ISSUE 32 - DECEMBER 2025

CONTENTS

JRR Tolkien: “There was a great tree – a huge poplar with vast limbs – visible through my window even as I lay in bed. I loved it, and was anxious about it. It had been savagely mutilated some years before, but had gallantly grown new limbs – though of course not with the unblemished grace of its former natural self; and now a foolish neighbour was agitating to have it felled. Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate…In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies.”

A.E. Stallings: “I sometimes think about Sappho and wonder what her ‘readership’ or audience would have reasonably been, composing in her dialect of Greek on an island. A couple of thousand at most? And yet we are still reading her, and she somehow speaks directly to us.”

Henri Matisse: “Don’t try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.”

Virginia Woolf: “In writing choose the common words; avoid rhapsody and eloquence—yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” 

Rafael Campo: “Perhaps, I mused finally as an impatient wind rose up around me, the best that poetry can do is to contain, for some of us, our emotions. Perhaps, in this way, it could leave a record, a kind of document that some might cast aside but that others might encounter with relief, and hope, and gratitude.”

Hélène Cixous: “Woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies—for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Woman must put herself into the text—as into the world and into history—by her own movement.”

Alice Gregory: “He has assembled ample archival evidence indicating that she had multiple romantic and sexual relationships with women in the course of many decades.” (“The Strange Afterlife of Hilma af Klint, Painting’s Posthumous Star.” The New Yorker. November 16, 2025.)

Hilma af Klint, Tree of Knowledge No. 1 (1913-1915)

link to video

SELECTED POEMS FROM ISSUES 11-30 IN THIS NEW PRINT ANTHOLOGY

ISSUE 32 - DECEMBER 2025 - CONTENTS

POETRY

ART

ELLEN MILLER-MACK Love Oh Love  SLP #1: Postcard ghazal JENNA E. LACKEY Life would be easy with Mike R.M. DAVENPORT The Game EMILY HAY Sappho in Trouble  VALENTINA REETZ Four Poems  AEDÍN JANE SMYTH Counting Matchsticks PENNY WEI Self-Portrait as Girl in a Catholic Bathroom, Unfolding EMILY SMALL The Five Rivers LIZ AHL Trusted Reader CAROLYN GEVINSKI Iambic Crush NAOMI ZANDER Heartbreak Hotel MADELINE TIETZ-SOKOLSKAYA my voice M. BROOKE WEST Of Crumpling the Leaves

HILMA AF KLINT The Swan No. 10 (1915) HILMA AF KLINT The Swan No. 9 (1915) HILMA AF KLINT Wheat and Wormwood (1922) HILMA AF KLINT Primordial Chaos No. 16 (1906-07) HILMA AF KLINT The Swan No. 18 (1915) HILMA AF KLINT Svenska Grupp III No. 5 (1907) HILMA AF KLINT The Swan No. 16 (1915) HILMA AF KLINT Tree of Knowledge No. 1 (1913-1915) HILMA AF KLINT Altarpiece No. 2 (1915) HILMA AF KLINT The Dove No. 1 (1915) HILMA AF KLINT The Swan No. 12 (1915) HILMA AF KLINT Chaos No. 2 (1906) HILMA AF KLINT Hilma af Klint, Evolution No.13 (1908) HILMA AF KLINT Hilma af Klint, Altarpiece No. 1 (1915)

Ellen Miller-Mack

Love Oh Love

I too quarreled with Aphrodite to whom I pray you will come soon

—Sappho

You, Aphrodite, tossing candy to the crowd

Longing clings to you, a silky skirt that rises

with a warm breeze. You have reduced me

to a thing that wants. Not knowing what I know

not seeing what I see & I gorge on anything

that looks like love

Bones, shreds of foil, plastic wrappers—

all stuck in my throat—

& yet you tell me to sing!

I could be outside with the blooming lilacs

I could be free, but I can’t bear to be away

from your scent. It clouds every room, every living cell

Love oh love oh careless love

I could use a sonnet right now, an unmade bed

I write to O. “our whisperings are a dream-quilt

of hummingbirds” & there goes the other shoe.

