Harp & Altar
POETRY
Cynthia Arrieu-King is an assistant professor of creative writing at Stockton College. Her book People Are Tiny  in Paintings of China will be published by Octopus Books in 2010.

Ana BoΕΎičević was born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1977. She emigrated to New York in 1997. Stars of the Night Commute (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009) is her first book of poems. Her fifth chapbook, Depth Hoar, will be published by Cinematheque Press in 2010. With Amy King, she co-curates the Stain of Poetry reading series in Brooklyn. She works at the Center for the Humanities of the Graduate Center, CUNY, and lives in Huntington, N.Y.

 

Edmond Caldwell writes fiction and drama, and lives in Boston. His work has appeared in DIAGRAM, SmokeLong Quarterly, Word Riot, 3:AM Magazine, Sein und Werden, among others, and his short play, “The Liquidation of the Cohn Estate,” was produced in the 2009 Boston Theater Marathon. “Return to the Chateau” is a chapter from his novel-in-stories, Human Wishes.

 

Susan Daitch is the author of two novels, L.C. (Lannan Foundation Selection and NEA Heritage Award) and The Colorist, and a collection of short stories, Storytown. Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, The Brooklyn Rail, Bomb, Ploughshares, Failbetter, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Fiction. Her novel The Dreyfus Book will be published by City Lights later this year. She can be found at www.susandaitch.com.

 

Luca Dipierro is a writer, visual artist, and filmmaker born in Italy and living in Brooklyn. His short stories have been published in New York Tyrant, Lamination Colony, Gigantic, Everyday Genius, No Colony, and elsewhere. His latest films are the documentaries I Will Smash You and 60 Writers/60 Places, and the full-length cut-out animation Dieci Teste. His art has been exhibited in galleries in the U.S. and Italy. Luca’s website is www.lucadipierro.com. For some biscotti go to blackbiscotti.blogspot.com. His life is based on a true story.

 

Brandon Downing’s books include Lake Antiquity (Fence, 2009), Dark Brandon (Faux Press, 2005), and The Shirt Weapon (Germ, 2002). Dark Brandon: Eternal Classics was released on DVD in 2007.  Photographic work can be seen at www.brandondowning.org, while recent video projects can be found at www.youtube.com/user/bdown68.

 

Farrah Field’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many publications, including Mississippi Review, Typo, Pool, La Petite Zine, Ekleksographia, Effing Magazine, and Ploughshares. Rising, her first book of poems, won Four Way Books’ 2007 Levis Prize. She lives in Brooklyn and blogs at adultish.blogspot.com.

 

Craig Foltz is a multimedia artist and writer whose work has appeared in Chicago Review, Octopus, Ninth Letter, and others. His first book of poetry, The States, is out from Ugly Duckling Presse. He currently lives and works on the slopes of a dormant volcano in New Zealand. Critical Focus? Depends. Mist? Well, of course. More info: www.craigfoltz.com.

 

A.D. Jameson is a writer, video artist, teacher, and performer. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Fiction International, The Brooklyn Rail, Mississippi Review Online, elimae, Caketrain, PANK, Mad Hatters’ Review, Action, Yes, and elsewhere. He has two books forthcoming later this year: a novel, Giant Slugs, from Lawrence & Gibson, and a prose collection, Amazing Adult Fantasy, from Mutable Sound. In his spare time he contributes to the group literary blog Big Other.

 

Matthew Kirkpatrick’s writing has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Conjunctions, PANK, Action, Yes, and Hobart, among other journals. He lives in Salt Lake City where he is working on a PhD in literature and creative writing. He co-edits Barrelhouse and can be found on the internet at www.mattkirkpatrick.com.

 

Matthew Klane is co-editor and founder of Flim Forum Press. His book is B______ Meditations (Stockport Flats, 2008). Recent work can be found online at Absent, Open Letters Monthly, Otoliths, and Word For/Word. He currently lives and writes in Iowa City.

 

Patrick Morrissey’s poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, New American Writing, Typo, and Tarpaulin Sky, and his chapbook Transparency was published by Cannibal Books in 2009. His critical writing has previously appeared in Harp & Altar. He lives in New York.

 

Michael Newton’s gallery reviews appear regularly in Harp & Altar.

 

Michael O’Brien is the author of Sleeping & Waking (Flood Editions, 2007) and Sills: Selected Poems 1960-1999 (Salt Publishing, 2009). He lives in New York.

 

Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi received her MFA in fiction from Brown University. Her work is forthcoming or can be found in Sleepingfish, Paul Revere’s Horse, Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics, Encyclopedia Vol. 2 (F-K), and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems (Wave Books, 2008). She lives in Providence and teaches literature and creative writing at Rhode Island School of Design.

