Yalobusha Review

08/24/2022

“here I am knocking on the door of the polly pocket house
like thwack thwack thwack, my hand ping ponging off the knocker
because it is all made of rubber! no one can hear me banging.
someone arrives and I enter. it is my best friend
and she is also a polly pocket, just like me. we have gooey shoes that make us tall!”

Read the rest of “pa-la-la-la,” Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo’s poignantly funny and powerfully affecting new poem, in our latest issue (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/gelfman-randazzo/) and at the link in our bio!

📸: Marina Leigh

08/10/2022

“Around a big full moon bonfire my girl’s dad asks my biggest fear. This is him trying to get to know me, I think, or he’s testing me. I’m not sure whether to answer honestly. Beneath his camo Stihl hat, I meet his eye, flickering amber. His face is my girl’s face, but bearded and sun-weathered. Same high cheekbones, same honey eyes, even the same shaggy slicked back haircut and denim shearling jacket.

Men in the woods, I answer him like a joke, the only way to say true things.

Another true answer would be: you.”

Read the rest of “Doe,” Alayna Becker’s simmering new story, in our latest issue (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/doe/ ) and at the link in our bio!

📸: Marina Leigh

07/13/2022

“The lust for meaning as the world ends?
Astonishing. Like the hunger for it
embarrassing almost.

Need for language,
closeness,
diets still.

Our air smells like rabbits now:
their fur fresh, eyes wide,
lips tucking.”

This is only the beginning of “When You Go, Can You Bring Me Back a Handful of Rain?” Read the rest of Aida Muratoglu’s moving, linguistically enthralling new poem here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/muratoglu/) and in our latest issue at the link in our bio!

📸 by Marina Leigh

06/29/2022

“Things, for now, feel OK. Comfortable: he waters the plants rotely, but pleasantly. But she’s long been afraid. Plants are precarious, finicky things—just when you think they are happiest, they begin to wilt. Three months ago, he told her he felt something was missing in his life, in their relationship, and her feet have felt eggshelled ever since. It has loomed over her, the Something. She wanted to scream, cry, pull herself apart: What is it that I don’t have, what is it that you need that I can’t provide?”

Read the rest of “Evergreen,” Hayden Casey’s smart, quietly thrilling new story, here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/evergreen/) and in our latest issue at the link in our bio!

📸 by Marina Leigh

06/22/2022

“We have gone into the light where no farmgrrl has ever been we

have gone into the light into the mouths of horses into fire-breathing

mouths of trumpets the sound of fluttering wingless shadows

our body has gone into the light & there we are an abyss without color

falling patchwork gardens past gates of fire

into where dreams form in birth clouds in co**se fire”

Experience the ever-changing form and dynamic stylistic range of “We Have Gone Into the Light Where No Farmgrrl Has Ever Been,” Brandi George’s astounding new poem poem, here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/george/) and at the link in our bio!

📸 by Marina Leigh

06/14/2022

“Who is I?

I is Cassava.

Before I name Cassava I name Michael. . . . Is only when I join The Earth People myself I realize how the state really target we and wanted to destroy we, people of the earth.”

Read the rest of “I, Cassava,” Akhim Alexis’s thrillingly suspenseful and profoundly original new story—and a finalist for the 2021 Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction—here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/i-cassava/) and at the link in our bio!

📸 by Marina Leigh

06/08/2022

“The characters who struggle the most, who feel the most shame and like they must apologize for their lives, are perhaps the ones who still have one foot in mainstream society or have constraints placed on them by the expectations of others.”

Read the rest of our interview with Elsa Nekola, winner of the 2020 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction and the author of SUSTAINABLE LIVING (from Willow Spring Books)! Don’t miss what this award-winning writer has to say about setting-focused, place-oriented writing; about what it means to exist along the fringes of oneself or of a place; about writing womanhood; and more! And learn more about Elsa and her debut story collection at https://www.elsanekola.com!

📸 by Marina Leigh

05/25/2022

“I blinked & nearly
missed it completely.

A skirmish under the overpass.
A film by Michelangelo Antonioni.

Green soda spilled from the window
of a yellow taxi.

Fire turned a forest into fire.
Mushrooms & duck fat congealed in a pan.”

In celebration of the publication of our latest issue, we’re here to remind you not to miss out on “The Holocene, with Figurative Language,” Matthew Tuckner’s sharp, mesmeric new poem and the winner of the 2022 Yellowwood Poetry Prize! Judge Paige Lewis says they “can’t wait for YR readers to discover this poem and experience [its] revelations”; check it out here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/tuckner/) and at the link in our bio!

YR 35 is live, y’all! Happy reading!

