofsky began practicing macrophotography in 2021 after falling in love with mosses, and these explorations at the scale of moss invite deeper relationship with the tiny ones who sustain our world. This photography serves as meditation, gratitude practice, and love letters to and about our fellow living beings. Cherofsky’s work has appeared in Humana Obscura and The Hopper. Cherofsky is queer and Ashkenazi Jewish and lives on the ancestral and current homelands of the Onondaga Nation (known also as Central New York State).
ROSE, AMALIA DÍAZ
WITH THE RAIN
REBECCA WEIL
When the wet tongue of water unfurls, dust rises peppery from the eager ground, the musk of dirt and roses give themselves to our nostrils. With the rain, we can smell the shape of what is here.
REBECCA WEIL is the author of the award-winning book Bring Me the Ocean. Recent writing has been published in River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, The Journal of Wild Culture, and Phoebe, in which her piece “Old Friends,” was a finalist in the 2024 nonfiction contest. In addition, her poem, “Hair Thief: Kleptotrichy,” was a finalist in the 2023 Seneca Park Zoo Nature Poetry Contest for emerging poets. Weil is completing a collection of essays and poems tracing love, loss, and solace found in connection with nature in Upstate New York.
NOVEMBER IS RAIN
and I am the ground that shakes the drought from the tips of fingers. Open palms, an offering—a truce— between this moment and the next. Limbs outstretched, mouth full of sky, ready to fall.
ANDREA ALDRETE is a published author from a small Texas border town where she savors every bit of her rich Hispanic culture. She is a mother of two small children, and a wife to an amazing husband. She lives a sober life that allows her to enjoy her loved ones creating long, meaningful memories.
ANDREA ALDRETE
DAVID A. GOODRUM, photographer/writer, lives in Corvallis, Oregon. His photography has graced the covers of several art and literature magazines, most recently Cirque Journal, Willows Wept Review, Blue Mesa Review, Ilanot Review, Red Rock Review, The Moving Force Journal, Snapdragon Journal, Vita Poetica, and appeared in many others. In the quickness of our modern lives, we often lose the details as we step over them, look away, stare straight ahead, distract ourselves. Instead, these photos are from experiences of pausing and contemplation. See additional work, both photos and poems, at www.davidgoodrum.com and on Instragram and X (Twitter) @goodrum.
DESERT SQUALL, DAVID A. GOODRUM
MANDY MERKEL, born in East Berlin in 1986, has a strong bond with her city, where she has lived ever since. Despite early creative adventures, she didn’t consistently pursue art. In 2020, after a decade without serious practice, she returned to creating. Since then, she’s explored various techniques, focusing on painting, printing, textiles, and photography. She uses photography to capture small moments and significant changes in her city and beyond. Preferring analog photography, she finds it forces her to slow down and be more aware. Additionally, she cherishes the surprise of seeing the developed photos for the first time. Follow her on Instagram @ berlinerauswahl.
PASSAGE, MANDY MERKEL
HAIKU
DEBBIE STRANGE
DEBBIE STRANGE is a chronically ill short-form poet, visual artist, and photographer from Canada whose creative passions connect her more closely to the world, to others, and to herself. Strange’s work has received multiple awards and thousands of her poems and artworks have been published worldwide. Her most recent book, The Language of Loss: Haiku & Tanka Conversations, won the Sable Books 2019 International Women’s Haiku Contest and Haiku Canada’s 2022 Marianne Bluger Chapbook Award. Her award-winning haiku collection, Random Blue Sparks, is forthcoming from Snapshot Press in 2024. Please visit her publication archive at debbiemstrange.blogspot.com for further information.
fairy flax the heath dotted with stars
NIGHT BEFORE THE WAR SENT US HOME
MARCIA L. HURLOW
Dnipro, Ukraine
Who troubles our boat? The claw of light scrapes the curtains, lifts the last sheet from our cold bed, lashes the walls with its blur of grey.
Then clouds cover the moon, our navigator through this night.
