Jacquelyn Bengfort, in her piece "Tilt", presses you to reflect on the tilt. Not the tilt of your head, when you are looking up at the stars or when you're balancing the phone between your shoulder and check. No, the tilt of the Earth. A small, slight tilt of 23.5 degrees that allows for humanity to exist. These are the questions of the universe, Shakespearean in a way: to tilt or not to tilt? With a tilt comes life, and with life comes death. Bengfort, as she describes herself, “a minor poet on the edge of a minor galaxy” asked the major questions of the universe and in turn proves that her poetry is anything but minor.
Category: Featured
Natasha Dennerstein, “Desirable Alien”
I, too, didn't/don't understand green bean casseroles, and that completely won me over.
Amber Carpenter, “Bodies Are Not Meant To”
The human body is a fragile, precious entity. The human body is assigned at birth, it is not a choice. Care for it—you try—but sometimes you are stripped of such freedoms. Sometimes it is a stranger that controls your body, as if it were a dead thing—a commodity. Amber Carpenter’s piece "Bodies are not meant to" calls attention to this brutal truth. I believe Carpenter does something incredibly valuable in her piece: she reminds us that bodies are real, that bodies are alive, and there are things that bodies simply were never meant to do. Love your body, love your neighbor's body, and remember everyone has a right to their body.
Sean Taylor, “Sings Us Both to Sleep”
A deaf old man who doesn't own a clock. A smoking couple with a baby monitor.
This piece was lovely—I couldn't tell whether to be sympathetic or sorry, self-conscious or awed.
This piece was lovely—I couldn't tell whether to be sympathetic or sorry, self-conscious or awed.