You say, the damaged heart will sprout new vessels, just ask

I am a fool, Aphrodite, release me, please but bring O. back

one more time—without the knives & ultraviolet powers

from her place by the salty sea

through the dry roots of that sad tree of us

half-eaten by her sweet goats

link to video

---

Ellen Miller-Mack is a nurse practitioner (retired/rewired) with an MFA in Poetry from Drew University. Her book reviews have appeared in Rattle, Valparaiso, Bookslut, the Rumpus, the Poetry Cafe, and the Poetry Foundation. Her poems have appeared in Lavender Review (journal and anthology January 2025), Lily Poetry Review, Antiphon, 5 A.M., Redheaded Stepchild, Affilia, and The Lake Rises: poems to and for our bodies of water. Ellen co-wrote The Real Cost of Prisons Comix (PM Press) and the comic books are downloadable free HERE. She is the host of Poet Talk, a live radio program on WMUA (www.wmua.org) which is also a podcast on Spotify and Apple. If you are a poet living in Western Massachusetts or close enough to drive to Amherst, get in touch with me at emillermack@gmail.com.

The Swan No. 10

Hilma af Klint, The Swan No. 10 (1915)

slp

#1: Postcard ghazal

I’ve lost her again. I’m afraid to find her

here, in this prayer, that always finds her

the plucked string beneath the cup makes the water

shiver—ever outward—you’re not meant to find her

vetiver & bergamot to oil the hair

soft grapeseed oil for the heart—nothing binds her

the deep water in me echoes in my well

the drop-tuned string loose and taut the moon behind her

Friend, it isn’t good for me to look for You

in anyone else—again. Let me find Her

—strong-feather-armed seagull, leave this place behind

reverse your circles—breathe—unwind Her

link to video

---

slp is a Madqueer poet, songwriter, musician, and educator living in Colorado. Their manuscripts have been finalists multiple times for the Ahsahta Sawtooth Competition, Slope Book Prize, chapbook competitions at Ashahta and Gazing Grains; the 2023 UNLV Black Mountain Institute Witness Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction; and semifinalists at University of Wisconsin Brittingham-Pollak. They produce music and perform as @maudlynmonroe bc they have so many emotions.

The Swan No. 9

Hilma af Klint, The Swan No. 9 (1915)

Jenna E. Lackey

Life would be easy with Mike

Lunking thoughts hoard

as I tie my boney shoe

the laces seeping together

into a practice of sleeplessness.

I sit next to him in class

our fading friendship

was a teased nature

of heteronormative smoothies.

The rock concerts and recitals

with his hand in mine shaking;

it’s big and rough

and he drowns me in space

pushing too close. The shoelaces

now wind around my throat.

My family unwrapping him

like threaded socks

at Christmas. His eyes

squinted like a bushy squirrel

in a football helmet.

Life would be easier with Mike

but I love Ali.

---

Jenna E. Lackey is an undergraduate student majoring in psychology and creative writing at Hartwick College and is originally from Troy, New York. Her interests include experimental romanticism and some more macabre works. She has been published in Hartwick College’s Word of Mouth and UAlbany’s ARCH.

Wheat and Wormwood

Hilma af Klint, Wheat and Wormwood (1922)

R.M. Davenport

The Game

The eightball barrels towards the corner pocket,

and the colorful satellites in its wake ricochet around the table.

The game is over before it begins.

We sit on the bench along the wall of the bar

with blue chalk powdered fingertips and condensation on our glasses,

your velvet lips pressed together like dimpled thighs.

You lean over close to my ear,

and tell me in hushed tones to scoot over.

I walk you to your car under a starless sky,

and your eyes a couple of dials I might turn up, or down

like the heat in the cramped space of your midsize sedan.

When you say goodnight, I go to return

to the mannequin with the bright feather boa

that watches over the dancefloor like a chaperone.

Then you say, “I really wasn’t done talking to you,”

while you white knuckle your steering wheel.

You add nothing more, and it’s everything I need to hear.

I say goodnight, and when I entangle myself in you,

your scent stings my nose, and my eyes are rings

around distant moons finally come to ground.

When I close the passenger door and turn my back,

the longing drops away like a lead ball

into puddles made in deep ruts in Earth.

I step over them, moving back towards the kickdrums.

---

R.M. Davenport graduated from the University of Maine at Machias with a background in creative writing. She lives openly as a queer woman who is focused on tackling difficult conversations around trauma, poverty and mental illness through the arts. She has recently had work featured in issues of the San Antonio Review, Feels Blind Literary, and the Rockvale Review.

Primordial Chaos No. 16

Hilma af Klint, Primordial Chaos No. 16 (1906-07)

Emily Hay

Sappho in Trouble

Sappho in a passion calls up Aphrodite;

Gets the answerphone; but claims emergency.