We turn away from the few stars to trust our dreams for salve.
We have sailed a night of lightning, each flash denied what was familiar.
This dull reverberating cloud floats its haze around us now
as we rise, as we must, like two gulls bound to fish a stormy sea.
MARCIA L. HURLOW‘s first full-length poetry collection, Anomie, won the Edges Prize. She also has six awardwinning chapbooks, including Dog Physics, forthcoming from Main Street Rag. She is co-editor of Kansas City Voices (soon to be re-branded as Kansas City Review) and lives in Lenexa, Kansas.
COUNTERCURRENTS,
AZEB HAMEED
AZEB HAMEED is a Manhattan-based psychiatrist and photographer from Kerala, India. He has a passion for capturing the play of light on the surface of water. Through an impressionistic lens, his work often depicts the unfathomable patterns that emerge from the dialogue between earth, water, and sky. He strives to portray the slender currents of meaning, rising in a world without eyes to behold its own splendor. Seeking the sun’s footprints with his lightbrush, his journey has taken him to a number of places—from the slopes of the Adirondacks, to a sandbar between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
THROUGH THE TREES, JESS CHEROFSKY
THE GINGKO DROPS HER LEAVES
SAMANTHA IMPERI
A soft frost comes overnight like a gentle breath, a whisper of the oncoming cold, the winter that looms on the horizon of our expectation. The gingko tree— having already changed outfits, dressed herself
in vibrant goldenrod, a bright and excited yellow to blend in amongst the brilliance of the other fall colors, the red and orange, an orchestra of transformation singing the joy of change—today the gingko drops her leaves.
Thousands in a slow and steady storm of falling, a silent saffron snow creating a blanket of sunshine on the sidewalks and sloping lawns. It happens all at once, for hours. When she decides to begin there is no stopping her release, she is ready to let go. Each buttercup leaf spins its descent to the pavement already littered with its fallen friends, landing gently on their soft backs, holding each other
where they lay, building a nest of early decay. Now discarded, they look up from their pile of death,
see the gingko undressed, stark against a blue sky her arms stretching out and upward, naked and unashamed, aware of all her lines and angles and prepared to weather an unforgiving season.
I watch her for just a moment, standing amidst her sea of yellow loss, leaves drifting through the still air, morning sunlight catching on their blank faces. I smile. The gingko smiles back.
SAMANTHA IMPERI is a Ph.D. Poetry student at Ohio University. She received her MFA from the NEOMFA program at the University of Akron in 2023. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Great Lakes Review, Sixfold, Allium, Pinch, and Canary, among others. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @simperi08 or visit www.samanthaimperi.net for more information.
WHY I GO TO THE WOODS
MICHELLE DISARNO
I
It’s not that problems disappear, but in between trees there’s space to breathe. The leaves are gentle. The sounds are soft. Somewhere a deer walks. Somewhere a squirrel hides its food. Somewhere an owl sleeps, worrying about nothing.
II
I can hear again the drips of leftover rain on leaves, light and soft and sweetened with sunlight, like the language of birds: hidden in the chandelier of branches, readying for flight, praising the persistent promise of the earth.
III
And don’t I wish I could be like the trees? Tall, steadfast, rooted. Thankful for both sun and rain, their arms always open to the sky.
MICHELLE DISARNO is a high school English teacher, lifestyle photographer, and emerging poet. Her poetry has been featured in Fathom Magazine, Pine Row Press, and The Platform Review. This fall, one of her poems will be adapted into an animation for the Moving Words film festival. DiSarno is a frequent participant in The Platform and other events hosted by Arts By the People, a community of local artists in New Jersey. She combines poetry and photography @InPerfectWander on Instagram.
KARIN WEGMANN lives in Zurich, Switzerland. She has loved photography since she was a teenager and took her first pictures in the analog age. However, her professional life has developed in a different direction. Currently she is focused on abstract landscape and nature photography. She loves that abstract photography allows the viewer freedom in interpreting the image, thus enabling a kind of escape from reality. She often uses ICM techniques or in-camera multiple exposures or concentrates on details. Her photos are only minimally edited. In 2023, one of her photos was published in Hintology’s first print magazine. See more of her work on Instagram @kawezuerichphoto.
