5 female singer-songwriters who put poetry into pop By Ryan Amato When you think of creative writing, chances are you don’t immediately think of music; but you’d be surprised that the same amount of creativity that goes into crafting the powerful metaphors and storylines that can be found in some of your favorite songs on… More Read Between The Lyrics
Review of Break It Down by Lydia Davis By Sam Bertolino “People did not know what she knew,” is often a line I pull apart and then pretend to understand. I’d like to sit down with Lydia Davis and ask her what she knows. But instead I’m inclined to sit here and read this line… More A Big Fish in a Little World
From Anna Zarra Aldrich The theme for this year’s Long River Review was “next, not now.” Throughout the course of this semester we discovered the various meanings of “next” and found that each of our definitions differed slightly, which is part of the beauty of working with a large editorial staff. For me, next was… More A Letter from the Editor: “Next not now”
But say I could repent, and could obtain, By act of grace, my former state; how soon Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feigned submission swore? Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow, Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep… More Loosie by Aner Bajraktarevic
I can feel my interior Rot I Swear I can feel the worms Maybe one day they’ll fall out of my belly button But for now they just turn up in my palms And i just… I just don’t know where to put them anymore. I can’t tell if people are tired of stepping over… More The Worms by Elliot Hopwood
i keep dating painters slash magicians. once, a tinder date painted a necklace of violets around my throat, a chain of unique design. i touched a petal and watched it fade and then return. i suppose the ink hadn’t dried yet. my upper lip a navy blue, blooming somberly. i wondered what method or brush… More Untitled by Lili Fishman
Could someone put me back where I belong? Little lady nesting doll, small and small and small and small and candy cane mouth, red curls and all round curves, sterile smirk lacquered slick with soft glint Take your pick from all sizes hollow on the inside fill it how you’d like, (I am painted, skin). … More Matryoshka by Theresa Legein
Morondava, 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the middle of November. Classes had just restarted a month ago, and I was already tired. Taking the same dusty, poorly paved road every day, enduring the sun’s oppressive heat starting at eight o’clock in the morning, endlessly breathing in the smell of my classmates with their grey shirts clinging to… More You’re leaving already? by Carrina Lacorata
Nasir has been banished from the apartment for waking Jida up from her nap. He steps outside onto the pine-needled concrete, grabs an old soccer ball from under the porch, chucks it into the woods. He is fed up with having to be quiet all the time. Fed up with his mother, who is always… More Guard Duty by Penina Beede