What’s Worthy “A man is only as good as his word,” my father used to say and I’ve tried to live up to that—even now I hate telling the smallest, inconsequential lie. In a scene from How Green Was My Valley one of the coalminer’s sons says to his coalminer father “If manners prevent us from speaking the truth, then we will be without manners” and I like to think my days of being without has been bountiful, despite some missteps my father must have committed too. On the whole, my father would have been … Continue reading What’s Worthy and Hue, 2 poems by Tim Suermondt→
Nancy Ludmerer is the 1st place winner of Streetlight‘s 2020 Flash Fiction Contest The Lubavitch Hasidim are sending two teen volunteers to spend time with our daughter. I resist at first, but Mattie’s Special Ed teacher explains that it’s a mitzvah for the girls, who are sixteen—a special program started by a rabbi’s wife. She says I should let them come; it might be good for Mattie. She hasn’t seen Mattie smile in the eight months since her mom died. If Kayla were alive, she would have fumed: “We’re not religious. What will they … Continue reading Mayim by Nancy Ludmerer→
It is no easy task to provide a peek into a textured world, with backstory, present and possibility —in only five hundred words. The writers who submitted to our Flash Fiction Contest took on the challenge and we are so grateful they did. The first prize goes to Mayim by Nancy Ludmerer, a story that has history, loss and a beautiful splash of hope. Next to Godliness by Sheila Longton pulls back the curtain on dual childhood tragedies and Self, Expression by Annie Holzman reveals the loneliness of the last chapter. On behalf of Suzanne … Continue reading Flash Fiction Contest Winners by Erika Raskin→
I bought black flowers today. Black Satin petunias. And they really are black. Like the shadows of petunias. My wife says I bought them because I’m in love with death. I say I bought them because they’re unusual, and we’ve never had black flowers before. Besides black is my favorite color and has been since I was a kid, since I asked my Russian grandfather what his favorite color was, and he said it was black because black was God’s favorite color. He said even after God created light and all the colors of the … Continue reading Black Satin Petunias by J.R. Solonche→
Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. Simone Weil Love is not merely an emotion. It is a meltdown that reestablishes a more unified space of brilliance, goodness, and sadness. This is the real function of love in spiritual tradition. Lama Lodro Dorje Last week, the week before my last semester of university teaching (online, in an unprecedented pandemic), I had the most extraordinary experience with a stranger that I have ever had in my long life. I was nervous as always about the semester starting, but extra nervous because of what that last full-time teaching … Continue reading The Enormous Gift by Laura Marello→
which birds are out? you can count on your favorite ones, usually some finches here—-they arrive all-colored by the thicket from other people’s timbered properties & short-lived playgrounds, when it will smell like honeysuckle, you can count on that Colin Webb is a native of Baltimore, Md. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in White Wall Review, Apeiron Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, and elsewhere, and he has been a finalist for The Arch Street Prize. Follow us!
Carol Jeffers is an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2020 Essay/Memoir Contest “Stephanie wanted you to have her eyes,” her sister Susie said. “Please say you’ll take them.” That was in 2018, the second time she died. *** Seven years earlier, the blips on the monitor flat-lined, the alarm went off. The ICU team flew into action. Gloved hands thumped her chest, injected epinephrine, jolted her silent heart. Seconds ticked by. Minutes. Stephanie’s soul was suspended, a chrysalis dormant among the milkweeds. She languished between the light and the dark. That was the first time my … Continue reading A Sign by Carol Jeffers→
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Many readers may feel that the disrupting Covid-19 pandemic has changed poetry and more broadly the arts, forever. This may be true as many activities are now on-line and the usual ways of interaction have been altered. I see an unprecedented (yes, that word) out-pouring of mass fear, anger, and angst. It must be said that several other concerns are simultaneously occurring in our country; the destruction of our democracy by incompetence and cruelty and the renewed concern for racial/social justice, sparked by police corruption and a militaristic mentality. … Continue reading Pestilence Poetry by Fred Wilbur→
The following is a conversation with Karin Cecile Davidson, whose first novel, Sybelia Drive, is being published this fall by Braddock Avenue Books (October 6th). Sybelia Drive is a Vietnam-era novel that tells the coming-of-age story of brother and sister Lulu and Saul, and their friend Rainey, who lives with them as a de facto sister while her absent mother seeks the dubious rewards of a Gypsy Rose Lee-type fame and fortune. In a lush but depressed lake town of Florida, family members and townsfolk take turns filling in their own stories, as well as … Continue reading Turmoil and Languor: Messing Up the Quiet, Nancy Zafris Interviews Karin Cecile Davidson→
The Day His Dad Died for PK The phone rings and the news swells and pitches like a sleeper tossing on his thin mattress of goodbyes. Your father lay down, jabbed his pale finger into the belly of air, which for him disappeared into the bright lamp in the ER. You should have never seen his face that an orderly pulled from a drawer, his head propped on a brick, eyelids drooped above his reaped eyes. Listen to him sway away from the sky overhead, trying one last time to kick through the brambles … Continue reading The Day His Dad Died and Vault, 2 poems by Connie Wasem Scott→
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