INTENSE AUTUMN FEELING, KARIN WEGMANN
SILENCE, ROSE-MARIE KELLER-FLAIG
HAIKU
MIKE TAYLOR
MIKE TAYLOR is a writer/artist living in San Francisco. His work has appeared recently in Trash Panda, Chrysanthemum, and Right Hand Pointing.
brittle autumn leaf—a beggar’s palm
AUTUMN AUBADE
LUCY GRIFFITH
This morning the sun returned to gild the river bottom with a satin glow. Autumn begs its own vocabulary: leaftwist acorndrop firetrees softstep Study the migrants: white-crowned sparrows with their love of bathing, back from summer on the tundra, the wild frenzy of a flock of cedar waxwings, now fox, with her torn ear, her belly swollen with kits, trots by, light as air. Safe in the company of your own being, awaken to yourself, become earth, become what remains.
LUCY GRIFFITH lives beside the Guadalupe River near Comfort, Texas. As a retired psychologist, she explored the imagined life of the Burro Lady of West Texas in her debut collection, We Make a Tiny Herd, earning both the Wrangler and Willa prizes. Her second collection, Wingbeat Atlas, pairs her poems with images by wildlife photographer Ken Butler, to celebrate our citizens of the sky. The Place the Spiders Waved will be released in 2024 by FlowerSong Press. She’s been a Bread Loaf scholar, a Certified Master Naturalist, and is known to stare at the river for long periods of time.
ROSIE FEATHER seeks to reveal in-between worlds, diving beneath the layers of the visible. Her project “Liminal” unveils hidden aspects of nature, providing the viewer with a glimpse into the unseen. Each of the abstracted pictures celebrates environmental textures. Through experimental photographic processes, the work explores the passage of time and the intersection of the tangible and the digital realms. These images serve as a permanent ode to light’s impermanent and ethereal qualities and the moments of flux within nature.
VEIL, ROSIE FEATHER
ROSEMARY H. WILLIAMS, a retired paralegal, is a photographer living in Hixson, Tennessee. She is curious about the world around her and immerses herself in her surroundings in search of the seen, the unseen, the commonplace, and the unusual as subjects for her photography. She searches for these details and in doing so is able to share with others the world through her eyes. Her photographs have appeared in Black and White Magazine special issues, Humana Obscura, and books published by LensWork Magazine: Trilogies 2022 and Light, Glorious Light 2023. Connect with her on Instagram @rosemaryhwilliams.
LIQUID GOLD, ROSEMARY H. WILLIAMS
MINDFULNESS
ZETA FERRER
Singing over smooth stones, a babbling brook offers a lull from thoughts too dark and worries too grand. Close your eyes and listen to the hush of nature, let it soothe and mend in a moment’s quiet.
ZETA FERRER is a writer and poet. Growing up, she spent most of her time in her imagination, where she felt most at home; writing gave her the outlet to make her ideas feel more real and tangible. She always enjoyed works of art that were able to delve deeply into the human psyche and could express through vivid imagery experiences and emotions that couldn’t be articulated merely through singular words. She strives to recreate and evoke emotional experiences both in her poetry and in her fiction.
POHOPOCO
GRANT CLAUSER
The reasonable pace of a trout stream is a trick. How two currents meet before a boulder to become three. The way caddis unfurl like smoke on the water’s olive meniscus. You could get used to this. Calculating wind. Minding your mend, and then the years go by. Your kids grown and moving away from you. One war or another begins and ends, begins again. But the water keeps flowing. Caddis flies sleep in their cases, forming new wings in the dark. You’re good at this at last. It’s the arrogance of slipping by unnoticed by gods and devils that gets you. The world catches up like a crack in the dam that held its piece of the firmament so long you forgot it was there.