📸 by Marina Leigh

05/18/2022

05/18/2022

Issue 35 of Yalobusha Review is live! 🌷Alongside brilliant new fiction and poetry, YR:35 features the winner of the 2022 Yellowwood Poetry Prize Tuckner Matthew, a conversation with debut author Elsa Nekola, and photography by Marina Leigh. Explore the new issue in all its glory here: https://yr.olemiss.edu/issue/yr-35/

05/13/2022

“Albeit, the pale winter
cloisters the paper body
inside a house, careful frames
chaste and avoidant on the ice outdoors,
the cold beds this flesh envelope
all the same.”

Read the rest of “Raw,” Madeline Simms’s layered new poem, in our latest issue! Check it out here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/simms/) and at the link in our bio!

And ALSO! Prepare yourselves—because YR #35 launches NEXT WEEK! Come for Matthew Tuckner’s “The Holocene, with Figurative Language”—this year’s winner of the Yellowwood Poetry Prize—and stay for all the wonderfully experimental fiction and poetry you’ve come to expect!

Need another reason to check out our upcoming issue? Here is what Paige Lewis, who judged the Yellowwood Prize, had to say about Matthew’s poem: “After reading ‘The Holocene, with Figurative Language’ a dozen times, I’ve come to the realization that it’s possible to love each line of a poem equally. Every image is my favorite image. I can’t wait for Yalobusha Review readers to discover this poem and experience similar revelations.”

🎨 by Wyeth Studio

05/11/2022

“Once, the sky was scrubbed blue & you

carved a hole deep enough to hold

my ankles in. Back then, cherry blossoms

just everywhere. Flycatchers scissor-tailing

the glass of black rivers. Us, untangling

on a floor-bound bed, the sun rising

in dust. Now,

I’m interested in things I can fix

in one day. Peeling wallpaper. Smoothing over

scuffed floors. Chipped purple nailpolish.”

Read the rest of “Elegy with Forceps,” Amanda Gaines’s poignant new poem, in our latest issue! Check it out here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/gaines/) and at the link in our bio—and keep an eye out for a BIG announcement from us coming THIS Friday, May 13th!

Happy reading!

🎨 by Wyeth Studio

05/03/2022

Believe it or not, this is just one of Gabriella Graceffo’s fantastically one-of-a-kind poems in our latest issue! Read the other here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/graceffo/) and at the link in our bio!

🎨 by Wyeth Studio

04/26/2022

“the gleam i can’t
fence in i attract
with sidle and pail
pacifying that spotted
dog testing the rod
that straps his leash”

Read the rest of “The Milk Thief,” Joe Milazzo’s riveting new poem, in our latest issue here (https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/milazzo/) and at the link in our bio! And follow Joe on Tumblr (https://jrmilazzo.tumblr.com) and Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6473668.Joe_Milazzo)!

🎨 by Wyeth Studio

04/19/2022

“Lil should have said no to the snake. She should have told Flip to take it back to wherever he got it. She should have told him it was insane, a ten-foot snake in a one-bedroom apartment, worming its way into their couch cushions, tangling itself in their sheets. The snake was midnight-black, smelled of fish, of dried out grass, it moved across their kitchen floor with a violence, as thick around as her own thigh.

She should have said no, but she couldn’t.”

Read the rest of “Lovie,” Annie Vitalsey’s hauntingly resonant new short story, in our latest issue! Link in bio and below at: https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/lovie/

Art by Wyeth Studio

04/05/2022

“He remembers the oranges. Peels jutting. Skin-drenched. Skin tied. A knot
a kitchen, grime under the tiles. Grime
in Mother’s words. They were coming

for the stones, Mother said. They were coming—“

Read the rest of “Orange-Peeled Laments,” Kan Ren Jie’s fantastically experimental new poem, in our latest issue! Link below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/kan/

🎨: Wyeth Studio

03/30/2022

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2022 YELLOWWOOD POETRY PRIZE CLOSE TOMORROW! Don’t miss out on this contest, poets! We’re so excited to read your work! And so is our incredible judge—Paige Lewis!

Link to submit is in bio and below!

https://yalobushareview.submittable.com/submit

03/22/2022

“Last night I dreamed I tried to walk a tiger on a leash. On the light rail to work I still feel the tug of the great cat, my stomach resisting the forward momentum as the train car lurches past tarp-covered tents, piled-up bicycle wheels, a woman on a curb petting the head of a hairless dog next to possessions or trash.

Across from me, a small girl with damp lips and chubby legs sits sideways to face her big sister.

‘Can I kiss you?’ she asks her sister.

‘No, you can just touch me.’”

