Public Republic

David Chorlton Photo: Matt From London Before we know it, the subject changes. Nobody intended to bring this up, but suicide slips into the room as an uninvited visitor so we let it happen, make a place, and sit back as it dominates the conversation. We all have a story. There was the performance artist […]

Shae Davidson Photo: Joi “There was a river in Ohio that caught fire,” Gordon said as he poured sugar into his coffee. “Near Cleveland, I think. So many chemicals dumped in year after year—one day it just went.” Gordon was a reliable source for obscure information whether useful, disturbing, or just puzzling. His family had […]

Charlotte Pence Photo: Clearly Ambiguous Nothing lasts, we know, so why do I lift The box turtle from the middle of the road To the side where crab grass pocks asphalt crumbs? Picking it up, I feel the tight-fisted weight Of some creature shrunken inside, desperate To be set down. I hold it away from […]

Erin Chandler Photo: CarbonNYC Samantha told me my heart had been broken three times. Samantha’s the psychic medium I talked to the other day. I know everybody thinks ‘yeah, yeah’ but she was good and she was right. My heart has been broken three times. All three times felt pretty much the same… lost, lonely, […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: Lady-bug My wife has a problem with any poem I give her to read for a second opinion especially when the poem has no message and my goal is simply to hear what I’m saying and not care if I understand it.

Simon Perchik Photo: JennyHuang And you, licking this reef the way herds are nourished with salt –even your tongue has a trace, bitter, brackish stings though salt is what keeps stone stone

Michael Lee Johnson Photo: pareeerica Edith, in this nursing home blinded with macular degeneration, I come to you with your blurry eyes, crystal sharp mind, your countenance of grace- as yesterday’s winds I have chosen to consume you and take you away.

Aksinia Mihailova Photo: bslmmrs When you leave pieces of yourself in the bodies of other women and try desperately to find yourself complete in the words, I see our home like a ghost boat floating against the current of the river; but the boatman is not there and the night is falling I recollect only […]

David Chorlton Photo: alancleaver_2000 A scene plays out between an apartment house balcony and the sidewalk where a young man walks first away, then turns back weeping toward the woman three screaming storeys high on a spring day with the oleander making nectar of the air.

Charlotte Pence Photo: Sam Ilić Twelve, sneaking out, we went to the pool on a dare and stripped in silence. When the moonlight pinkened my nipples, I stared, and allowed them to stare. In the curls of Michael’s pubic hair, light glistened

Michael Lee Johnson Photo: ToOliver2 A Métis Indian lady, drunk — hands blanketed as in prayer, over a large brown fruit basket naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard inside — approaches the Edmonton, Alberta adoption agency. There are only spirit gods inside her empty purse.

Erin Chandler Photo: Hamed Saber “I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re penned; when you are not feeling holy your loneliness says that you’ve sinned…” Leonard Cohen It was Anton I was most worried about. Not how I was going to get back to North Carolina, where I was going […]

David Chorlton Photo: striatic With nowhere to go, I go nowhere but forward along the path and turn left at the pavement with one foot leading another until I reach the Avenue where the neighbourhood becomes a city. Now I’m invisible

Rose McCann Photo: Lidia Tagnesi -1- It’s early Saturday morning, the Halloween party ended hours ago, and before his overnight guests begin to stir from their drug- and alcohol-induced sleep, William de Vere discovers a letter that the landlady has slid under his door in the middle of the night. With growing alarm he reads […]

Charlotte Pence Photo: _boby + boby Babe, next time Don’t schlep a heifer Up to the stars To hide her.

David Chorlton Photo: Wolfgang Staudt One road is named after The Devil but you won’t meet him there; he’s in Nogales putting scorpions in Lucite for souvenirs by which to remember the sting of the sun as you pass from being poor to being illegal. Another runs underground

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer’s interview with poet Lynnell Edwards Lynnell Edwards is the author of two books of poetry: The Highwayman’s Wife (2007) and The Farmer’s Daughter (2003), both from Red Hen Press. Her work has appeared on Verse Daily and in the anthologies Poets Against the War; Raising Our Voices: Oregon Poets Against the War; What […]

Interview with Brian Russell by Andrew Micheli Brian Russell is the author of Meeting Dad: A Memoir, which is being released April 1, 2010 from Accents Publishing, Lexington, Kentucky. After more than twenty years of working in the theater as a director and producer of plays, musicals, and operas, Brian shifted his focus toward writing. […]

Bob Baker’s interview with Jeannine Hall Gailey Jeannine Hall Gailey is the author of Becoming the Villainess. Poems from the book appeared on Verse Daily and on The Writer’s Almanac, and two were chosen for the 2007 The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She teaches at National University and volunteers at Crab Creek Review. Suppose […]

An interview of Nataliya Nikolaeva with Bozhana Apostolova – a poet, writer and publisher, owner of “Zhanet 45” Publishing House. “Success is when you make people happy.” Bozhana Apostolova There are artists who have the talent of sheltering harmoniously within themselves several gifts. Such is the talent of Bozhana Apostolova – an inspired poet, prose […]