She spent the hours of darkness flailing in her duvet.

“My sweet, my ally, do pop in for coffee.”

Our rapid reaction goddess rushes in in nightie,

Coat, eau de toilette and black stiletto boots.

She looks too pretty really for the part of schemer, 

Parks her chariot outside on a meter.

“Since Sappho calls, I come down from the clouds.

The pet birds flew me here, my dear,” she says.

“All sweeties, sparrows, promiscuous of course, 

So fast and frivolous but such delightful feathers.

“Crushes, flings and grandes passions, we do. 

If she runs away, then soon may she pursue.

Assert your dignity, and punish hers;

Waltzing, tease; and let her plead for every kiss.”

But later: “Really this one is so young, again. 

Too much, dear. Perhaps it’s time to settle down.

I know the dancing mistress calls the tune

But—immortal to mortal speaks the truth.”

link to video

---

Emily Hay is an English writer from London -  a queer parent, insider-outsider and community volunteer writing poetry, short stories and longer. Her poetry and prose has been published by Lancaster Litfest; Coffee House poetry magazine; Riggwelter Press; Aôthen Magazine; Lavender Review; City Lit Between the Lines; Gay Authors Workshop; Vernacular Journal and Poetry Bus.

The Swan No. 18

Hilma af Klint, The Swan No. 18 (1915)

Valentina Reetz

The Train Station, Tuesday, 10 AM

The sun shattered across the sky

like a liquor bottle over a bald head.

San Francisco was pockmarked and absurd

couldn’t tell if it was day or night

I checked other.

The subway is more like the ocean than the subway today,

the trains advance and recess.

As for myself, I have been doing more of the latter.

---

The Wild Side, Saturday, 3 AM

The wild side can be located exactly four blocks east

of St. Mary’s Cathedral.

I worked there for a few months just after moving

to San Francisco.

Glassy-eyed whores prayed while nobody watched,

junkies got well,

and a man waited until we were alone to ask if I thought

he was hopeless.

I told him it’s never too late

(I told him this but, you know, I never meant it).

I’ve heard that I look like daughters and mothers and

ex-wives, the truth is,

people see who they want to see.

I’ve seen Polaroids of children on the insides of wallets

from which I took sixty bucks.

I tucked the money into my garter

because I’m someone’s child too

and then I took a taxi to the Cathedral.

---

Enter Esme, Friday, 11 PM

Esme hosted parties

that would go on for days.

Esme

almost always fully nude

and almost always covered in ink.

She affected everything she touched.

One day I saw her

and she was plastered with blue paint

it dripped off her nose and eyelashes

another day it was shaving cream

and when she got evicted

her parties moved onto the street outside.

She said a lot of bullshit

and a few true things which is preferable

to those who say a lot of bullshit

and no true things.

She once married seven people

at the same time.

She would marry anyone who asked.

She loved saying yes.

---

The End of Men, Wednesday, Unknown Time

Masculine like a boy and

feminine like a cold planet

colliding with another,

big blue waves

rolling along pale bodies,

rolling two fingers

around a slick marble,

as big as a planet

as massive as love

and as small as the small

of your back.

I know that the world is not good

but is profoundly exciting

and love never leaves me for long.

---

Valentina Reetz is originally from Seattle and now resides in Los Angeles. She holds a degree in philosophy. Her work has been featured in publications like Shameless Magazine, Beast Grrrl and Argyle Literary Magazine.

Svenska Grupp III No. 5

Hilma af Klint, Svenska Grupp III No. 5 (1907)

Aedín Jane Smyth

Counting Matchsticks

To achieve perfect lighting you need two taper candles,

a tealight, wide-span windows, and us. I watched you turn

this into an art form. A candle, lit for too long, can cause headaches.

I know because you told me and now I can’t stop

thinking about it, or you. I light

a birthday cake candle in my bedroom and half the time, I’m afraid,

and the other, I’m with you. Any headache is worth sitting close

tucked under H&M wool blankets swapping secrets, glazed

in curated honey light. Couch squares slip

beneath us tectonic plates in your living room. Sleep

we’ve tried, persuaded by a kiss, racing sun to its rising.

The two hundred euro kettle boils water—

87 degrees celsius—and we’re privy to the first efforts

of the neighbour learning a new instrument. The shirt comes off,

bare skin a prize to mind. You’ve asked me to look

at you. Eye-contact is the scariest thing we’ve done.

But you asked. The candles in the kitchen

won’t give you a headache anymore. I’ve asked them not to.

