Indicia 4.2 Fall/Winter 2020 by indicia

a journal curating literary arts Volume 4.2 Fall/Winter 2020

indicia a journal curating literary arts Volume 4.2 Fall/Winter 2020 PDF Collection © December 2020 indicia Layout by AJ Urquidi. Cover art: “branch and shape” by Brian Michael Barbeito. All authors and artists retain rights to their individual pieces. This journal must not be reproduced, in part or in whole, without written consent of the contributor, except when cited partially for reviews. Contact editors.indicia@gmail.com to be put in touch with contributors, or for other inquiries.

Executive/Fiction Editors: Marcus Clayton & AJ Urquidi Poetry Editor: Toren Wallace

in this issue: editors’ introduction 1 3

Tyrian Purple – Kate LaDew Fog Lights – AJ Wolff

5 7 8 9

Sleep Study – Charles J. March III The comb – DS Maolalai The Retirement Home on JetBlue – Alexandra Ebert Gold A Refraction of Light – Kate LaDew

11 13 14

Stellar 3 – Fariel Shafee The Thing – Colin Lubner Name: 1-na – Rado Rochallyi

15 17 19 22 24

(Un)Fallen No. 95 – Edward Lee All these screens – Alexandra Kulik Ordinary Life – Alex Steele The Sans of Time – Thomas Osatchoff Greetings from Wuhan – Rado Rochallyi

25 27 29 31

birds air world – Brian Michael Barbeito there’s an out there you can’t see yet – Matthew Daley Dialectic – Lexie Wong The Wine of the Rainbow – Yuan Hongri, translated by Yuanbing Zhang

33 35 37 39

branch and shape – Brian Michael Barbeito Unproductive Neighbor – Paul Ilechko Two Moons – Lindsey Warren lot light earth – Brian Michael Barbeito contributors

editors’ introduction indicia: in-DISHy-yuh n. pl. (1) differentiating marks, characters, or signs, or (2) a biannual literary arts magazine

— featuring poetry, flash and short prose, and art — that says “out with the old guard, in with the noobs.”

For each issue of indicia, we seek poems, art, and short prose that hunker down at the fringes of the experimental and the accessible, with a special emphasis on developing their own sense of play. What we generally receive fills out the vast spectrum of these qualities, and the ones that make the biggest impression on us as vibrant, necessary, and/or bizarre are presented within these pages. While at first glance this issue seems like merely a showcase for writers named Alex (lol), it is actually an exhibition of a world pausing its nosedive for a stable moment of potential optimism. The images and words within these pages synthesize themes of strengthened spirituality, bonds between the young and the old, translated connections between cultures in lockdown, and traces of promise for a convalescent future. We’re defying the powers-that-be by opening ourselves up to hope, allowing art to pull us through the eye of the needle that stitches up 2020’s constantly rupturing wounds. Let’s make next year better. Excelsior!

AJ Urquidi & Marcus Clayton Executive Editors

It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month Or even your year, but I’ll be there for you — The Rembrandts, “I’ll Be There For You (Theme from Friends)”

Tyrian Purple Kate LaDew

Hey! I shout, holding out my hand. Registering the flinch, my voice softens, hand still outstretched. It’s dangerous, the cars go too fast. I was just walking him, the little boy says, holding up his dog’s leash as proof as if there weren’t a dog attached to it. I know, dropping my hand, I move it to shield my eyes, just not so close to the road. Okay, he says, as I walk forward, he and the dog walking backward, the three of us meeting in the middle at the sidewalk. I look down at him, he looks up at me, the dog looks between us. Are you going to be okay? I say, and gesture back at the church, where I’m supposed to be draping the cross in purple for Lent, one side of the cloth hanging loose over the wooden-t. Yeah, the little boy says, we will, and his dog’s tail wags at the sound of his voice, eyes shining like the glass ones they used for teddy bears a hundred years ago, a combination of sand, soda ash, limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. Okay, my hands on my hips now. The cars go too fast, I say again. I don’t want — you guys stay on the sidewalk, okay? Okay, the little boy nods.