 

Alejandra Pizarnik was born in Buenos Aires in 1936. She studied philosophy and literature at the University of Buenos Aires and later pursued interests in painting and religion. Her books include the poetry collections Works and Nights, Extraction of the Stone of Folly, and The Musical Inferno, as well as the prose work The Bloody Countess. In 1969 she was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, and in 1971 a Fulbright scholarship. She died in 1972 of a drug overdose.

 

Brett Price is an editor of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, and Light Industrial Safety and the author of Trouble With Mapping (Flying Guillotine, 2008), a chapbook. He lives and writes in Brooklyn.

 

Jason Stumpf is the author of A Cloud of Witnesses (forthcoming from Quale Press). He is also the translator of Aurora by Pura Lopez-Colome and The moon ain’t nothing but a broken dish by Luis Felipe Fabre. He is on the faculty of the Walnut Hill School for the Arts.

 

Jared White’s chapbook Yellowcake was included in the hand-sewn anthology Narwhal from Cannibal Books. He has recently published in Coconut, Laurel Review, and Boog City, with other work forthcoming in Action, Yes. His essays have appeared in past issues of Harp & Altar, as well as Open Letters Monthly, and he blogs irregularly at jaredswhite.blogspot.com. He lives in Brooklyn near two bridges.

 


 
Glossary of Terms Needing Further Clarification
Matthew Kirkpatrick

AA: Ascending the Allegheny Mountains. Sitting by a window in Noah’s Ark, formerly the S.S. Grand View Point Hotel, looking out over the valley, able to spot seven counties and three states.

AA: Alcoholics Anonymous is founded on June 10, 1935.

AA: Cracked glass and vines and twenty pink leather cocktail chairs on their sides. A blue vase, a curtain. A shredded curtain.

AA: On July 1, 1979, he forces himself head first down an eight-inch wide hole in the backyard of his aging mother and father. Like a worm he pushes first his head and then his body into the earth and slithers into darkness.

AA: Here he enjoys his last drink on June 10, 1978.

AA: Competes on television game shows and eats adult foods to the astonishment of audiences.

AA: Ends career by demonstrating a one-handed bra unhooking on a morning talk show.

AA: On July 1, 1981.

AA: Ascending the Allegheny Mountains at night. No radio stations, only the sound of no one speaking. Only broken light from headlights passing and the dashboard. Make this night forever.

AAA: The American Association of Aphorisms is founded on July 10, 1950. Lost time is never found again. A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

AAA: The American Association of Advertising Agencies is founded on July 10, 1917.

AAA: The American Automobile Association is founded on June 4, 1902, in Cleveland, OH, and is responsible for the invention of.

AAA: Headlights around a traffic circle. A faint and distant ring system. A circle of cigarettes smoked. An empty cup coffee-stained brown.

AAA: A misplaced folder of photographs.

AAA: The Agricultural Adjustment Act of June 12, 1933, restricted farmers by reducing them, cropping them to raise their surplus value, thereby relative farmers.

AAAA: Smaller than AAA.

AAAA: He did ask her to dance and she did say no. It is more complicated. He sees her first at an all-ages punk show at the Ebensburg Pennsylvania Fire Hall. She is wearing a tight black dress and smiles at him, lifting the edge of her hem to reveal the top of her thigh-high black and white striped tights. Her hair is bleached and straight. She looks like a hot witch.

AAAAA: Ascend the mountain.

Aircraft Carriers: A unique aircraft carrier.

Airships: Rigid airships. Shenandoah (crashed), R38 (crashed), Los Angeles (decommissioned), Akron (crashed), Macon (crashed).

Akron, OH: On June 12, 1978, the “City of Angels” burned to the reduction of artificial application of water to the soil.

Akron, OH: Forty miles east of Akron, OH, in a forest on a hill.

Akureyri: Show me cold water flowing and

Alan Alda: Badly burned on June 1, 1980, while freebasing cocaine.

Alan Alda: A sinkhole opens in a valley to one black cavern glistening. Cold black water glistens.

Altoona, PA: The demand for locomotives during the Civil War stimulated much of this growth, and by the later years of the war, a valuable city. Downtown Altoona is notable for having several churches. Crumble into dust. See also Robitussin.

Ann Arbor Railroad: Founded on June 1, 1997, the Ann Arbor Railroad is the largest in the United States and connects the towns.

Amusements: An empty box falls from the top of a dresser. Frays of paper like streamers fall from the box onto the floor. Below the floor a single bent nail falls from a floor joist onto the basement floor.

Archaeopteryx: The First Bird.

