Selvi Bunce Photo by Mimi Mutesa 4 stars Naked: the honest musings of 2 brown women is a wide-ranging and fearlessly vulnerable collection of poetry by Mimi Mutesa and Selvi M. Bunce on everything from race to love, family to mental health, accompanied by lovely illustrations by Mutesa. In different sections, it explores the complexities of having … Read more“Naked” by Mimi Mutesa & Selvi M. Bunce – Reviewed by Capri Huffman
Image by Alex Lau The old lady Sophie had become was more than a fool for kids. It was in the end that she first began to see how her magnetic attraction toward babies, especially her babies, was affected by her terribly troubled childhood. So much more than a puppy phenomenon, she saw past their … Read moreBeing Grandma by Cynthia Yancey
Image source: https://www.freeimages.com/photo/wooden-bridge-1-1406385 Daddy’d turn south off Route 60 onto KY 32 about halfway between Morehead and Elliottville, near Hogtown, rumble across the wooden-plank bridge that had no sides, then follow the dirt road and the creek that cut through the hills just there. When Old House Creek was running low, we’d just splash on … Read moreThe Old Home Place by Vivian Lawry
Image source: Chop Suey Club Shoved with a xenophobic passion, Elizabeth toppled to all fours like a creature. She was an object or something to be objectified. He spat at her like she deserved a punishment, like she was a kitten who wouldn’t meow for this disgruntled man. The chalky cement gnawed at her fragile … Read moreMother’s Hands by Yebecca
Photo Credit: Dave Rusk My wife and I finally settled into a financially and physically secure retirement. Two years ago, we bought our forever home, unpacked boxes that had been in storage, and eased into the next chapter of life; for me, this included writing, painting, crafting, and grandchildren. This week we’re packing boxes and … Read moreFlying Nuns by Pamela Kaye
Photo by Pete Godfrey It didn’t take much to seduce her. The pressing hot hand of the sun turned her bones to honey. A groggy haze swept over Dani, leaving her unable to move. The swoosh of the waves mingled with squeals from children at the water’s edge. When she was a small girl, her … Read moreSea Glass by Dinamarie Isola
Image by: Tyler Devon Holmes (she/they) instagram: @tydoesarts Everything is shallow until one day it is not. Things become great, and big and powerful in ways you never knew. Old sayings begin to hold a heavy weight, and what was inconsequential has now festered deep roots. Entrenched and tangled in the vines of your body, … Read morePerfect Dichotomy by Amber Lee Varnado
Image source: https://wallpapersafari.com/ivy-vine-wallpaper/ The god of cannibals will be a cannibal… —Ralph Waldo Emerson Don’t look around so surprised that a brick is talking to you. I’m compelled to speak because someone inside the building where I have been installed has been playing over and over those ridiculous sixties and seventies British albums—so-called classics—Thick as … Read moreThick as a Brick: Masonry’s Response by Mike Cohen
Artwork by Meyshe, created at the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, CA. appeared first on https://www.kalw.org/show/crosscurrents/2015-05-06/creative-growth-art-center-gives-artists-with-disabilities-a-place-to-shine “Will I be a good father?” He was ten. He hadn’t even been correctly diagnosed yet. There was something wrong. Or at least there was something that wasn’t right. “Will I be a good father?” What boy contemplates … Read moreToo Honest and Pure of Heart by Tobie Helene Shapiro
(CW: suicide) The night Surya decides he will go to his death, his wife goes into labor. His son arrives with an air of practicality, eliciting one loud wail to announce his presence before knotting his eyebrows together and squinting to make out the blurry shapes around him that belong to voices he already knows. … Read moreThe Call of the Void by Kavinila Rengaraju