Read the rest of “What World, What Things,” Gillian Leichtling’s story of grief and sisterhood, in our latest issue! Link below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/what-world-what-things/

🎨: Wyeth Studio

03/15/2022

“A recent season of dreams has made it clear /
that I prefer a hellscape where I understand the rules /
to a paradise where I do not.”

Don’t forget to submit to the 2022 Yellowwood Poetry Prize! Submissions close on March 31 (in just a little over two weeks)!

And check out the rest of “Disorder,” the 2021 winner by Erica Reid, at the link below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/reid/

03/08/2022

“un be k now nst a st ash
un der the rug a reg
ular abomi nat i on

on ly a car to on mi rage
or st raw to break the came l
out back be hind the slid ing frame

if th is point an dc lick fame
is raz or jaw or in stag ram par
iah (par cel & par ty) towhat”

Read the rest of “After Christopher Wool, Untitled, 1991,” R.J. Lambert’s (rj-lambert.com) upending new poem, in our latest issue! Link in bio and below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/lambert/

🎨: Wyeth Studio

03/02/2022

The annual Yellowwood Poetry Prize is open for submissions. Link in bio to submit!

03/01/2022

“When Helen struck Hector down in her private chambers, she felt her heart lift out of her chest in a way it hadn’t since Paris had lifted her out of her window, back in Sparta, back when she was a child.”

Read the rest of “Imposter Syndrome,” Lizzie Frank’s breathless retelling of the story of the Trojan War, in our latest issue! Link in bio and below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/imposter-syndrome/

🎨: Wyeth Studio

02/23/2022

“I’m playing guitar and everyone hates it. / And everyone hates me. / And they want me to live a long and painful life.”

Read the rest of “Quality Check,” Nate Hoil’s wrenching new poem, in our latest issue! Link in bio and below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/hoil/

🎨: Wyeth Studio

02/15/2022

“Whatever happened, she had done something. She had not moped or lingered passively on what if’s and regrets. She had, in some way, moved her own life forward.

Wasn’t that the point?”

Read the rest of “Leo Season,” Leah Yacknin-Dawson’s captivating new story and the runner-up for the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction (as judged by award-winning novelist Raven Leilani), in our latest issue! Link in bio and below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/leo-season/

🎨: Wyeth Studio

02/08/2022

“You were doctor: I doctor
Myself. I doctorly decorum.
Was there a day you chose
to reach into your core
and make it new?”

Read the rest of “Dear Saint Theresa,” one of Katherine Franco’s two new poems in our latest issue, at the link in our bio or at the link below!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/franco/

📸: Wyeth Studio

02/01/2022

“Because it’s easier, you’ll forgo your glasses. It shocks people who know you, the shape of your eyes and the bridge of your nose, as if correctional lenses are as good as blindfolds. And people who don’t know you?”

Read the rest of “20/20,” Rucy Cui’s Barry Hannah Prize-winning short story, in our latest issue! Judge Raven Leilani calls it “[a]n absolute joy to read”—so you know it’s good!

📸 by Wyeth Studio

01/25/2022

“I think about . . . how the rules of the form break down as we get deeper into the anguish found in that particular poem. The form breaks down as the speaker breaks down.”

To celebrate last week’s release of our latest issue—and the recent release of his debut poetry collection—be sure to check out our interview with poet and COME CLEAN author Joshua Nguyen! And don’t miss the thirteen fantastic poets and fiction writers who have contributed to YR 34 and who we’ll be highlighting in the weeks to come! Read our interview with Joshua below; link for our latest issue in bio!

https://yr.olemiss.edu/piece/chaotic-order/

📸: Elisa Fuhrken

01/18/2022

Issue 34 of Yalobusha Review is live! 🎉 Along with stunning new fiction and poetry, YR:34 features the winner of the 2021 Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction (Rucy Cui), a conversation with poet and debut author Joshua Nguyen, and art by Wyeth Studio! Check out the new issue at the link in our bio for some spectacular new writing by:

Lizzie Frank
Leah Yacknin-Dawson
Gillian Leichtling
Annie Vitalsey
Kan Ren Jie
R.J. Lambert
Gabriella Graceffo
Amanda Gaines
Joe Milazzo
Katherine Franco
Nate Hoil
Madeline Simms

Special thanks to Raven Leilani for judging the 2021 Barry Hannah Prize and for bringing her literary brilliance to this issue!

01/14/2022

Congratulations to writer Rucy Cui, the winner of the 2021 Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction judged by . You can read Rucy’s stunning story “20/20” in the new Fall/Winter issue of Yalobusha Review when it launches next week 🎉