---

Aedín Jane Smyth is an Irish poet and writer. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from University College Dublin. She’s a slow-burn type of person, in all areas of her life. Her writing explores relationships, identity, ageing, and crisis. Currently, she is trying to find what feels good in life, hold on to it, and let it grow. Her work has previously been published in New Word Order, Caveat Lector, and Hearth Magazine. Find more of her writing on her Substack @aednjane.

The Swan No. 16

Hilma af Klint, The Swan No. 16 (1915)

Penny Wei

Self-Portrait as Girl in a Catholic Bathroom, Unfolding

The bell rings, half-dismissal, half-warning. I pocket

my rosary beside a half-open lipgloss & fumble with

my left earring: a gold flower, miniature as accident’s

passing. The right is a safety pin, stolen from denim

jackets I only wear in mirrors. The bathroom’s fluores-

cents flicker as a blessing. A girl walks in, mascara

running holy as a stained viper. I lower, press palms to

cheek acnes & whisper forgiveness into my knuckles.

In theology, they say the soul is male, even in women.

I take notes pink-penned & suck cap ink like penance.

Actually, Mr. Lawrence, I’ve memorized the verses but

never the meanings—how one becomes a psalm, a

parable, a bruise no one bothers to bless. At home,

Mother calls me while folding laundry as scripture, socks

paired, creases smoothed into silence. Unlike me. She

asks if a boy has ever crowded me into lockers &

parted my thighs as tender, falling meat. I say no &

trace the telephone wire as jaguar’s vein. Rewind.

Last night, I kissed a girl who wore glitter like armor.

Exchanging, she willowed my forehead & said,

You’re not sinned for blooming in the wrong season,

her breath clinging to my collar as an untranslated hymn.

In Georgia, summer heat fevers like a sermon—slow, certain.

Before the church I was sat: chair folding, knees bare,

sweat-rigidly spined. The pastor opened his palms like

a wound. Child, confess. And behind me, the congregation

swallowed their tongues just long enough to spit.

Unclean, unnatural, hell-bound. The AC choked my throat

a contraction. If God was really present, He never spoke.

I told Grandma, once. July bubbling, mosquitoes haloed

the porchlight. She sucked on the buzzing, squinted, then spat:

you might as well get raped. I only folded into lawn chairs,

& watched flies smoulder themselves clean into bulbs.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t burn. Not then. Today, I press a Post-it

to the bathroom stall: You are holy in the whole of you.

The ink bleeds, the heart stubborns into remains. By lunch,

it was peeled. Yet somewhere between the graffiti & gospel,

it made sense to me. Later, the bell rings as resurrection.

I rewrite, smaller, & re-press. I let it wait. I let it become a prayer.

---

Penny Wei is from Shanghai and Massachusetts. She can be seen on Dialogist, The Weight Journal, Inflectionism and has been recognized by The Word Works and Longfellow House. She also has a passion for journalism.

Tree of Knowledge No. 1

Hilma af Klint, Tree of Knowledge No. 1 (1913-1915)

Emily Small

The Five Rivers

I looked at you

With such feeling

Brought to me

Was fear of hell

Punishment

For the unholy thrill of watching

Your beautiful body

Move through the day

For the lust of my eyes

I fear

I would come to know

All five rivers in hell

In the river of hatred

Will I be made to wash my hair

For I had been an animal

Far too much in love

In the river of pain

For your name

Said softly to myself

Will I be damned to learn to swim

In the river of fire

I will burn eternal

For the greed for your body

And an animal am I

Far too much in love

Will I be plunged

In the river of tears

To have dreamt of you

Without end

And into the river of oblivion

Will I be made to drink and to forget myself forever

For I had been an animal

Far too much in love

---

Emily Small is an England-born, Michigan-based poet whose work explores memory, resilience, and the subtle transformations of the inner world. She has been writing poetry and painting since childhood, and her creative life is shaped by a deep sensitivity to people, place, and the shifting landscapes of emotion. Her poems trace the intersections of longing, clarity, and the ways we continue to remake ourselves. ETSY  -  INSTAGRAM

Altarpiece No. 2

Hilma af Klint, Altarpiece No. 2 (1915)

Liz Ahl

Trusted Reader

—for K

(as much as any reader

could be trusted to close

their hands—not too tightly

or too loosely—around

what you put there, be it

muttering tinderbox or

abandoned, intact wasp nest,

or poured milk or four

hummingbirds; new

words, still tender from

the making, old words

newly bruised in the

rearranging, the rending,

the mending what was rent)

