Amuse-Bouche
Our regular and occasional Amuse-Bouche series offer little bites each week to keep you satiated between issues. Dig in!
Spotlight is a regular series published every other Monday throughout the year, showcasing an individual writer or artist. Writers Read is an occasional series showcasing craft-based reviews of published works of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and translation. À La Carte is a curated occasional series featuring short pieces by writers from underrepresented or historically misrepresented communities and/or writing that engages with issues of social, economic, and environmental justice. Litdish is an occasional series of interviews with writers and artists in conversation with our staff about literature, art, social justice, and community activism.
Spotlight: Morbidity & Mortality
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Jeanette MayDesigned to be murdered by your dog or cat, pet toys appear as dead bodies in these crime scene photographs. Morbidity & Mortality responds to the current popular fascination with cinematic murder and forensics. Contemporary films and CSI-style television programs reveal an obsession with corpses—specifically, artfully composed images of the deceased […]
Writers Read: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Melissa GreenwoodIn the bestselling medical ethics-centered nonfiction work The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot uses primary resources, including one thousand-plus hours of personal interviews, to piece together a life—Henrietta Lacks’s—lost too soon to cervical cancer yet forever immortalized, thanks to the science of cell culture. Like a wedding cake, the book is rich […]
Spotlight: Telling it Slant / Counting on an Axe / Disturbance with Walnut
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / James Bello there is Michelangelo up the ladder
on the platform
laid on his back
wishing he chipped at a piece of sculpture instead…
Spotlight: Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) / Sooraya Qadir / Mr. Frank, Biology
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Annette C. BoehmAmmi and Abu, and that brother of mine— / They don’t know who I am. Curfews & calls / to prayer, weekly lectures at the mosque, / but then, there’s also the smell of bacon…
Spotlight: Breakup
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Patrice GopoIn Charlotte, where winter brings no guarantee of snow, small children press their palms together, close their eyes so tight they see waves of color, and plead with God to unzip heaven…
Spotlight: Paintings
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / by Diane Williams“Coming from an ethnic background and living in a diverse city like Los Angeles, my work reflects my identity as an Asian American…”
Spotlight: Tequila / Jesus in a Nighttime City / Clock Maker / Life Is-Transition
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Michael JohnsonSingle life is-tequila with lime, / shots of travelers, jacks, diamonds, and then spades, / holding back aces- / mocking jokers / paraplegic aged tumblers of the night trip.…
Spotlight: I want to die the way my dog sleeps / In Gratitude of the Strange Phenomenon of Reynaud’s / It doesn’t spell disaster
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Andrea Witzke SlotI want to die the way my dog sleeps / a tiny, take-up-no-room-curl. / I want to live like him, too, / rising twice or thrice a day, / a lift up from a stomach, / a grin to an n, / a head-to-tail unfurl…
Spotlight: Summercamp Sirens / Days Like This / Rattlesnake
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Rena RossnerWhen cities are burning / and children sleep in your bed / you can’t measure suffering / like sugar, one tablespoon / at a time…
Spotlight: Dragonfall
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Darren ToddI lost my virginity while the dragon fell. When the enormous canvas beast faltered, people flocked beneath it. Maybe they hoped their attention would encourage it to stay aloft in the dead air, like zealots of a dying god refusing to believe its power could ever wane….
Spotlight: PAST PERFECT: Mixed Media Quilts
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Jeana Eve Klein“I trespass in abandoned houses. I spy on the people who once lived inside, watching them through the telescope of time…”
Spotlight: Erasures (NASA Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription)
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Jenni B. BakerThe following three found poems are from the collection Roger That […]
Spotlight: The Koreans / Terminal 3 Farewell / In the Eel Grass
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Tim TomlinsonIn the downpour / a pair of cobras slithers / into the resort / and the restaurant empties / of foreigners. / The boy sets his tray of drinks / on a table and runs for the itak / he isn’t supposed to keep / in his locker, but does…
Spotlight: This Is How I Say Goodbye
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Heather MingusI haven’t been to the place where my father isn’t buried, only ashes and the idea of him. I haven’t said my goodbyes over the patch of grass where his body doesn’t lay….
Spotlight: Seasonal / Lunchtime in Atlantic City / Postscript
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Anuradha BhowmikHindu Santa stashes / boxes of Just for Men / under the bathroom / sink, bare scalp painted / black with faded tooth / brush bristles. Barbasol…
Spotlight: Mascot
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Jessica LundI construct intimate artworks that investigate the gross romance between person and location…
Spotlight: A Week in the Back Bay
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Kevin CaseyWe wandered your city / for five days, hemmed within / those same cobbled creases, / tucked between brownstones- / mordant lines grown soft / in the damp October night…
Spotlight: TOUR OF A HOLLYWOOD DEATH / THE FALLEN BODY / THIS VOLUPTUOUS POEM
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Laurie BartonHere’s the peach bathroom / that gave her new ways / to look taller—
Spotlight: The Flat World
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Veronica CeciThere are two worlds those with the privilege of portable technology inhabit…
Spotlight: Stumbling: Cut Short
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Jim RossOur eyes tripped over a four-by-four inch bronze memorial embedded in a sidewalk in Cologne, Germany…
Spotlight: Birds Missing From Sky
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Rob CookToday you follow the holes / birds clawed into the sky…
Spotlight: Shaving Above the Knees
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / L.C. StairThere was a pecan tree that dropped nuts across the crabgrass that surrounded her parents’ bungalow-style home. She introduced me to her rat-dog and its seven grown puppies that surrounded me, yapping away my patience, each of them dirty and unclaimed…
Spotlight: Lena and the Bank of America
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Alice LoweLena. Just Lena. My mother didn’t have a middle name, which I thought smacked of parsimony—shortchanged at birth…
Spotlight: New Mexico
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Naomi Krupitsky WernhamIn my next life I will come back as a Wild Mountain Woman…
Spotlight: For Eric Garner, Who Lost Staten Island
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Rob CookInside the brain of a bank, / where the world is, / I sold my breath/ but then my breath was taken/ and sold back to me…
Spotlight: Some Thoughts About Why You Left / Sweet Tooth
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Kristy WebsterWe both tried to kill ourselves, you with / pills, me, with a razor and a bottle of wine…
Spotlight: Fabric of the Cosmos, & Other Paintings
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Gerardo GarduñoA collection of surreal ink drawings inspired by sacred geometry exploring the relationship between human perceptions and impossible worlds…
Spotlight: Selling Death / Bodies of Water
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2015 / Brett Elizabeth JenkinsEven on 5th avenue, it costs money to die. / Especially if you die in a Taco Bell drive-through / or in the kitchenware aisle of Macy’s; it costs / money to die even if you flop down dead / in your own flower garden…
Spotlight: Dreamscape & Meditations on an Altered State
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2014 / Barbara McGawIn a bed/ in an ink-wash of night sky/ a Chagall dreamer rises/ An omniscient moon/ hovers above the pines…
Spotlight: You Are a Terrible Home Surgeon / The Heart Attack / The Lemon Law
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2014 / Eric PaulWhile mowing the lawn, a small bird flew into my chest and stuck there. It’s America. I can’t afford health insurance…