A Literary Magazine Sponsored by The University of Maine at Farmington
By M. F. Charles Winner Takes All – a Haiku Racing and dodgingred fox and rabbit runeach one for life. First Light, Last Cuppa Its orange pekoe … Continue Reading “Winner Takes All”, “First Light, Last Cuppa”, “From Above”, “A Hot Iowa Afternoon”, and “Taking Himself for a Bit of Exercise”
By Kelly Erin Gray Date Night Jamie was rolling a lone meatball around her plate when another couple was seated nearby. “What do you think?” Jack asked, pointing with … Continue Reading “Date Night”
By Joan Mazza A Poet’s Home Oak floorboards speckled with leaf litter empty rooms echo with each step, wait for books, furniture, art. Walking on this wooded property, … Continue Reading “A Poet’s Home” and “What are you doing this evening?”
By Trapper Markelz When It Happens I watch for sharks,but it’s the swimming that could take them out beyond a double darewhere feet touch sand in flinching spray. … Continue Reading “When It Happens” and “Matriculating”
By Anna Heneise The 2002 comic series Jango Fett: Open Seasons contains everything a tragic backstory should— the murder of Jango’s family, his promising career as a child soldier, the … Continue Reading Framing Jango Fett: When A Backstory Is Not A Backstory
We at The River are excited to announce an upcoming Flash Fiction contest! Genre fiction is near and dear to us, and so we want to take this opportunity to … Continue Reading Spring 2024 Contest
By Anna Heneise Dedicated, with all honor, to Julius Caesar. One aspect of Order 66 I find fascinating is the timing. If the only thing Darth Sidious wanted was to … Continue Reading Order 66: Carefully Timed Destruction
By Anna Heneise As established in Part I, in The Clone Wars, the clones are characterized through the tension between their understanding of their purpose as soldiers and their growing … Continue Reading Bleeding Red: The Grand Army of the Republic and Humanization Through Violence, Part IV
By Anna Heneise Violence is one of those deeply human things we like to pretend is not human. Our capacity for violence is something to be restrained, to be feared, … Continue Reading Bleeding Red: The Grand Army of the Republic and Humanization Through Violence, Part III
By Madeira Miller To Put the Gun Down The psychology book states to me that sex is more than intercourse. Of course, I say. Any poet will … Continue Reading “To Put the Gun Down”, “The God Poem”, “It Was Beautiful As It Was”, and “Pirate Ship”
By Audrey T. Carroll A Name Foreign We’re talking about naming practices in families, how four of five generations of Heffers had a Thomas straight down the line, how … Continue Reading “A Name Foreign”
By Corbett Buchly vision board when did they first replace the processed snacks in the break room vending machine with poems one miniature scroll costs a dollar … Continue Reading “vision board”, “the ghosts turned to flesh”, and “this body of water”
By Rina Palumbo Fallen Catholic I walked to the river’s edge when I was eleven years old. I can’t swim. So, on a late summer day when I was … Continue Reading “Fallen Catholic”
By Sylvia Foster Bath I lock the doorI shed a skinI see in layers—the door at the foot of the stairs,the front door,the bathroom door, me spinning but notluminous … Continue Reading “Bath” and “On Paying a Lot of Attention to Death and Not a Lot of Attention to Life”
By David Mampel Flutter of Wings Father’s Day chatter stops. A hummingbird hovers at the pond waterfall under a Japanese Maple. Not even mother crow softening bread … Continue Reading “Flutter of Wings”, “The Shrine”, and “The Stopping”
By Livio Farallo some cracking, everywhere I. the ether unsolved, heavy, sits at my feet near licking paws as the car door slams on the side of my … Continue Reading “some cracking, everywhere”, “particles”, “window out window in”, “a fistful of dollars”, and “endeavor”