Yvette Johnson

Yvette Johnson is the author of three chapbooks. Her poems can be found in the DMQ Review, Glitter Pony, Chaparral and Bateau. Work is forthcoming in Octopus and Lines + Stars. Thanks to poet Claudia Handler for the notes.

John Stovall

STUCK

| couldn't get the tape

           

off the bottom the door

wedged shut from the inside, even

that | couldn't shake loose in the back the drawer

caught on itself wouldn't open

everything was in there  my shoes, my keys, my word, my

dark secrets | was ready to free,

light, burdens, potency, exceptions, fucking

hammer, my out, my there, my analogue,

my

analogue's analogue, the reception, and the receiving, the deceiving

was in here how many corners were there

on all the surfaces forced to stay still

| moved, finding a familiar place in this

world of closets and rooms.

John Stovall has a B.A. in English from the University of Georgia. He curated the Dog Ear Poetry Series, was the Editorial Assistant at Verse, and is currently working on a series of "poems of addiction." John currently resides in Athens, GA and is the Assistant Editor at the Public School Risk Institute.

Monica Mody

from THE LOVE BOOK

A flower burst in my head speaking in a fever tone. “Fever,” flower said, sobbing from the deepest gifted source. “I miss your far-fetched
report.” Rainbow from deep-love singing & singing. In deep-love we sang from a broken bowl. In deep-love our bowl misted many times over.
O deep-love o deep-love you sound like a rubbed blaze. Rave, a bloodless rave, with a-nus for lips, red-tinged, tinged red until headlights shone in its heart. Its heart sang & it reached for lungs
to laugh their way to martyrdom. A peacock ran with his wolf to the top of the pack. I swear my pack lay flung to the core. Lay flung to
the side of the dazzle. Misty blue sky that fills my lungs until my
lungs breathe, until the lungs breathing fetched a love in their 
midst. My love spoke of so much. Hey bonnie bonnie, red ribbon pabst blue plunking at my heart. You called for a prayer-shaped hull and I crashed into you, head bent, legal only unto you. Tender rights
intact. Tack-tacking out of my teeth, snar-gum fitting its way into my heart. My love My love: this is how you came through. Like a lap // 
like a wave // like a slap // like a slave: I hear water dribbling
into your head. Must it always end so in // dread? A crack of thunder
righted itself.

Monica Mody's work was featured in the Boston Review Poet's Sampler (introduced by Joyelle McSweeney) and has also appeared in West Wind
Review, Nether, Cannot Exist, Compost, horse less review, and apocryphal text, among other journals. She is the author of a 
chapbook, Travel & Risk, from Wheelchair Party, and has a book
 forthcoming in Fall 2012 from 1913 Press.