Contributors

Sean Cho A. is the author of American Home (Autumn House 2021), winner of the Autumn House Press Chapbook Contest. His work can be found or ignored in Copper Nickel, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, and Nashville Review, among others. Sean is a graduate of the MFA program at The University of California–Irvine and a PhD Student at the University of Cincinnati. He is Editor-inChief of The Account.

Of his poem, “& Then #17,” Sean Cho A. says that “any origin story I could craft would feel more like myth than lending the voice of biography to the poem. Interpretively, in this poem, the writer (I) seemed to be interested in contracted phrases, and in romanticizing the idea of a day job or maybe, rather, stepping away for language.”

Ciara Alfaro is a writer, romantic, and descendant of magicians from Lubbock, Texas. Her work has appeared in Cutthroat’s Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century Anthology, Water~Stone Review, Sad Girls Club, and more. Currently, she is an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota.

Upon seeing this year’s photo prompt, Alfaro says she “felt captivated. This is a scene I know all too well—the blue blank-page sky, the hands gripping summertime chains, the bottoms of those sun-kissed feet. Mostly: the tilted world of the swing carousel beckoning. As a girl, this was my favorite ride. The sight of it was the most dreamy view. What I wanted to capture in this piece was a kind of jawbreaker of that moment rising in the air, heart in girlhood chest, arriving so much higher than you’d meant to. I was quickly brought to this specific scene from my middle school nights at Joyland. I could hear it again: the boy’s phone falling from the ride and the miracle of him forgetting all about it. This night is alive to me still, the way only a fat handful of childhood Lubbock nights can be. I followed this phone and the direction it took me, back to that awestruck feeling of

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a heart rising higher than you’d meant for it to—and the aftermath of it not lasting forever.”

Susan Barry-Schulz grew up just outside of Buffalo, New York. She is a licensed physical therapist and a poet living with chronic illness. Her poetry has appeared in SWWIM, Barrelhouse, Nightingale & Sparrow, Shooter Literary Magazine, The Wild Word, Bending Genres, MORIA Literary Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Harpy Hybrid Review, West Trestle Review, River Mouth Review, and elsewhere.

Barry-Schulz says that her “poem writing process can be painfully slow. Months to years. Many revisions and reimaginings. I discovered the call for this ekphrastic contest on Twitter late on a FREE SUBMIT weekend. As a disabled poet, I appreciated this opportunity as submission fees can be a significant barrier for me. I also found I enjoyed the experience of working on a deadline. No time for removing and adding back the same phrase over and over! I had been experimenting with the sonnet form all summer—studying the traditional form and structure, and then attempting to expand out of that a bit. In looking at the photograph, I kept trying to fight against the literal, but the freedom evoked by the bare feet on one of the swing riders kept coming forward. At the same time, I was struck by the way a person on this circular ride would remain out of reach to another at a fixed and constant distance. You could never catch up.”

Jeffrey Haskey-Valerius writes poetry and fiction about grief and resistance. His work has appeared in Chiron Review, Eastern Iowa Review, Rust & Moth, and elsewhere. He lives in the Midwest with his husband and dog, and tweets @jeffreyvalerius. Find him online at jeffreyhaskey-valerius.com.

In examining the origins of “Icarus at the Carnival,” Haskey-Valerius says, “Lately, I’ve been thinking about a past relationship, trying to process why I stayed even though I was unhappy. I’m also quite fond of the Icarus myth; it’s a story about hubris in the face of peril. When I saw the photo prompt of the carnival swings, Icarus came to mind immediately, but in thinking about my past relationship, I thought, what if it was a story about grief? What if Icarus did what he did purposefully to escape?”

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Jeffrey Hecker is author of Rumble Seat (San Francisco Bay Press, 2011) and the chapbooks Hornbook (Horse Less Press, 2012), Instructions for the Orgy (Sunnyoutside Press, 2013), Before He Let Them Guide Sleigh (ShirtPocket Press, 2013), and Ark Aft (The Magnificent Field, 2020). Recent work appears in Yalobusha Review, Posit, Heavy Feather Review, & BathHouse Journal. Currently he teaches at The Muse Writers Center (Norfolk, Virginia) and reads for Quarterly West. A graduate of Old Dominion University, he’s a fourth-generation Hawaiian American. Find him on socia media: @jeffrey_hecker

On the inspiration for his poem “Watteau for the Win,” Hecker writes, “Nobody can decide if Venus was born in Cyprus or Cythera. Painters like Botticelli and Watteau picked Cythera—a tiny island between Greece and Crete. I like siding with visual artists. Watteau depicts passionate people either departing from or arriving at the shores. Everybody looks exhilarated though they can only visit; nobody can stay. I feel this a lively metaphor for the swing ride—or the big amusement park of life. I first rode one at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, Virginia, the dome painted eerily like the prompt photo. I recall being mystified by the weird antiquity and also feeling nauseous. Not certain if you’re afraid of heights, in lust or love, or susceptible to motion sickness? I highly recommend a swing ride or visiting Cythera.”