I nod too, watch him as he jangles the leash, his dog wriggling in place, anxious for their walk to resume. When they get to the corner, I turn back to the cross, take a step toward it, reaching out my hand for the tasseled edges of the purple draping. Hey! I turn back, the little boy still on the sidewalk at the corner, dog looking up at him. Thank you, he calls. For being nice to us. My heart jumps in surprise. Watching his t-shirted back stop on the curb, look both ways, and cross, the little gaps of sun through the morning clouds deepen the brown of his skin. As he makes it safely to the next street, I wonder what has happened, that this distant, thoughtless, almost obligatory consideration I fleetingly showed could make a difference to him, could matter. The tassels burn gold between my white fingers and not with a million years could I ever add up what has happened and so, of course, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even try.

Fog Lights AJ Wolff My grandparents live in a town with more churches than trees Ancients stones a wide-armed

prayer to visit

Can you hear the sea gulls

So nice of you

I have a tattoo I got in Boston.

Amnesia is supposed to be like narcolepsy and quicksand: on every nineties film in that too wild to really happen sort of way have an appointment

You didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to come. Did we Do you hear the threaded wings

My grandparents live on a quiet street with soft grass where you can trace an ambulance yawn like a vein come

like that one story we tell every dinner from Christmas to Wednesday. My grandfather wears the gurney

Are we

Why did we

acorns gravelling the puckered earth

to lift off

like an armchair â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and his voice startles itself every time my face resets.

Are we going our leaves veined and crisp like choking

Sleep Study Charles J. March III

The comb DS Maolalai like a man in old age, with new hairs creeping among the reds and all beautiful browns. buildings rise grey and grey on the liffey. and at first we appreciate it — the pleasant contrast — but as bricks fall down and slowly and everywhere we collapse also like trees in bad decembers and summer in logging camps. and everywhere I go places used to be beautiful; even meeting old girlfriends was a treat with a cup of coffee. it’s funny; much as travel is. you go away a few years and come back and things are all the same except your friends have become uglier. the next morning I inspect a comb which I find by the side of the sink. that’s funny also; like the reverse of a man. accumulating hair and gaps between the teeth. 7

The Retirement Home on JetBlue Alexandra Ebert Gold Making eye contact with a 75-year-old man reading a YA novel next to me on the plane I beg to be thin Skinny enough to slide through the window sill It took him all his life to know It took me ten years to quit nail biting; now I wait for my first relapse With less nails I can slide through the window Two crisp elderly women rock in wicker chairs as I climb from the air Sucking on tea bags reused for a second cup I am reminded that I am falling from an airplane but I pause for blueberry scones nonetheless (They are fresh scones and they are old women and I do not wish to be rude) I have all my life to know thus I pose the question Where does the boiling water come from? They posit the answer: an electric kettle And before I leave with my senior answer They plea for thick wrinkle-less skin And a seat on JetBlue next to a 75-year-old man

A Refraction of Light Kate LaDew

After consoling him through several bouts of timidity, a correspondent for the Manchester Sporting Chronicle, having decided against the other way round, brought an oculist to his horse. The problem was found quick enough, and the two men set about constructing a solution. At first, the horse was a little surprised, backing up, staring straight ahead, very slowly swiveling his muzzle left and right, stopping at intervals between. After a pause, the sound he emitted was as close to a gasp as a horse has ever come. The concave spectacles fitted over the eyes allowed him to see anything and everything, shortsightedness corrected and all the world alight. For the rest of the day, the horse cantered and jumped, traversing previously troublesome spaces with ease, each blink of the eye evaporating his timidity until it was gone, replaced with a bold adventurousness, yearning to explore. That night, when the spectacles were removed and placed in a special box for safe-keeping, lest they get bent out of shape while the horse rested — horses only nap when standing up, deep sleep requires lying down — the horse dreamt about his day in sharp focus. No longer a blur of faded colors and frightening shapes, shifting and melding into slashing claws and gnashing teeth, it became a knowable place, every flower, blade of grass, crisscrossed slice of hay separate and unique, its own identifiable entity. In his dream, the horse’s jaw worked back and forth as he nibbled on stalks of alfalfa, now distinguishable from the clover that often made his belly hurt, the sun a fiery thing in a deep endless blue of sky. Soon he saw the ghostly image of stampeding horses over great waves of white in the 9

