In this issue, we feature the winner of the Gival Press Oscar Wilde poetry award, Brian Cronwall of Kapa'a, Hawaii. The award was chosen anonymously by the previous winner of the award, George Klawitter.
Also in this issue, photography by Natalie Christensen.
Brian Cronwall
In the Brackish Place Where We Come to Love
My tongue and lips revel in your cove
between my freshwater stream, your ocean,
in the brackish place where we come to love.
The flaps and folds of your flesh move
like moss on a rock, like an open question
where my tongue and lips revel in your cove.
My urgent mouth is rich in this flood
of saline wonder, your gushing affection
in the brackish place where we come to love.
I feel your ebb then your flow, your breath above,
the clenches of your thighs, how your waves moan
as my tongue and lips revel in your cove.
A rising cling, clamp, and tide woven
with tired muscles, panting, and emotions
at this brackish place where we come to love.
And even as we slowly swirl in this wonder that proves
our well-spent desire, a kiss, a smile, a touch, devotion,
my tongue and lips begin again to slowly revel in your cove
in the brackish place where we come and continue to love.
Copyright © 2021 by Brian Cronwall.
About the Author
Brian Cronwall, born in San Francisco and grew up in the California coastal town of Carmel, got his undergraduate degree in English at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and his graduate degree at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. He taught English at UMD, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Inver Hills Community College (Minnesota), and over 22 years at Kaua`i Community College in Hawai`i until he retired December 2015. He also worked as the Audio Archivist at Minnesota Public Radio, Acting Director of the Minnesota Peace and Justice Coalition, freelance writer, and other scattered jobs. He served on the board of Malama Pono Health Services and was a commissioner on the University of Hawai`i Commission on the Status of LGBTI Concerns. His poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies in Hawai`i, Guam, the Continental United States, Australia, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, including recent publications in Bamboo Ridge, Chiron Review, Hawai`i Pacific Review, Ekphrasis, The Santa Fe Literary Review, The Carolina Quarterly, The Briar Cliff Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Exit 13, Talking River Review, Albatross, and others.
Finalists
Erased by Robert Cataldo of Providence, Rhode Island.
Abandoning Our House by Thomas March of New York, New York.
Nightfall Fancies by Eugene O'Connor of Columbus, Ohio.
The Strips of Latex and Fabric by Bryan Monte of Zeist, The Netherlands.
Natalie Christensen
The Pointy End
Copyright (c) 2021 by Natalie Christensen.
About the Artist
Natalie Christensen has shown her work in exhibitions around the world, including London, Berlin, New York and Los Angeles. She was one of five invited photographers for “The National: Best of Contemporary Photography” at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art and was recently named one of “Ten Photographers to Watch” at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of museums and institutions as well as numerous private collections. Natalie is represented by Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe, Nordic Art Agency in Malmo, Sweden, Susan Spiritus Gallery in Newport Beach, and Galerie Minimal in Berlin. When Natalie isn’t looking for photos behind forgotten shopping centers you can find her checking her Instagram feed while hiking the mountains around Santa Fe.