Poetry ODD RADIO CIRCLES (ORCS) Our hot air balloon / turned into a lead ball. —Marjana Savka, Ukrainian poet They look like a virus you’d see under a microscope. A city flattened by artillery. A
Issue 3 - Searching Series of paintings for Symposeum by Lucy Villeneuve Lemonade, acrylic on canvas, 20" x 24" (2021)Currently, acrylic on canvas, 20" x 24" (2021)Sunday, acrylic on canvas, 20" x 24" (2021)Marshmallow, acrylic on canvas, 20" x 24" (2021)Yurt, acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20" (2021) Artist’s Note I
Issue 3 - Searching Home is where you find it T he path to the summit of Scotts Bluff National Monument is Nebraska at its best. Morning walks among sweeping panoramas in the serenity of the prairie are treasured rituals for many of us who live nearby. So in 2015, when 25,000 tons
Issue 3 - Searching The Black Dogs of Enlightenment T he setting was old Tbilisi, a strange destination, fable-like. The rough brown bricks of the ancient baths, the second-story verandas, enclosed in the vernacular architectural style. The dry cliff faces and banks rising in random juts around the city. Scrub vegetation. In truth,
Issue 3 - Searching Jamais Poet’s Note I first realized that I was a multiracial person in kindergarten. When my mother came to eat lunch with me one day at school, her presence bewildered some of the other children. Many asked me afterwards if I was adopted. One
Issue 3 - Searching The Cloud and the Fire *The following piece contains passages that may be best suited for a mature audience. T his play is based on a true story. Its lessons are manifold: Don’t ride in elevators. Be nice to gay people. See to it that your lady finishes,
Issue 3 - Searching Antibiotics: To the Clerk at the Pet Shop, Chicago, Lower West Side S ince we didn’t make it to that pet shop, let’s just say we’re still on our way there. I write “we” because I wasn’t looking for it alone. Actually, all of this happened only because there was a “you”
Issue 3 - Searching Shooting Stars after Shooting Penguins in Frigid Isolation for 27 Years A nature photographer pivots into the world of paparazzi. A fter twenty-seven years of documenting penguins in Antarctica, I was desperately searching for a new career. I left behind the desolate, frozen tundra devoid of any human interaction for New York City. On my
Issue 3 - Searching To J— Your browser does not support the audio element. Poet’s Note I never sent this letter to J– because it wasn’t written for him. I wrote it for S–, for me, and for anyone else searching for healing after a bad romance. People
Issue 3 - Searching Lost & Found Shh, shh, shh... Breezes caper in the dogwoods; white petals twirl onto the sidewalk. The air smells green, and sweet, and forgiving. Shh, shh, shh... White wicker rocker creaks in the gloaming. My sister moves her downy head into the blanket and breast. She
Issue 3 - Searching On My Mother's Passing Your mellow touch has gone, off with the Blue, red flashing lights that came for you on That day. I hadn't noticed life being taken From you, seized a little bit too rudely, S0 quietly in the morning, the days, nights, I feel the
Issue 3 - Searching SABBATICAL And did you get what You wanted from this life, even so? —Raymond Carver, "Late Fragment" T he heat was historic. “This heat is historic,” they’d said on NPR. At Pike Place fishmongers were selling their souls for ice. The biologist visited each
Issue 2 - Recovery Ascending Series (2021) No. 1-5 (acrylic on paper) No. 6-30 (iPad) Artist’s Note The Ascending Series began as a handful of paintings specifically made for the "Recovery" issue of Symposeum. The visuals in the series were a collaborative work influenced by the music of D.C.
Issue 2 - Recovery Ascending I, II, & III Ascending I Your browser does not support the audio element. Ascending II Your browser does not support the audio element. Ascending III Your browser does not support the audio element. Artist’s Note In 2010, I was an addict who had experienced homelessness, jails,
Issue 2 - Recovery Wake Your browser does not support the audio element. Reading by the author evolución inversa: volvemos al mar. —Raquel Salas Rivera Meanwhile, wondering what I can say back. We understand behind the lagoon are mangroves. Insisting tsunami never happens, whispers. Inaudibly, maybe the voice of
Issue 2 - Recovery Hope Is I n April, we run bloody fingers under sink-water, and tape over our broken skin. We hold him in oven mitts, in mittens, in anything we can find. We hide our hands and feet under sweatshirts and socks. So he bites our necks instead.
Issue 2 - Recovery The Book of Amos An unbelieving prophet named Amos Caster faces apocalypse after a string of apparent child murders leaves the twin cities of Auspicion and Calamity thirsting for blood. Through dreams, visions and memories, Amos searches for hope in the face of pain and desperation. CHAPTER 1
Issue 2 - Recovery Lost and Found F or more than seventy years, my grandmother Lilly’s diary sat untouched at the bottom of a cardboard box stuffed into a tiny closet in my family’s home. The dark green leather notebook gathered dust, the pages—beginning to yellow around the
Issue 2 - Recovery Bill's Lorica Your browser does not support the audio element. Reading by the author Let Go the Burden of Being Upright (The Purple Quilt) (2021) by Margaret Sloan | Watercolor on paper | 11.5 x 11.5 inchesin the sparkling northwoods blue-green today we gather warmth of
Issue 2 - Recovery Digression Your browser does not support the audio element. Reading by the author The temple’s mystery is this: somehow, I remembered the same music for ten years. Not its notes— I could only play the right keys if playing fast enough; if giving up
Issue 1 - Transition Banjo Heritage: The Unlikely Survival of a Southern Folkway What follows is a conversation between George Gibson, Clifton Hicks, and Symposeum editor Nissim Lebovits. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. G eorge Gibson and Clifton Hicks
Issue 1 - Transition another kind of maiden voyage Your browser does not support the audio element. Reading by the author it might have been a menacing sky that greeted him in new york in 1938. if it spoke in english he did not understand. his tongue was polish polish polish. he didn’
Issue 1 - Transition Mondays at One o'Clock I was seven years old when I began visiting Lenore. Having recently relocated to Spokane, Washington from Charlottesville, Virginia, I finally had an opportunity to meet some of my dad’s family. Lenore was my eighty-nine-year-old fourth cousin. She had no children and had
Issue 1 - Transition Empire Twilight: The End of the Day (2020) Mixed media collage and acrylic paint on canvas | 24 x 36 inches Artist’s Note In keeping with this issue’s theme of transitions, my painting, “Empire Twilight: The End of the Day,” is part of an ongoing painting series using my officially declassified
Issue 1 - Transition The Rhythms of Time A few weeks ago, amidst a global pandemic, I subjected my ninth-graders to the classic nostalgia-fueled E.B. White essay “Once More to the Lake.” No one had done the assigned reading, and then a fire drill took up the first fifteen minutes of