cumulonimbus clouds warning of incoming rain and thunder. He was back to the stable before any of the people, the fire of the sun snuffed out, blue sky blackened, and stood for hours, following the heartbeats of rain as they dropped, lub-dub lub-dub into forming puddles, rippling like stars exploded. In the morning, the horse opened his eyes, stretched his knobby legs and stood, after a long moment remembering all the boundless beauty he’d witnessed, both inside and outside his head. Looking over the half-door of the stable, he gave a soft, sad whinny at the world, reverted back to blurs and shadows, holding phantoms and monsters and danger and now, a moving thing, shifting closer and closer, the sink of boots over squelches of mud. Suddenly, a hand slides through his forelock, a whisper drifts past his ear, a pleasant tightness closes around his eyes and his master is there, mouth upended in a smile. The horse’s whinny transforms into a snort of joy as he brings his feet up and down — one-two-three-four — one-two-three-four — and the master’s voice is laughing and a fresh batch of hay is in front of him and all is right and good again. That morning and every morning from then on, when it was time for pasturing, five, ten, twenty minutes after their first daily greeting, the correspondent for the Manchester Sporting Chronicle would find his horse, fixed in a state of unhurried happiness, gazing out at the whole wide world, never tiring of the sight.

Stellar 3 Fariel Shafee

The Thing Colin Lubner

So you’re about to come when you realize I’m the Thing. Kinky, right? And then you come. It’s the idea of another that doesn’t know he isn’t me that turns you on. This is the compelling thing about the Thing, I say. Not Carpenter’s, not the movie. The Thing itself. That it is the only alien that would forget itself an alien, cellularly speaking. The Thing is unaware otherness elevated to its metaphorical peak. Neither of us knows quite what this means. (What you are supposed to do is say, fuck that! It’s me you want, not another who reminds you of me. Silly!) Your smile is a neat, controlled thing. My proffered fantasy turns you on. You are willing to go along. Later, roleplaying, you tell me you forgot when the replacement began, when your appearance concealed the other you another became. You tell me not to anticipate another twist. That I’d be disappointed if I did.

Name: 1-na Rado Rochallyi

(Un)fallen No. 95 Edward Lee

All these screens Alexandra Kulik It’s been a while since we watched raindrops stretch across car windows watched gloom from that angle (inside-earth), a pill slogging through its veins — going somewhere but forgetting … Or stayed, or spread our undressed eyes upon the bedshade where branched mother drifts in, jangles her bell then leans her self into stillness, as we wake each small abstraction one by one for breakfast and a hot drink, as time awakes (usually by 6) the sun too begins rolling round the sapling, ah, these things, it seems have stopped existing. and if I knew, what would I have done? with all this entertainment … In the fireplace, the full catalog of shapes wave synchronous, civilizations crest and fall all creation all destruction, the final spark exiting with indifference,

and my faith is restored. I find binoculars of one who was a child who thirsted like a child and questioned like a monkey (perhaps me) and put away monkey things But how fantastic! the bird with impossible bones, independence still swoops and smears the valley with light, No but, I lie.

I found nothing.

Now and again my dream will take me somewhere slow a suburban street at night seeping into windows I, moonlight, ghostly clung to bodies of life, mourners of life, real exhaustion (for it exists) through screens through screen through screen through screen ding! we wake, it was not the bell (for these things have stopped existing).

Ordinary Life Alex Steele What’s this feeling? Like I’ve spent the whole day staring at password resets, recovery emails, entering my last remembered password, my new password, then reentering it again with no discrepancies. Who wants to know my mother’s maiden name? That I can’t use old passwords, i.e. the ones I remember, means I must invent new ones, add digits, numbers, special characters. Which I forget and begin the process again. What kind of security depends on abstraction? Not the connection of the known face. Not the reassurance of the key in the lock. Metal on metal.

I find a big biography of Carl Jung on the library shelf. For a few weeks I’m obsessed with Psychoanalysis. From the biography I learn that Jung volunteered as a participant in psychological studies conducted by medical students. He also acted as thesis supervisor for these same students and he cited their studies to bolster his own theorems. There is suspicion that Jung stole some of his best insights from one particularly promising student, who himself was mentally unstable and fabricated much of the evidence which Jung may or may not have appropriated. I try to write a short story about this, but it doesn’t go anywhere, and now I’m no longer sure what’s fact and what’s fiction.

We receive a letter from the insurance company. The tree in the yard overhangs the house; it must be cut down. The fact is that it will inevitably grow, that its growth will push branches over the house, that the branches will die and fall, be pulled down by the wind. Perhaps the house will be damaged and the company will have to pay out money. The chaotic, concentric rings of the oak tree are a risk in the future, where only profits should grow. They may compromise the rate of return. It’s better they die.