Meghan Kemp-Gee lives between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Fredericton, New Brunswick. She writes poetry, comics, stories, and scripts of all kinds. Her debut poetry collection, The Animal in the Room, is forthcoming from Coach House Books in 2023. She also co-created Contested Strip, the world’s best comic about ultimate frisbee. You can find her on Twitter @MadMollGreen.

About the genesis of her poem, Kemp-Gee writes, “I love amusement parks and roller coasters, but I have a soft spot for the humble swing carousel. I really love the feeling of flying, but also how they make gravity and momentum feel wonderfully strange—your body pulled in weird new directions. I once heard that they can actually be good for your health because the gentle G-forces have a positive effect on your lymphatic system! This summer, I wrote a lot of poems that juxtaposed cosmic elements like nebulas and alien galaxies with everyday

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places and things, and when I saw this photograph of the swing-riders flying and falling against the sky, I wanted to imagine a connection between the swing ride and the glowing oblong sulphur cloud of the Calabash Nebula.”

Jemma Leigh Roe has poems and artwork published or forthcoming in Permafrost, The Ilanot Review, EcoTheo Review, The Fourth River, and others. She received a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Princeton University. Leigh Roe says this year’s photograph “evoked a childhood memory of when my parents would take me to my favorite amusement park. I remember loving everything about it, especially spending that time with them, which was rather short-lived. It made me think of how often, as adults, we refer to ‘the child in us’ to explain our actions or sentiments when wanting to revive or fulfill childhood dreams. Hayao Miyazaki’s film, Castle in the Sky, immediately came to mind as the epitome of a child’s dream world, full of wonder. But as dreams must end, and as growing up grounds us for better or worse, I wanted to present these dynamic perspectives in such a way that would also hint at the metaphysical or spiritual. If it can be said that our existence is, in reality, nonlinear, and that all existential possibilities coexist, as quantum mechanics explains, then only a subtle shift is required to move from one to the other, and nothing is really lost forever.”

Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Heiress, Zorba’s Daughter, which won the May Swenson Poetry Award; Moon and Mercury; and three chapbooks, including Still Life with Timex which won the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. A native of Chicago, she currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

About her poem, “Uvalde,” Murawski writes, “When I first saw the photograph, I found myself thinking about Sandy Hook, how old those kids would be now, and that the empty chairs should have been for them. It was right about then that Uvalde happened. These kids, too, would be robbed of a fuller, longer life. I had heard that the assault rifles left the bodies unrecognizable, requiring DNA to identify them, and thought maybe if people, especially members of Congress, could see what happens to a child’s body hit by an assault rifle, it would shock them enough to change our gun laws. I recalled that the mother of Emmett Till left the

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coffin open so people could see his battered face. I remembered the photograph of the Vietnamese girl burned by napalm. That’s how the poem started. In the final draft, the focus shifted, narrowed to those empty chairs and the little kids in a schoolroom where they thought they were safe.”

Laura Nagle is a translator and writer based in Indianapolis. Her translations of prose and poetry from French and Spanish have appeared in journals such as The Southern Review, AGNI, ANMLY, and The Los Angeles Review, and her translation of Prosper Mérimée’s 1827 hoax, La Guzla, is forthcoming from Frayed Edge Press. “Higher” is her first fiction publication.

Seeing Neale Cousland’s photograph, Nagle says her “eye was drawn to the barefoot girl near the center. She appears to be leaning forward in the chair swing as though urging this carnival ride to go faster, swing higher, be more thrilling. I imagine someone on the ground preparing to tell her for the umpteenth time that she needs to keep her shoes on, but I hope that person also appreciates and fosters her adventurous spirit.”

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Iron Horse Literary Review would like to thank its supporters, without whose generous help we could not publish Iron Horse successfully. In particular, we would like to thank our benefactors and equestrian donors. If you would like to join our network of friends, please contact us at ihlr.mail@gmail.com for information on the various levels of support.

Benefactors ($300)

Wendell Aycock

Lon and Carol Baugh

Beverly and George Cox

Sam Dragga

Madonne Miner in memory of Charles Patterson

Gordon Weaver

Equestrian ($3,000 and above)

TTU English Department, Interim Chair William Wenthe

TTU College of Arts & Sciences, Interim Dean Brian Still

TTU Graduate School, Dean Mark Sheridan

TTU Provost’s Office, Provost Ronald L. Hendrick

TTU President’s Office, President Lawrence Schovanec