Review: The Map of the System of Human Knowledge

The Reviewed: The Map of the System of Human Knowledge by James Tadd Adcox The Reviewer: Joellyn Powers *** Is the beauty of the human brain the fact that we don’t know everything? Or is it the potential for us to know it all? James Tadd Adcox tackles those questions and many more that consider […]

“Borderless” by Michelle Sui

1. Lush landscapes and mountain terrain, flying over the Rockies in the pre-spring days when snowcaps linger from eyes above the stratosphere; all is bare and full, peaceful and haunting there, then––I saw you once. Once above the mountaintops whose tips are white like clouds, once amidst the barren redstone, plain, vast expanses of land […]

“Evolution” by Bryan Furuness

Deciphered from cuneiform, this is the earliest known example of a break-up letter. Dear Lucy, What’s up? Not much here. You’re probably wondering why I’m writing a letter. If I know you—and after sharing your cave for a month, I think I do—you’re probably scratching your cute temple like what the heck? Ock LAUGHS at […]

Attention and Anger and Joy Wherever I Go: A Conversation with Robb Todd

Robb Todd’s fiction has appeared in PANK, The Fiddleback, Wigleaf, Mud Luscious, Spork, Monkeybicycle, Bluestem, and elsewhere. He is also the author fo a short story collection, Steal Me For Your Stories. He lives in New York. More here. *** UFR: Alright, first things first: I have to ask about the opening story in your […]

Two poems by Shivani Mehta

The Butterflies You unzip my dress, a curve from the side of my left breast to the top of my hip.  My body is a column of butterflies. One by one, roused by the light and cool air, they wake from sleep.  One by one they open their wings, responding to some deep internal pressure, […]

Review: The Body is a Little Gilded Cage

  The Reviewed: The Body is a Little Gilded Cage by Kristina Marie Darling The Reviewer: Joellyn Powers *** The delicacy of the poems in Kristina Marie Darling’s collection, The Body is a Little Gilded Cage, is really quite astounding. Opening in seven sections titled “City Walk,” “Soiree,” and “Aviary,” and then leading into appendices and footnotes […]

Camille Griep’s Our House: “I Will Survive”

This is the latest in Camille Griep’s Our House. To go to the column page, please click here. “At first I was afraid, I was petrified Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side.” —Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive” # In 1994 I broke up with one of my best friends. It […]

“Train Story” by Kimberly Bunker

A train had gone right through our basement. This was very odd. For weeks we’d been hearing its aggressive call, dissonant and distinctive, sometimes off in the distance, sometimes loud, as if it were right across the street. With the lake on the north side and the forest bisected by the parkway on the south, […]

Six poems by Christopher Citro

Be My Guest Walking through the house just a few minutes ago, I felt the monsters welling up inside me, pouring into my throat, tapping at the inside of my two big front teeth with their claws. Elbowing one another to get out, bellowing that incomprehensible yell-language they use when I deny them air, keeping […]

“Scenes from an Open Marriage” by Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet

This is the latest in Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet. To go to the column page, please click here. Penelope At the start of Day Five, Henry says, “Pass the sugar, honey.” I’m momentarily dazed, by his endearment as much as by the lights from the cameras and so even with all of Sam’s promptings to […]