SILENT FLOAT
EMILY UECKER
Our morning starts with a silent float as Grand Canyon wakes up. The lilting call of a canyon wren, the creak of oars in the tower, the plop of blades embracing river. A rush of water over shallow rocks. Cliff swallows emerging from their roost, cheerful chirrups echoing off silent canyon walls. Monoliths of rock that existed before any living thing to observe their sound.
Approaching the first rapid of the day, our guides shout a thank you into the void and we give our reverence over to excitement. Watch out for that curling wave, we’ll go in to the left, catch the highway of V-waves, avoid the sucking hole in the middle The float up is like the slow tick of a rollercoaster ascending. We grab any strap we can find and forget everything our guide said as we go over, into the rushing waves, the raft bouncing, tipping, water coming over the tubes at our face. But in that crystalline moment before we
drop in our guide says something we do not forget, “Don’t mistake your adrenaline for fear.”
When you are hot, put your body in the river, allow your legs to be brushed and nibbled by humpback chubb and flannelmouth sucker. When the sun crests over the rim, get your dry bags to the rafts, make miles to the next slot canyon where there may be a sliver of shade, a trickle of clear water, a pummeling waterfall to work out the kinks in your neck from sleeping on the ground.
New layers of rock are unveiled as the river drops—Bright Angel Shale, Muav Limestone, Tapeats Sandstone. The geologists among you explain mineral composition, the importance of heat and time. They debate whether the canyon was formed by water or upthrust of rock, or both. We absorb little beyond the names. Kaibab and Coconino find a fond place in our group lexicon—
“CO-co-NI-no!” shouts up between rafts, echoes in the empty space.
We see sedimentary layers pushed and twisted, proof the land moved after rock formed. We wake to kangaroo rat tracks in the sand from their nocturnal scorpion hunt. We see potholes worn deep in Vishnu Schist, burn our hands on sun-baked rocks. At sunset, the Supai Group lights up with alpenglow.
At home, those who’ve never been will ask how the trip went, want us to describe it in words. It was a silence, an observing, a space into which we cannot put words. It was, and we were there.
EMILY UECKER is a writer and preschool teacher living in Portland, Oregon.
METAMORPHIC ROCK
CAMI DUMAY
This love is like stone, but not in the way a geologic intrusion fills an emptiness, but the way that heat, time, and pressure can change one entirely:
pyroxenes pressed into shapes of jade, translucent, like green oceans slumbering in their own darknesses. The slow buckling of mountains as plates make tectonic bargains with each other’s edges, the tremor.
Or when I’m five hundred miles away but getting closer, flying over Death Valley where the surface of the earth bears the creases of a bedsheet after troubled sleep, crests and ridges which have no names that we can know.
Must every poem come back to the way I have buried my heart in him.
CAMI DUMAY is a poet and a recent graduate of UC Davis, where she majored in English and minored in entomology. She will be continuing her poetic education as an incoming fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Fall of 2024. She writes about myriad aspects of life, from intimacy and trauma to nature and insects, but has a particular fascination with the intersection of nature, madness, and secular worship.
THE SPACE BETWEEN, ROSIE FEATHER
LIKE THE SUDDEN SHOCK OF COLD WATER
ZEKE SHOMLER
Not the perfect teeth of the otter dead in pieces on Bishop’s beach while the moon continues waxing faster than the mountain range’s rise, but their whiteness—sharper, more reflective, startling as the desperate shrieks of cranes, the silence of the hills of sand they’re named for. How each of them is subject to unmaking by the persistence of the wind.
ZEKE SHOMLER is an MA/MFA candidate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His work has appeared in Folio, Cordite, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere.
TWO HAIKU
SHANE COPPAGE
mist off the water loon’s call
first frost red fox returns
SHANE COPPAGE is a poet and artist. His poetry has been published in Humana Obscura, Prune Juice, Whiptail, Wales Haiku Journal, Trash Panda, dadakuku, Five Fleas, Modern Haiku, The Wee Sparrow Press, Red Branch Review, Hintology, and Cold Moon Journal, among others. Coppage lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his growing family.