Athletics: Despite being a goth she is an excellent synchronized swimmer.

BB: He asks her to dance but she keeps singing, the tips of her fingers on the edge of her hem.

BB: The world's first uniformed youth organization.

BB: Combines drills and fun activities with values. Habits of obedience, reverence, discipline, self-respect towards projectiles. After the birdshot pellet of approximately the same size.

BB: Four teacups full of dirt stacked in a row on a wooden shelf, a bare brick wall behind them.

BB: Strategic trackage in Central Virginia.

B and B: Equal parts Benedictine and cognac. Founded on June 25, 1924, with offices in Liberty, Salisbury, and Fulton.

BBB: A defect heart’s membranic conduction system structure which acts primarily to protect the blood brain from brain chemicals in the blood a defect of the heart's electrical conduction system.

BBB: Founded on June 25, 1912. Not a government but an effective network undertaking long distance migrations. Many more perform shorter irregular movements. Communicates using signals, including cooperative breeding and mobbing of predators. Usually, disputes can be resolved through mediation; the vast majority are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season, sometimes for years.

BBB: Rarely for life.

BBB: Columns, a car, a broom.

BBB: Others have breeding systems that are polygynous (“many females”) or, rarely, polyandrous (“many males”). Complaints about the practice of professions like medicine, law and accounting are usually not handled by eggs laid in a nest and often incubated. The organization’s dispute resolution procedures are established by a council of locals, and implemented by locals. When appropriate, low or no-cost arbitration may also be offered and provided by regulating associations.

Barberry: A flowering shrub.

Bee: A fundamental light system is a modern aircraft in that it controls the navigation.

Bird: Somewhere.

Bird: Cage wires and falls through trees, falling, shattering.

Bramble: On their backs in the warm sand looking at the night sky he touches her hand.

Brine: Analyses using high-spatial-resolution hyperspectral imaging. Damaged concrete.

Bulldozer: Breaking curfew they drive deep into the sinking valley, the ground rolling like soft waves of water. Gentle motion.

Business: Popular railroading marvel. In 1986, high on Robitussin, three teenagers manage to derail a train by removing a section of track with crowbars.

CC: A pool of light gathers in the gray space.

CC: Everything has turned to dust.

CCC: Prepaid cellphone, a box of lawnmower parts, a bag of live crickets, cricket habitat.

CCC: Resembles the source of a large, steep sided far side. Is an opening.

Cambria: Fantasy Forest, Storybook Forest, Fairytale Forest, Forest Zoo, The Fairytale Tavern, Fantasy Mountain Cocktail Lounge, The Forest Lounge. The Old Woman’s Shoe Cocktail Lounge and Inn. Gas station shaped like tea kettle. Gas station shaped like elephant. Wooden teeth museum. Elephant collectable museum. Taxidermy museum. Hotel shaped like ark. Bar shaped like old woman’s shoe. Hotel built inside railroad caboose. Convenience stores.

Cambridge, MA: A private institution of higher learning in Cambridge, MA. Also: Ex-Junkie (one dog). Fifteen active junkies crowded into a bungalow (dog lovers, but no dog). Six junkies, three dogs, nightly bonfires, a jeep.

Cleveland, OH: Cleveland, OH, was the site of the first nuclear detonation on July 16, 1945.

Crack Lung: Symptoms include numbness and burning and waking at night. Can be managed effectively with night-time wrist splinting. The index finger, the middle finger, the ring finger, the thumb, the little finger. Sometimes the palm. Sometimes other fingers as well.

Crickets: Somewhat have bodies. Insects somewhat related to grasshoppers and more closely related to katydids or. Somewhat have flattened bodies. Crickets in a cricket habitat chirp pleasant cricketing all night and bring the deepest sleep.

Crickets: Invention of beer. Invention of zipper. First known baseball. First steam ferry. Demonstration of steam locomotive. First electrified commuter train. Invention (accidental) of soft ice cream. First automated parking garage. First sandwich restaurant. First public central air conditioning. First wireless phone system. Invention of toast. Invention of oranges. Invention of the color orange. Home of the waffle cone. Here on a hill he asks her to marry him. A cricket pleasant on his leg. The hazy sky. Neither of them actually tremble. Sunbathers bathe on every green inch. So many they could walk across the river, sailboat to sailboat. The elderly and infirm drop dead.

CWRY: Main office in Wilroy.

D: Founded in June.

D: The trunk of an abandoned Buick full of bungee cords and jumper cables and ten feet of thick chain and two old tires shredded into thin strips of rubber ignites.

D: We sit in the car in darkness and wait.

DD: Founded in 1951.