I am in the bathtub, reading the New York Review of Books. The New York Review of Books is enormous — like a medium-size pizza box made of newsprint; it’s impossible to avoid dipping it occasionally in the bathwater. I am reading a review of a biography of the French philosopher Maurice Blanchot. Of course I’ll never read this biography. I’ll likely never read Blanchot either, for that matter, but the review makes me wonder why the 20th century seems to loom over everything.

From time to time I post on Facebook, quotes from The German Ideology or the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Marxism, like psychoanalysis, attempted to produce a language to make sense of the everyday reality of the world. Its early practitioners not only believed that they had discovered the essential core of the human experience, they believed that their language adequately described this experience. This faith in the word reminds me of evangelicals. When I was a kid there was a television advertisement for free bibles; a solemn male voice declared: “when you meet God are you going to tell Him you didn’t have time to read his book?” I imagine meeting Marx in the afterlife, telling him that at least I had the chance to read Volume I of Capital.

The Sans of Time Thomas Osatchoff The point is not to replace the powerful with the weak but to decentralize so there are no people in power positions over people in weaker positions without a way when rationality is irrational then the rational path may be nonlinear. 多么秀的老呀。What an excellent teacher. Class Time 2020-05-19 12:30 (Beijing Time) Unit 8 - Lesson 8 Man on the Moon 8. 老的教学声情并茂。The teacher’s teaching is full of emotion and voice. Class Time 2020-05-23 12:30 (Beijing Time) Unit 8 - Lesson 12 Learning Cycle 2 Assessment. 特别好的老 , 孩子的最。A very good teacher, a child’s favorite. Class Time 2020-05-20 12:30 (Beijing Time) Unit 8 - Lesson 9 Man on the Moon 9. No lessons have been learned. Nonetheless … 跟您学是孩子的福气。It’s a blessing for children to learn from you. Class Time 2020-05-21 12:30 (Beijing Time) Unit 8 - Lesson 10 Ban on the Moon 10. In more than one place at the same time celebrating another festival of the sun in could be London or Mos Eisley on Tatooine (Tunisia) circa ’77. What if It Seems The is the only character shot from various angles? Who does it to us? Us? Only a diamond can cut a diamond but how did Sima save the fallen boy? According to the diagnosis Sima, in that instance, refused to listen to the authoritarian. Did you ever look down at the toilet bowl and see an eye? Circle the fauna recycling in the Valdivian temperate forests trusting the canopy wanting itself a patina scene tête-à-tête to keep that internal consistency. Making predictions at least three days in advance. How? However it works or doesn’t. Told we have to take it for the rest of our lives. When we think of nautilus, we think of Budhist but really none of us. The authentic center 22

getting along with itself decentralizing in the jungle where we won’t take my word for it because I don’t. Father’s Day is the first day of summer here where we are asking why and for what if the true reality of our existence is akin to following the ersatz light of video game streams but never actually playing them ourselves with cellular apoptosis being what it is much like explosives built into the lining of human. For half my life I’ve been privy to how our eyes can be cameras so does that mean there would be evidence if the body of us doesn’t come divvy down once and for all?

Greetings from Wuhan Rado Rochallyi

birds air world Brian Michael Barbeito

there’s an out there you can’t see yet Matthew Daley Emerging from the dead leaves and dust [there is/the type of force/that can only be described/as not enough/to blow anything/over/but enough to recognize/itself as something &/not/] draped in tarp beard biblically raveled eyes buried with foregone conclusions like Leone and Lean fighting over framing [it is epic/no/& panoramic/no/& cinematic/no/& cinemagestic/no/& the sky pulled down to the dirt/no/& that idea that is too much to start/no/& larger than memories/no/& chasing immortality/& no] words quick drawn aimed at me [is a face/I’ve seen on me/double-sided stuck/& spiderwebbed &/flypapered/always asking for encounterings/empathy/as grilled cheese dipped/& tomato soup dripped/please &/thank you lips/left on napkins] by a man lost by what he doesn’t have — “if you have a snack or a smoke or a tragedy you can hand out as hope 27

