Our literary magazine was founded on Leonard Cohen’s 89th birth anniversary on September 21, 2023. We are poets obsessed with the ways in which poetry can both break you and build you up. Welcome to this little corner of the internet where we can sing into the void and remember that poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
Lisabelle Tay is a Singaporean writer and poet. Her poetry appears in Anthropocene, Bad Lilies, and elsewhere; her debut pamphlet was Pilgrim (The Emma Press, 2021). Her fiction appears in Sine Theta Magazine and elsewhere. She was part of the 2023 Black List Feature Lab with her screenplay MOMO, which is currently in development.
The soul spilled murmurous from her as an insect cloud. Once they believed in birthing bees from ox carcasses. The life of the bull passed into that of the bees, sudden and unquestioned. Where have you gone? Into whom has your life passed?
Devotion is desire given shape, out of which substance is formed and grown — the substance of what is unseen but no less real. Devotion is desire sustained, which is to me a very precious thing.
UPCOMING WORKSHOP
Saturday, December 14 — 12 pm EST
$90 | 2 Hour Workshop via Zoom
Are you nervous to write love poetry because you think it’s going to sound cheesy and sentimental? Or are you enthusiastic about writing it but unsure how to make it fresh and exciting? In this generative class we’ll discuss and practice a range of approaches to the love poem—or the poem that talks about love. Such a poem doesn’t have to be about falling in or being in love. And a love poem can also be a political poem. We’ll read work by Jessica Abughattas, Natalie Diaz, Jericho Brown, Diane Seuss, and others, as models for how we might experiment with and love the love poem anew. Participants can expect to draft at least three new pieces. More details here.