KELLY SCHULZE is a Croton-on-Hudson, New York, based photographer who has been developing her skills over the past several years. Having grown up along both the Hudson and Croton Rivers, her love of the outdoors grew tremendously. Schulze’s use of natural light, texture, patterns, reflections, and intimate perspectives invites you into a world of wonder, always with a mindful eye and a humble heart. Follow her on Instagram @kellyschulze_photography.
SILENT GLOW, KELLY SCHULZE
TAKE
FLIGHT, JOCELYN ELIZABETH
MAINE
GAIL HOSKING
It didn’t rain the month I told you I didn’t love you anymore. On the edge of almost-too-late, we crossed a river and ate lobsters by the sea. A blue heron patiently stood by the shore. Mostly we sat in silence as breezes and waves came and ships sailed past the granite mountains that we climbed every day. Give me this time, you prayed, and I asked what will happen when we both die. We sat on the lawn drinking chardonnay from a bottle. On top of clover, I mentioned how we had killed our life, given it away piece by piece. You listened and I woke one night to see you leaning against the wall, your head in your hands looking for the road home. I took you out to the balcony where the waning moon stood out, and the stars remained still.
GAIL HOSKING is the author of memoir Snake’s Daughter: The Roads In and Out of War and two books of poems, Retrieval and Adieu. Hosking holds an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars, with essays and poems published in such places as Nimrod International, Lilith Magazine, South Dakota Review, Consequence Magazine, and Stone Canoe Several pieces have been anthologized, and Hosking has twice been considered “most notable” in Best American Essays. Learn more at www.gailhosking.org
SUNSET
RICHARD JEFFREY NEWMAN
The colors splashed across the evening sky— purple, orange, scarlet—fade to gray:
I miss the way my body once missed yours.
RICHARD JEFFREY NEWMAN has published three books of poetry, T’shuvah (Fernwood Press 2023), Words for What Those Men Have Done (Guernica Editions 2017) and The Silence of Men (CavanKerry Press 2006), as well as three books of translation from classical Persian poetry, Selections from Saadi’s Gulistan, Selections from Saadi’s Bustan (Global Scholarly Publications 2004 & 2006) and The Teller of Tales: Stories from Ferdowsi’s Shahameh (Junction Press 2011). He curates the First Tuesdays reading series in Jackson Heights, New York, and is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College. His website is www.richardjnewman.com.
DISTORTED SUNSET, JOCELYN ELIZABETH
KAYLA MARIE ANLEY manifests her art from a place of deep introspection and personal narrative, intertwined with the natural world that serves as her sanctuary in times of loss. The landscapes of mid-north America, a region she has always known as home, not only shape the backdrop of her life but also cradle the subjects of her creations—animals native to this area, each one a testament to the enduring beauty and complexity of the ecosystems she cherishes. Darkness in Kayla’s work is both literal and metaphorical, as she employs charcoal and graphite to explore themes of mortality and existence.
MISSED, KAYLA MARIE ANLEY
HOW TO HOLD ON
CALEB EDMONDSON
First kiss of water scooped from the cold creek. Crayfish dancing beneath the bellies of our soles. October breeze silvered like a salamander. Only the valley could quench our thirst. Two deer watched from a distance with eyes soft as sky. We had nothing to offer but crabapples and a dream. The moon soaked our shoulders in a velvet dress. She had the answer. We didn’t know how to ask.
CALEB EDMONDSON is an MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where he teaches English and serves as an associate editor for the Mid-American Review
NEARLY DUSK
SHARON JOHNSON
Leaves dusty with frost. Cloud-smudged watercolored sky going indigo.
Listen to the wind. How it aches to be heard, held. Loved.
SHARON JOHNSON is a Chicago-based writer/creative. She has been published by Chicago Reader, Floating Bridge Review, Sundog Lit (“Best of the Net” nominee), and The Hyacinth Review. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Johnson has studied creative writing through Bennington College and the UCLA Extension Program.