I’ll take it from you to feed me my earnest obsessions” [obstacles/is a believing way/for uncomfortability &/cardboard dispatches/comes pitiless/& generosity/sharing air/it’s nothing/after pulping/] until he finds a path to cross sparing response

Dialectic Lexie Wong On the mesas fossils bloom under moonlight. Bone flower. Flesh flower. Vanishes at five thirty a.m. Lilac again. Pours out of my mouth, a silent glossolalia of petals from spongy lung. I feel it less than tangled hair, wind hysteria. I carbon date myself and find I am perennially seventeen and sixty million years. I radiate variably. To fool the Geiger counter I submerge in the river until hair falls straight and face is clear. Pretty tragedy. I share catharsis with the canyon. I was born inside it. I was born from the lilac. Water birthed me. Water delivered me, a definite shape of soft crystals. We abide forever. I slowly etch away, weathering the rock, emitting gamma rays.

You are the exoskeleton to our flowering. Residual fragments splintering in skin say no you are trapped both ways.

[Originally published in Trouvaille Review.]

The Wine of the Rainbow Yuan Hongri Translation by Yuanbing Zhang

彩虹之酒雪地上阳光写下一行告你天穹之门正在打开新的星之城将要来照亮人类被海洋淹没的眼睛当巨人从天外来来了照亮灵魂的

石之

大地透明如金色笑容太阳洒下了彩虹之酒 2019.12.06

The Wine of the Rainbow The sunshine wrote a line of words in the snow told you that the door of the vault of heaven was opening new interstellar cities would come illuminate human eyes submerged by the sea. When the giant returns from outer space they will bring the poems of diamonds that lighting soul the earth will be as transparent as a golden smile the sun will sprinkle the wine of the rainbow. 12.06.2019

branch and shape Brian Michael Barbeito

Unproductive Neighbor Paul Ilechko

She jests easily the unproductive neighbor the thrifty neighbor her window green her gigantic window plumed with cups and porcelain a glass plot containing flowers her countenance vacant as rose-water her kettle disposal a repetition a copper kettle her deference to a specimen the family circle all particular in snuff a military bustle of profusion flaxen hands and golden knees winding up her laughter her fears dusty and beaming the lawn-footed pond in suspension unguarded chins of prostrate navigation seated and shrill amidst the expert furniture the curtains brilliant as nomenclature her gravity musty as a drawing room with pins and stairs and slatterns petrified balls of mineral tourmaline politeness of a heart that polishes its luster her insolence the suavity of pride her stock a pallid sorrow that disappears in spring

the etiquette presented in chins and glass a loaded ignorance defined as bliss her carriage and her manner as civil as a slap ostentation vainly drives impediment a dexterous pudding the reward of arrogance as scarred and available she yearns for repentance in mourning for the mother of a plausible color of intoxication entering into fashion a reversal for the daughters of dissipation she follows the path of lamentation her vanity deformed worshipping the worthless as flesh moves ponderous into ridicule.

[Most words taken from Manners: A Novel, by Frances Brooke]

Two Moons Lindsey Warren She wanted to kiss the moon. She did not know why, she did not find spheres particularly attractive, nor the color white; she simply wanted to press her lips against the rocky, chalky, desolate surface of the moon. The urge was stronger than any reason for it. Her ring was beneath a cobweb on the side table in the bedroom. She brushed it off, took it between her fingertips, held it up to the open window: the night slipped its finger through the golden band. But this was not enough. She put on her raincoat and walked to the front yard; the great shameless moon shone twice: once in the sky, once in the puddle at her feet. She reached into her pocket and pulled out what felt and smelled like a penny. The puddle smelled open. She threw the coin into the water. A gift for you, she whispered to both moons. What she assumed was a penny disturbed the water before being swallowed by it. Neither moon said anything. No, she said to herself. The moon does not want coins, it wants lovers. She knelt down in the mud; her hands searched for dry grass and found none. She prostrated herself in front of the skyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s moon and the puddleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s moon, her lips hovered over the shining water. She pressed her lips to the bright satellite that held still on the surface, and she drank. She drank the moon. And it did not taste like the dust she imagined: it tasted like light, it tasted like desire, it tasted like the cold ring of metal no longer around her finger.

