Frequent WIZ contributor Karen Kelsay’s new book of poetry, Lavender Song, is out and available for sale here. Karen’s formalist poetry is a well-kept garden of lovely sensibilities. For samples of her work published on WIZ, go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Writers: The deadline for Torrey House Press’s creative non-fiction contest is [...]
While WIZ loves poetry and heartily encourages poets to continue sending their nature-romancing verse, it’s perhaps time to follow nature’s own example of protean morphologies and bring more rhetorical diversity to the site. Hence, WIZ is issuing a call for short, creative non-fiction and fiction pieces. If you have a nature-oriented essay or field notes [...]
Like most folks, my husband, kids, and I greet spring’s arrival with relief. The relaxing of winter’s grip, the first crack of color between sepals clutching flower buds, the sun’s liberating warmth all lighten the load my family balances gingerly as we carry it through winter’s dimly-lit cellars. But as daylight’s gold, pink or orange [...]
Coming soon to a mailbox (or computer) near you: Dialogue’s environmental issue. Several Wilderness Interface Zone contributors are included therein–congratulations, friends! Frequent WIZ contributor Steven Peck guest edited this issue.
Table of contents:
Page Author Title
Mary Toscano Front Cover
Inside Cover, Title Page
v Edwin Firmage, Jr. Letters
1 Steven L. Peck Why [...]
Every year an old friend and I undertake an adventure. H. and I are middle-aged now. Past our prime and youth when our adventures were bolder and more carefree. I can remember when we then, full of laughter, took his new pickup and rubbed its shiny sides against aspens for luck while searching out some [...]
While we’re teetering on the very edges of our seats gripping our arm rests watching the heated race for the Most Popular Poem Award, I have a few announcements I’d like to make.
Come slip between atmospheres of memory.
Knead yourself into cumulus—your airline ticket,
your pushbike, your liahona—with fingers like
the fingers of Doré’s sun. Sift marrow
until you feel soil part, feel the fern press its head
through mist then flatten against sudden emptiness.
Until you can roam sky without tripping on God’s
hem, can cloak in light
without singeing every shadow to ash, [...]
Through the window, peaks,
Which to me indoors reveal
The gradient climb ahead.
Stretched muscle fibers
And in my mind, firmness found,
A peak’s vision forth.
But I stand from within an imbedded circle,
And just as sure as the front lawn sidewalks,
So do the ideals of the circle.
From the center to primavera’s fields
The ideals fruition could perpetuate,
But between, the concrete drowns,
Are [...]
Five hours feeling happiness
I have been walking for five hours.
I got off the subway five hours ago.
I kept on walking with the city on my back
Streets becoming tracks
Tracks becoming old dry creeks
Creeks steep
Climbing to the top of one
Then making my way back
Five hours feeling happiness.
Five hours getting numb
Five hours leaving real life down there in [...]
I know this sounds stupid but but
I can’t help it
It is good for my health
My mental health
You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?
The range goes deep into the horizon
It’s been snowing for days
I’m cold comfortable cold
Nobody was coming on the track
It was only me
White to both my sides
White front
White back
Light
I keep following the track
I keep [...]