BEAUTY IN THE BREAKING, JOCELYN ELIZABETH
interview with tiffany mackay
Tell us some more about your work.
My poetry, particularly my recently published tanka collection Caught in a Hazy Dream, focuses on capturing the beauty and complexity of everyday moments. I’m drawn to both nature and human emotions, exploring themes of memory, love, and selfdiscovery. My work aims to bridge the gap between traditional poetic tanka and haiku forms and contemporary experiences, inviting readers to pause and find profound meaning in the ordinary.
What do you hope readers will take away from your pieces?
I hope readers will find moments of reflection and connection in my poetry. My goal is to create a space where people can pause, breathe, and rediscover the beauty in their everyday lives. I want my words to resonate with readers’ own experiences, evoking a sense of shared humanity and encouraging a deeper appreciation for the fleeting moments that make up our lives.
How did you decide which form or genre was right for you?
I was drawn to tanka and haiku for their ability to distill complex emotions and observations into concise, powerful verses. These forms challenge me to be precise with language while still conveying depth of feeling. The brevity of micro poetry forms align well with our fast-paced modern world, offering moments of reflection that can be absorbed quickly yet resonate deeply.
How many hours a day do you write?
Writing is a crucial part of my daily routine. I’ve structured my day to embrace creativity at different times.
Each morning, I dedicate anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half to writing, allowing my fresh mind to capture early inspirations. In the afternoon, I carve out another 30 minutes to an hour, often building on the morning’s thoughts and observations. After dinner and quality time with my husband, I return to writing for another 30 minutes to an hour and a half. My minimum goal is to write for at least 30 minutes during each session. This approach has been remarkably effective, providing consistent creative output while maintaining balance in my life. It’s not just about the quantity of time, but the quality of focus and the rhythm of returning to the page throughout the day.
How did your first publication change your process of writing?
My first publication was quite the experience that improved my writing process. It opened my eyes to the world of editing, design, and publishing, offering valuable insights into the journey a piece takes from conception to print. I gained a deeper appreciation for the process of bringing a book to life and the importance of refining my work through multiple drafts. The experience also introduced me to the basics of marketing, highlighting the need to think about my audience and how to connect with readers. Perhaps most significantly, it solidified my identity as a writer, poet, and creative. It was a moment of realization—this isn’t just a hobby, but a calling and a viable path forward.
What authors do you like to read? What book or books have had a strong influence on you or your own writing?
I’m deeply inspired by both classic and contemporary tanka poets. Machi
Tawara’s Salad Anniversary showed me how tanka could capture modern life with freshness and relatability. Akiko Yosano’s passionate, feminist tanka opened my eyes to the form’s potential for expressing bold emotions. I also draw inspiration from haiku masters like Basho and Issa, as well as contemporary nature writers like Mary Oliver.These influences have helped me develop a style that aims to blend traditional form aesthetics with contemporary sensibilities, always striving to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
What’s next for you?
I’m currently working on a collection of haiku titled Life in Bloom, which explores a balance between urban life and nature. Looking ahead, I hope to collaborate with other poets and perhaps explore longer pieces like prose poetry forms while maintaining the essence of what I love about tanka and haiku.
Connect with Tiffany Mackay on Instagram @tiffanymackaypoetry
THREE HAIKU
TIFFANY MACKAY
autumn dusk— a lone crow flies into the golden haze
deepening twilight— one by one, stars pierce the blue
harvest night— a blood-red crescent climbs the darkness
TIFFANY MACKAY is a Sacramento-based poet specializing in tanka, haiku, and other short-form poetry. Her work explores themes of memory, love, nature, and self-discovery, capturing the beauty of fleeting moments with gentle contemplation.A keen observer of the natural world and human experience, she finds inspiration in seasonal changes, light and shadow interplay, and everyday moments. You can connect with her on Instagram and Threads @tiffanymackaypoetry.