She opened her wise hands

and said put it here

and whatever it was,

you did.

link to video

---

Liz Ahl is the author of Beating the Bounds (2017, Hobblebush Books) and A Case for Solace (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022), winner of the 2023 New Hampshire Literary Award in Poetry. Her most recent chapbook is A Stanza is a Place to Stand (2023, Seven Kitchens Press). Recipient of an LGBTQ+ Desert Rat Residency for 2026, Ahl’s poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming in TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, Rhino, SWWIM, Cherry Tree, The Fourth River, and The Poets’ Touchstone. She lives in Holderness, New Hampshire. 

The Dove No. 1

Hilma af Klint, The Dove No. 1 (1915)

Carolyn Gevinski

Iambic Crush

I have not yet written the shame of her hand on my wrist.

“I like it like this.”

“Finally,” she whispered, after our first kiss.

Violet am I, she was pure red.

A meter branded into her pillow,

she spurned,

with a laugh like a curl.

She knows me now, she knows me not,

(she knows me without knowing anything at all).

---

Carolyn Gevinski is a journalist and writer in New York, whose literary work and reporting have appeared in Lavender Review, GLAMOUR, El País, Al Jazeera, and Out Magazine. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School, where she currently works as a fellow on their postgraduate investigative team. 

The Swan No. 12

Hilma af Klint, The Swan No. 12 (1915)

Naomi Zander

Heartbreak Hotel

the lightless swooping

wire-lettered neon

sign reads ‘no vacancy’

wait and see

she says as she drives away,

leaving shards of glass

beneath streetlight glow

in the empty carpark.

I scoop the dead leaves

from the pool between us—

sleep in other people’s sheets,

dry myself with their scratchy towels.

The white noise from the wall-mounted

flatscreen TV

fills the halls,

the space between us.

And I pick up the broken glass—

careful not to cut myself.

---

Naomi Zander is a writer and English and Literature teacher based in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia).  With 25 years’ teaching experience, they studied creative writing at the Queensland University of Technology and they write short absurdist fiction, long-form realist prose, and poetry exploring grief, memory, and the persistence of the past, often through motifs of decay and the natural world.

Chaos No. 2

Hilma af Klint, Chaos No. 2 (1906)

Madeline Tietz-Sokolskaya

my voice

they say that

we each have a voice

and we do, but me?

it was given to me

but it wasn't mine

my voice was taken

by androgens

i didn't want

my vocal cords

stretched

thickened

last year my voice

became mine again

one teacher after another

showed me how to

make it work

raise the larynx

change the pitch

taking it as mine

means that I'm

a mezzo-soprano

who can also sing

with the baritones

link to video

---

Madeline Tietz-Sokolskaya is a poet, musician, engineer, and Quaker. She writes a blog that's ostensibly about tech, and she releases her music as Atomic Reeds. She lives in a Philadelphia suburb with her wife, their two kids, and three cats. She's proudly left-handed and trans, and will make sure you know this.

Group VI, Evolution No.13

Hilma af Klint, Group VI, Evolution No.13 (1908)

M. Brooke West

Of Crumpling the Leaves

Last season’s leaves, brown and

Decaying, wetly crumpling

Underfoot and burdened torso

Thick along the line of upward trail,

And then—

Sparse where the trees give way

To wind-swept grasses, and rocks,

And solitude, which is the only thing here

Not in danger of being swept away

But along the way, don’t we wish for, imagine,

Boughs of green shade,

Oaks leafed out in glossy points;

Maples with their soft silver undersides

A younger, springtime promise

Echoed by the brown memory underfoot

That, last autumn, with one brief gust of wind,

Or maybe just because it was time,

Released themselves

And fell, skittering, to form a blanket over Earth

For two girls to find on another unseasonably warm day

To sit upon, with the excuse of sandwiches

That are soon put aside, half-eaten

In favor

Of crumpling the leaves

Of brushing the brittle pieces out of tangled hair and dampened clothes

Only to be pushed and pulled down again and again

Covered and recovered, a resounding joy

Of kissing and kissing,

Of lifting of shirts

Of lifting of hips

Leaves sighing and exhaling and unfurling

And at last, into one another,

Crumpling.

---

M. Brooke West lives with her fiancée, child, and four cats in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, where she is a preschool teacher.

Altarpiece No. 1

Hilma af Klint, Altarpiece No. 1 (1915)