lot light earth Brian Michael Barbeito

contributors Brian Michael Barbeito is a nature poet and landscape photographer. He is the creator of the ongoing written and visual narrative Mosaics, Journeys through Landscapes Urban and Rural. Work appears at Fiction International and is forthcoming at The Notre Dame Review’s Best of the Best issue. Matthew Daley is a writer and educator, always finding ways to sneak great poetry into his work. He’s a father of three, husband of one, and a terrible singer/dancer who tries to turn many of his moments into a musical. His poetry can be found in 34th Parallel Magazine, Neologism, Detritus, The Cabinet of Heed, The Green Light, Forever Endeavor, Necro, Unlost Journal, and The Caterpillar. Alexandra Ebert Gold is a writer born in San Francisco and living in New York City. Her work has appeared in Crab Fat Magazine, 12th Street Journal, The Ephimiliar Journal, and The Ellipsis. Yuan Hongri (born 1962) is a renowned Chinese mystic, poet, and philosopher. His work has been published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, and Nigeria; his poems have appeared in Poet’s Espresso Review, Orbis, Tipton Poetry Journal, Harbinger Asylum, The Stray Branch, Pinyon Review, Taj Mahal Review, Madswirl, Shot Glass Journal, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Village, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. His best-known works are “Platinum City” and “Golden Giant.” His works explore themes of prehistoric and future civilization. Paul Ilechko is the author of three chapbooks, most recently “Pain Sections” (Alien Buddha Press). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Juxtaprose, Rogue Agent, Cathexis Northwest Press, Thin Air Magazine, and Pithead Chapel. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, New Jersey. Alexandra Kulik’s poetry and prose work has been featured in Maudlin House, Bayou Magazine, K’in, BlazeVOX, and Punch Drunk Press, among others, and is forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review. Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Arts. She lives in Graham, North Carolina, with her cats Charlie Chaplin and Janis Joplin.

Edward Lee is an artist and writer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited widely, while his poetry, short stories, and nonfiction have been published in magazines in Ireland, England, and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, and Smiths Knoll. He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Lewis Milne, Orson Carroll, Blinded Architect, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy. His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com Colin Lubner writes (in English) and teaches (math) in southern New Jersey. His work has either appeared or will appear, temporally speaking. Recent pieces can be found through his Twitter: @no1canimagine0. He is keeping on keeping on. DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and four times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019). Charles J. March III is a person currently living in California. Works in/forthcoming from Evergreen Review, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, 3:AM Magazine, BlazeVOX, Expat Press, Points in Case, Sensitive Skin, Taco Bell Quarterly, Queen Mobâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Teahouse, Maudlin House, Misery Tourism, Litro, Otoliths, etc. More at LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-j-march-iii-4114b5b2) and SoundCloud (https://m.soundcloud.com/charles-john-march-iii). Thomas Osatchoff, together with family, is building a self-sustaining home near a waterfall. Recent work has appeared in BEATIFIC Magazine, the Curator, The Vital Sparks, and elsewhere. Rado Rochallyi is the author of 11 books. He writes in Slovak, English, and German. He debuted with the collection of poetry Panoptikum: Haikai no renga (2004), written in Japanese haiku. Rochallyi has a close relationship with mathematics and philosophy. Fariel Shafee got her formal degrees in science (MIT and Princeton). However, art and writing have always helped her go through tense and depressing times. She has exhibited both digital and traditional art internationally and has published some poems and writing. Currently, she also finished a degree in law. Alex Steele is a writer and educator.

Lindsey Warren is a graduate of Cornell Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MFA program. She has been published in American Literary Review, Interim, and Hobart, among others. Her poetry books Unfinished Child and Archangel & the Overlooked are available from Spuyten Duyvil. She lives in Delaware with her corgi. AJ Wolff (she/her/hers) is a queer single mother, feminist, and poet from Sheboygan. She is an alumna of UW-Green Bay and Northern Michigan University writing programs, and a former English teacher, dental assistant, and nanny. Her work has found homes in Burning House Press, Yes Poetry, Rising Phoenix Review, Riggwelter, and other generous presses, and sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performed as a featured poet at 2018 and 2019 Manitowoc Art Slams. Lexie Wong is an 18-year-old student and writer from New York, with poetry published in Crashtest Magazine and Trouvaille Review among others. She is currently taking a gap year and plans to study international affairs at Princeton University in the fall. Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), who is a Chinese poet and translator, works in a middle school, Yanzhou District, Jining City, Shandong Province, China. He can be contacted through his email: 3112362909@qq.com.