TWO HAIKU
MIKAEL KALES
autumn light the draw of the wind on spider silk
dusk spreads the way home of the last birds
MIKAEL KALES began writing haiku during long walks through the nature and suburbs of Denmark while trying to get his youngest son to nap. His work has appeared in Modern Haiku, dadakuku, The Haibun Journal, the other bunny, and Poetry Pea Journal. He draws inspiration from artists who create experiences that resonate as felt memories in the minds of readers.
WEB WONDER, KELLY SCHULZE
HAIKU
B. L. BRUCE
midnight dew in the orbweaver’s web thousand moons
HAIKU
SWETHA AMIT
night walk— your voice echoing in the fading light
SWETHA AMIT has authored two chapbooks—Cotton Candy from the Sky by Bottlecap Press and Mango Pickle in Summer, which is forthcoming by Alien Buddha Press. An MFA graduate from the University of San Francisco, her works across genres appear in Had, Flash Fiction Magazine, Maudlin House, Gone Lawn, Barzakh, Oyez Review, and others. She has received three Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. She currently lives in the Bay Area with her husband and daughter. Learn more at swethaamit.com.
ASTRAL DRIFT
JAYNE MAREK
Jupiter is closer now, bright body bicycling along the ecliptic: there, the brass brow of the moon; there, streaks of a celestial lizard, scales of Pisces, familiar tumble of Ursa Major. Earthly
perspective shakes the creatures who have eyes. Imagine dinosaurs who lifted their heads toward these fractures in night’s black boulder, badgers sniffing from a den’s edge, migrations
of geese, hummingbirds, bats in nights netted by magnetism, as stars boil in space and transform, as animal journeys fold and turn along shores themselves becoming, themselves alive.
JAYNE MAREK’s seventh poetry collection will be Dusk-Voiced (2024), with an eighth, Torrential, due in 2025. Her writings and photos appear in Terrain, Rattle Poets Respond, Spillway, The New York Times, Bloodroot, Catamaran, One, Salamander, Gulf Stream, Calyx, and elsewhere. Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes, she won the Editor’s Choice Award from Last Stanza Poetry Journal and twice won the Bill Holm Witness poetry award. Find more at www.pw.org/content/jayne_marek
BEFORE I WAS BORN I WAS THE SKY
FOSTER W. DONNELL
I know this from the cold wind that still seeps into my lungs carrying the evening birdsong. When I wake at three a.m. from dreams of windmills I wonder if rivers ever flood the bear’s dreams to wash away hundreds of devoured salmon hearts. I lay awake trying to remember my old name— autumn sky, endless sky, moonless sky, mirror sky, empty sky. It is unprofitable to learn the names of all the clouds and the languages they whisper. Life can feel long, but don’t fall for this trick. Time is the unseen black bird passing across a midnight sky never stopping to sing you its name.
FOSTER W. DONNELL is an emerging poet currently enrolled in the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension. His work has appeared in Southland Alibi, Harbor Review, Unbroken Literary Journal, and Amsterdam Review. Originally from Dallas, Texas, he now lives in Los Angeles, California.
FROST, EMILY RANKIN
KRISTIN CAMITTA ZIMET is a naturalist, photographer, and poet. Her digital photographs often arise from and interpret the natural world. Her images have hung in solo and group shows in Virginia and West Virginia and in the Maritime Museum in Annapolis, Maryland. The literary journals Lantern and Caesura have published her art.
ICEBOUND, KRISTIN CAMITTA ZIMET
MOVING ON
LIBRÉ CORY
Ice fractures cracked cobalt glass. Your heart: glacial dust, pieces of moonlight. Tears. Fractals. What could have been will never be. Owl song cradles the air. Don’t look back.
LIBRÉ CORY is a writer, hiker, and teacher. She has deep roots in Oregon, but is currently living in Wyoming. The landscape of both places infuses and influences her writing. Although she hasn’t submitted her writing for several years, in the past some of her poems have appeared in Snowy Egret, Fireweed, Dog River Review, and The Women’s Recovery Network. Libré holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop.
