Feminism

In a photograph taped to the wall of my room, my mother is running through sand, emerging from water. Her left arm is lifted, blurred, as she sweeps hair from…

Snow Days. They’re legendary. Mythical. Great, white unicorns or whales we chase in our sleep, wake up wishing we had caught or had caught us in the eye of their…

In 1992, a twelve year old boy rented a movie from his local Blockbuster which featured a blonde cheerleader who also happened to be a vampire slayer. I had fantastic…

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains. —Rosa Luxemburg I do believe there might be ways in language to express the extreme, the fleeting, the fugitive states that…

Judy Garland’s ruby slippers as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 Wizard of Oz. Photographed by Kevin Burkett.    When my niece was eight, I took her shopping to buy new…

Featherbone by Erica Mena Ricochet Editions, 2015 56 pages, 2015 – Ricochet / Amazon   What is your interpretation of the Icarus myth? Do you see it as a tragedy of…

Transitory Poetics  is a monthly review series by Toby Altman focused solely on current and upcoming chapbooks. You can read the introduction here.   This month I reviewed three chapbooks from Projective Industries: Kate Schapira’s Someone…

I sit down to write an essay about contemporary poetic performance and I am in the kitchen with my roommate Brendan. He is a white cis hetero Canadian male. Yesterday…

“Wear red,” we were told. The occasion was the memorial for and celebration of Candida Royalle, the “Grace Kelly of porn,” who not only was an iconic sex goddess—beginning her…

1. Paper Girls (No. 1, Oct 2015, Image) – Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang & Matt Wilson All kinds of awesome, Paper Girls has quickly made it onto the top…

1. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (No. 4, June 2015, Marvel) – Ryan North, Erica Henderson & Rico Renzi Neck and neck with Nick Spencer’s Ant-Man, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is…

Dorothy Iannone: You Who Read Me With Passion Now Must Forever Be My Friends by Dorothy Iannone Siglio Press, 2015 320 pages – Siglio / Amazon   Dorothy Iannone: You Who Read…

I was, and often still am, made ashamed for not being “manly” enough. It happens less than when I was younger, but back in high school I wore tight pants,…

In a year of rampant misogyny and cringe-inducing comment threads, comic books have surprisingly been one of the most welcoming places to find respite from the deluge of daily sexual…