I am in an abusive relationship again. This morning was the first time it occurred to me to label it as such. Not a lover or husband, or friend, but the memoir. My own. A book I have been writing—too embarrassed to confess for how many years. And like one of these kinds of relationships, it’s been on again off again. I have finished a tweaked and polished draft, some of it quite good but there seems to be a problem. So, the other day I’m sitting in C’ville Coffee with Susan, Mitzi, and Nancy. … Continue reading Once Upon A Memoir by Trudy Hale→
When he woke it was with awareness that it was his birthday and thus with an ebullience lacking on most other days when waking and rising were almost painful, at least relative to the contoured comfort of the womb-like bed that held him gently and all but captive. The hardwood floors were cold in the new apartment, so when he entered the kitchen, bed-headed and still rubbing sleep from his eyes, he was sure to stand in the narrow slats of morning light that shone through the westerly wall’s window. She saw him, smiled … Continue reading Birthday Boys by Will Underland→
For your birth, metal instruments sing you and your fluorescent halo into being. At your baptism you are pressed by the hands of power into stale water against your will. This is your first day of school: sick with the bus’s diesel fumes, tripping on the toes of giants. For your wedding the family dynamite flies in. Their coat tails trail with thick fuses that you navigate in your blue shoes you keep your fire to yourself as hornets sleep in the palms of your roses. In midlife, your parents leave you in explosive fashion. … Continue reading Cursed by Tess Matukonis→
Cristina is an artist with an eye to humor, the ironic and social commentary. She started creating art for fun at the age of six, painting random objects and landscapes. Her early experience sparked a lifelong fascination with the visual world, a curiosity that continues today. Cartoons – from Disney’s Mickey Mouse and the Simpsons to Charlie Brown – colored Cristina’s childhood, “I spent countless hours immersed in these fantastical worlds which fueled my imagination and nurtured my sense of storytelling,” she says. “In fact, cartoons were a big part of how … Continue reading Cristina’s Pop Art→
We walked down this dusty canyon, where the rains have worn gashes in the gray banks like the creases that run from your cheek bones to your jaw line, Dad. Once you rowed us on a lake, squinting in reflected light, the muscles of your chest and arms fluid, your laughter again like cold water in my face. Then, only a boy, I wanted arms like yours. I even wanted a crease in my cheek. But when I leaned towards you, you shouted, “Sit down! What are you trying to do?” and I sat hunched … Continue reading Trails by Will Hemmer→
Avery Roche is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight’s 2024 Essay/Memoir Contest Pain. This is a word I am intimately familiar with. In fact, it is at the heart of my whole testimony. Everyone has their own unique relationship with pain. Their own horror stories. Their own way of surviving it. Some have been tossed deep into its depth. Some have been cut brushing along its sharp edges. Some have only gotten close by peering through a window into someone else’s suffering. Before, I might have claimed to understand pain. I might have said … Continue reading Stop Shivering by Avery Roche→
Jonathon Chibuike Uka is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2024 Poetry Contest My Sister’s Breakfast The things my sister eats for breakfast, eat me up when I think about them; five out of seven days in a week, she swallows a whole bottle of her reflection, ziggy-zagging shadows on the surface of the water, or in the sun, cast by the wind, which she drops beside her table, while her other hand picks up a granola of air. A large tray of selfies, mammoth lip-licking, and the bust of eyelashes at everyone are often … Continue reading My Sister’s Breakfast by Jonathon Chibuike Ukah→
Olivia Lee Stogner is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2024 Poetry Contest Where Horses Grow Tired of Running, Hadeel’s Story Today I went to fill up drinking water. My children are doing well.here. They are children who do not know what is going on around them.Dalia is only one month old. I walked a kilometer to reach the water place. It is not your fault. We are believers. We cannot change reality. This is beyond our capabilities.W We cannot say no to America, Europe, or Israel. There are superpowers and we have been oppressed– … Continue reading The Land Where Horses Grow Tired of Running, Hadeel’s Story by Olivia Lee Stogner→
The night was so quiet I could almost hear the stars, that place laden with pines. Your eyes hard to read across the air between us, air you swallowed whole with I’m sorry, I need more room. But I believe in gestures, in the plate of mandarinas served at dawn, when you knew I needed feeding. Linda Laino is a visual artist and writer who has been making art in one form or another for over forty-five years.She received two years of fellowship awards from the Virginia Museum in pursuit of an MFA from Virginia … Continue reading Mandarinas by Linda Laino→
Frankly, readers, Sharon and I were flabbergasted and at the same time gratified that Streetlight Magazine received one-hundred and nine entries to this year’s Poetry Contest. Talk about (early) summer reading! The average number of entries for the last four years (2020-2023) is sixty-one. I wonder why there were about three-quarters more poems this year than this average: we have added to the prize pot, have changed the time of year to open the submissions window, and we are beyond the angst of the pandemic panic. And maybe our reputation and readership are expanding. At … Continue reading In The River of Poetry: Contest Winners→
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