Writing Archives - Sensitive Skin Magazine

Mermaids Are People Too

bart plantenga

“That happens to be nothing less than a mermaid. An authentic, flesh & blood mermaid.” —William Powell, Mr. Peabody & the Mermaid Bikini Girl requested – demanded! – that I show up at the Monkey Bar in a...

Words Doing as They Want to Do and Have to Do by Eve Fowler – Review

John Pietaro

Eve Fowler, Words Doing as They Want to Do and Have to Do (Radical Documents, 2020) Speakers: Litia Perta, Rachelle Sawatsky, Celeste Dupoy-Spencer, Bobby Jablonski, Kate Hall, Dylan Mira and Jess Arndt. Recorded by Sam S...

November Again

Peter Bushyeager

It’s November and there’s a steady stream without stagnation or scum as glitter resurfaces in the trash mound political races raise fear and candidates come clean about dark money cast into shady corners. Po...

Assembling the American Uncanny – Interview with Shannon Cartier Lucy

Marian St. Laurent

Marian St. Laurent and artist Shannon Cartier Lucy discuss the unexpected ecstasies of disorder The last time Shannon Cartier Lucy and I crossed paths was in the Lower East Side of New York City over twenty years ago, ...

Painting

Broadway for Paul by Vincent Katz – Review

Greg Masters

Broadway for Paul by Vincent Katz Knopf $27 Often matter-of-fact in tone, stripped of rococo embellishment or flowery pretense, these poem-objects by poet, art writer and translator Vincent Katz stand as testimony to keen observance and thoughtful assessment. The voice is conversational, as if the poet and reader were seated at an outdoor café sharing a pot of good coffee sheltered for the moment from the rush of activity and liberated from destination. I felt charged tuning into the, at times, seemingly spontaneous improvisation, the poet boldly applying pen to paper as his thought stream issues forth, one observance noted down which then spawns a reflection, the thought allowed to move where it may as quick as a sax solo; for instance, catching the delight in a woman smiling at a baby on the subway. The observations are coralled into form, the passion of the personal journalism contained in the poems' elegant structure. T...

The Masque of the Red Death

Edgar Allan Poe

The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and ...

Mac Davis & Christmas Crime in Beverly Hills

Suzi Kaplan Olmsted

Mac Davis died today He wrote music for Elvis, or something I was a terrible flute player I'm not sure if I remember it correctly I'm not sure why my memories are so fuzzy about it, either I was having some bouts of ...

Excerpt from PANDEMIC DIARY

Wanda Phipps

Thursday, September 17, 2020 slo-mo melting images in my brain dali does a cartwheel california’s burning orange skies smoke wired through clouds do I hear fireworks In the middle of the night in new york or ...

A Translator’s Fare thee well!
In Memoriam Steve Dalachinsky (1946-2019)

Jürgen Schneider

You didn't want to be called a poet that's what you once said: I am a tree without roots fixed in its wanderings a misplaced garden of endless possibilities. What I’ve done for the better part of my life besides comp...

Beat Scrapbook by Gerald Nicosia – Review

Jim Feast

Gerald Nicosia, Beat Scrapbook (Brooklyn: Coolgrove Press, 2020) 113 pages, $19.95 Gerald Nicosia has dedicated all his nonfiction books to describing those who, through whatever means, fought for the underdogs. His biography of Kerouac, the finest we have, Memory Babe, describes how the Beat author, himself from the lower class, in all his writings showed his sympathy for the downtrodden, whether it be city hustlers, Mexican street walkers or those who rode the boxcars with him as he traveled the country. In fact, one of the most developed points in Memory Babe is Nicosia’s bringing out that Kerouac’s greatness as a writer is closely tied to his far-reaching humanity. Then Nicosia turned to the Vietnam vets. In his Home to War, he left indelible portraits of activists, such as Ron Kovic, who denounced the war and the shabby treatment of vets, particularly, in later years, by battling the VA and the government who long denied t...

Hard candy

Carrie Magness Radna

He always wanted love more delicious than hard candy couldn’t ever get enough— never could quench down the fire in his loins, in his mouth and she was red-hot once upon a time, before their kid, before the fa...

TIFFANY AND ERIC AND DON JR AND KIMBERLY COMPLAIN: THE LEFT IS TRYING TO CANCEL US (WELL BOO HOO TO THAT)

George Wallace

So, Tiffany and Eric and Don Jr and Kim Guilfoyle say those opposed to daddy's form of government are trying to silence them. That it is radical and unfair to speak out against his style of political discourse -- by which I ...

BURROW

Olena Jennings

We were trapped inside. We used to throw our cigarette butts out the window. We were leaving pieces of ourselves everywhere then. The soles of my shoes crumbled and the threads of my shirts unraveled. He came to se...

Three Poems by Vladimir Gandelsman

Anna Halberstadt

*** И от любви остаётся горстка пепла, не больше напёрстка. Нет, не страшно стало душе быть нелюбимой уже. Вот тебе рукави�...

Across the Wounded City

Kevin R. Pennington

I. Riding the bus, going to the doctor. Today, it’s the psychiatrist. Tomorrow the therapist. I ride in silence, staring at my phone. The trip is long, as measured in poetic meter. Too many stops for an en...