Burn by Chloe Chun Seim
Saturday morning. Hours before you’re due for your sister’s college volleyball game, before either you or your mother shuffle out of bed and greet the mildew and cigarette smoke layering your apartment. The doorbell comes to you first as a wren’s warble in your dream...
The Play of History, the Panorama of Modern Life by David Salner
Review of William Heath’s Steel Valley Elegy https://kelsaybooks.com/products/steel-valley-elegyKelsay Books (2022), $19 William Heath’s new book is an encouragement to look outward, at the play of history and the panorama of modern life. Often hard-boiled, the poems...
My Cousin Ruth by Marlene Olin
February, 2017. We’re sitting at a swank, expense account kind of restaurant. I’m in D.C. for the AWP conference and visiting my cousin is an added perk. Since I’m stranded at the downtown Marriott, Ruth has come to me. Once her father worked with mine building...
SYLVIA JONES ON VOICE / PERSONA: FICTIVE DOTS SLIDING ACROSS THE SUN
My poetics are grounded in a spirit of inquiry and dishevelment that speaks to my affinity for language, speech, and the many vastitudes of voice. Spiritually, I’m always quoting from the John Ashbery poem, “But What Is the Reader to Make of This?” (A Wave 52): Those...
Katrin Arefy: Reflections
Friday, February 11th The piece has a quality of an unfinished work, almost dirty, almost messy, that makes it raw and vulnerable. The unpolished quality brings me closer to the artist. It’s like having a coffee with the master in his pajamas and robe. This strike the...
THE HOPE PROJECT by Martina Reisz Newberry
for David Fite I like to think that the January muse is waiting for me–it is nearly the new year. I have, in the past, imagined that this musewould clear a path on my chaotic desktop(with its ever-present veneer of dust), placed a new journal open tothe first blank...
Place by Alexis Ivy
Spent three years with a viewof the reservoir, the train wakingme and the sun waking me, nakedand no one sees. I'll missthe brass-gate do-it-yourselfelevator. Fifth floor, end of the hall,my door, crooked somehow,I added a lock to that door.Just one bolt wasn't...
Amy Bagwell’s Ode to 2020
are these early bumblebees mating? no. they’re dyingof thirst I learn when I forget not to look anything upuntil this long year of universal hallucination is donewith us. ready with eggs these queens wake from winterwith the first flowers. they must find nectar and...
Book Launch!
We're back to readings! If you're in Philly, check out the witchy launch of Christina Rosso's short story collection CREOLE CONJURE (Maudlin House). Featuring readings by Nick Gregorio, Rachel O-Hanlon-Rodriguez, & Galileo Press author Tara Stillions Whitehead....
Looking for the Owl by Scott King
It's the sky above me in the branches,the suspending, run-on branches,holding the moment still.There is no face, only breath and fog.I look up. It's almost morning.There are no sounds except the sounds of the city waking--car doors, engines, a distant dog.Two mornings...
About Me
Free State Review is a literary journal that comes out every 8 months. Want to know what we're into? Peruse our site and/or order a copy, then hit us up!Recent Issue
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Issue 15 $10.61