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  • Fissured Tongue Volume 6
  • Poetry Contest Results
    • 2024 POETRY BOOK CONTESTS RESULTS
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    • Sublingua 2019 Results
  • The Fissured Tongue Series
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      • We Are All Artists Exhibit Guide
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Human expression is never orderly.
​It is a space of disruption.To let ourselves express means to be vulnerable.​It means to invert syntax so as to articulate the visceral. 

Inverted Syntax
Online Issue Two

Picture
2019 Sublingua Prize for Poetry Finalist Selected by Dorothea Lasky

Snow

Jessica Fischoff
One breath, one final human thing.
Your sickly pallor, seven useless men,
outside the white is not snow, but ash.

They took torches to the forest just
to rid me of what was mine. They cleared
the castle, came for my head, my teeth -

porcelain trophies. One thing unrooted
and the whole room tumbles down. The roof
folds in on itself like skin so aged that bones

only carry the draping. Let me rebirth
the beauty you fought for. Let me lead
the battle. Let me lock you in this garden,

drink from your pools, peel back the petals,
suck sugar from your nectaries. I won’t leave
until I’ve plucked my bouquet, placed you safely

in the coffined vase. I won’t forget
to wake you. I won’t go away hungry. ​


​

Jessica Fischoff is the Editor and Owner of [PANK], American Poetry Journal, the author of the little book of poems, The Desperate Measure of Undoing (Across the Margin, 2019) and Editor of the upcoming Pittsburgh Anthology (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2020). Her thoughts on editing appear in Best American Poetry and The Kenyon Review. Her writing appears in Diode Poetry Journal, The Southampton Review, Prelude, Fjords Review, Creative Nonfiction and Yemassee.
​

​About the work: “'Snow' came from a series I wrote during National Poetry Month. A friend challenged me to write a daily poem about fairy tale and ancient lore-based characters. My pieces seemed to root themselves with a villainesque speaker, and so, in an experimental hybrid moment of adding a touch of vampire to the Snow White tale, the poem came alive.
”

The Art
PicturePositive/Negative Self-Talk (For Melissa), by K Johnson Bowles, 18 x 18 inches, mixed media collage, 2019






​K. Johnson Bowles
 Giving voice to my experiences has always been a part of my artwork. In 2018, someone threatened to harm me. I’m not interested in illustrating or recreating what happened; I’m more interested in showing how the experience haunts me. During the last few years, I traveled a great deal for work and mostly alone. When I was finished with my work for the day, I visited museums, where I felt safe in strange cities. There, I used my iPhone to photograph details of paintings that expressed my thoughts related to safety and justice. These details are integral to my new body of work, Veronica’s Cloths.​"

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  • Fissured Tongue Volume 6
  • Poetry Contest Results
    • 2024 POETRY BOOK CONTESTS RESULTS
    • Sublingua 2023 Results
    • Sublingua 2022 Results
    • Sublingua 2020 Results
    • Sublingua 2019 Results
  • The Fissured Tongue Series
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 5
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 4
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 3
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 2
    • Fissured Tongue Volume 1
    • The Fissured Tongue Series
      • Online Issue Two
      • Online Issue One
  • Submission Guidelines
    • POETRY BOOK CONTESTS
  • About Us
    • Masthead
    • More
      • Interviews
      • Blog
        • Blog
      • Resources
        • Writing resources
        • Mile-High MFA
          • Mile-High MFA Writers
          • Mile-High MFA Website
          • Faculty News & Interviews
    • Our Contributors
    • Mission
  • Store
  • Nominations & Awards
    • Pushcart Prize
    • Best of the Net
    • Best Micro Fiction
  • The Art of the Postcard
    • About The Art of the Postcard
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 3
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 2
    • Art of the Postcard Issue 1
    • We Are All Artists Exhibit
      • Video Compilation FirehouseArt Center Postcard Exhibit
      • Firehouse Exhibitors 2022
        • Churnage FirehouseArt Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Daniel Staub Weinberg Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Genevieve Rose Barr Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Eva Schultz Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Samantha Malay Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • D Allen Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Hayley Harris Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Tony Peyser Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Sarah Santoni Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Julia Klatt Singer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Kathryn Kruse Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Meg Freer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Moira Walsh Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Staab Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Anne Swannell Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Laura Knott Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Jo Goren Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • CR Resetarits Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Sarah Ernestine Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Johnson Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Charles J. March III Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Emily Mosley Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Grace Desmarais Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Emily Vieweg Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Claire Lawrence Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Meca'Ayo Cole Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Andrea Rexilius Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Christian Garduno Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Salma Ahmad Caller Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Glenn Thomas Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Claire Yspol Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Michael Thompson Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Rikki Santer Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Laura Gamache Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Christine Williams Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Stephanie Beechem Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Imma Dunach Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Ginny Short Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Josh Lefkowitz Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
        • Carolyn Adams Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit
      • We Are All Artists Exhibit Guide
      • We are All Artists Submission Form Firehouse Art Center Postcard Exhibit