“The Autobiography of Frogs” and Other Poems

Duy Đoàn, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize for We Play a Game

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — First Kiss Scene Interior – Black and white. The VAMPIRE’s bedroom – Night POSTERS cover the walls: Michael Jackson Thriller cover, Madonna Madonna cover, lots of other posters. There’s a BED in the background, a DISCO BALL hanging from the middle of the room, a RECORD PLAYER against the right wall. It’s Halloween. ARASH, dressed as a vampire, is lying face-up on the vampire’s bed. He’s on the comedown from E. The vampire is facing away from him, standing in front of the record player. She puts a record on. He’s lying still. She starts the record… 0:14 – “Death” by White Lies is the song. 0:37 – Arash stirs. 0:48 – Lyrics start / “I love the feeling when we” 0:50 – “lift off” Four seconds after “lift off,” but not AT “lift off…

2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner, Carl Phillips: Two New Poems, exclusive to FUSION

Buried Treasure I used to think of tenderness as a kind of spindle we could both, each differently, revolve around together. Likewise, until not so long ago, I still believed that keeping a lamp on at night could keep away all ghosts, when really it only works for some ghosts, not the worst ones, for whom it’s all the same – darkness, illumination… When I spoke of vanishing, I meant without a whiff of retreat anywhere, no knocked-over winecup with its chipped ...

The Realities of a Young Woman Immigrating to America

Tiffany Columna

The fine Matcha powder sits in the creases of Hana’s palms. Frantically, she drops the bowl and instinctively bows in front of a veteran coworker, who ensures her it, “happens all the time.” Hana couldn’t find the words fast enough…

“Scenes from a Morning” and Other Poems

We wrote six poems this semester, four in fixed form and two in Free Verse. We spend a good deal of energy workshopping each poem, with students often marveling at some aspect of a poem, perhaps making suggestions for edits…

Berklee Student Poets at The Greater Boston Intercollegiate Undergraduate Poetry Festival

Every year, Mass Poetry brings together professor-nominated undergraduate poets from over 15 colleges in the Greater Boston area. With a professor or faculty’s guidance in practicing and revising a poem, one young artist from each insituion performs an original set…

Star Power

Creative Nonfiction by Jack Scaife-Elliott

Each day, Noel awoke to silence that seemed to stretch endlessly. The specialized confinement training chamber trapped not only his body, but his mind in a timeless void. Minutes had become hours, then at some point hours seamlessly transitioned into…

Where Am I

Creative Nonfiction by Lisa Luckenbach

I sit in the pretend barbershop in our kitchen. My mom and two young daughters gather around me, while my husband shaves the last patchy clumps of hair from my scalp. Tears flow out of my mother’s eyes—she wipes them…

A World Through Her Eyes

Creative Nonfiction by Ailin Ledwidge

The clock ticks on 11:42. A spacious classroom of desks are lined up neatly, children are scattered, quietly taking notes as Mr. Matherson explains the history of the Silk Road. Noelle sits in the front row like she does in…

Triptych

Creative Nonfiction by Susan Belanich

I – Freefall Pumping my legs higher, higher, my feet scrape the painfully blue October sky. As the day gathers itself down, my shoes slice through the gnarled crowns of pines now brushed with gold. The swing’s momentum carries my…

The Quiet: 9 Poems

Reba May

The Fox I saw the fox, red as brick, sleeping under the evergreen tree When the snow was falling in the front yard, it had darted across the street, aglow with the yellow hum of lampposts In the quiet of…