EXCERPT

Metamorphoses

Sparrow

Something that peers out from shade and vine. A small bird that flits, too quick to see. A rustle of leaves. She was nested once but now she’s testing her wings. 

Swallow

All you girls transformed into birds. Tongueless, weaving tapestries of woe. All you girls with wings, swallowing your sorrow. Turning your tears into birdsong.

Can you hear a girl’s voice?

Star

A woman’s body is a mutable thing. A fence a stag can leap in a heartbeat.

Give her bark and leaves, let her root. Give her tooth and claw. Let her rend and rage.

Give her feathers, let her fly.

Fling her into the heavens, let her shine. Let her burn so bright she won’t regret losing the skin she wore when she walked on the earth, the legs that carried her everywhere but couldn’t carry her away.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathryn Kulpa’s first ambition in life was to be a witch, and then a writer. It’s possible she is at least one of these things. She is the author of Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted (New Rivers Press), Girls on Film (Paper Nautilus), and A Map of Lost Places (forthcoming from Gold Line Press). Her work has been chosen for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and the Wigleaf longlist. Find her at kathrynkulpa.com.

ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST

Born in 1979 in rural West Virginia, Mary Carroll spent her youth helping her family work their farm and land in an isolated area. She had no television or other modern distractions, and was encouraged to entertain herself with objects in nature. Left with the workings of her imagination and observations of the world around her, she translated her understanding into paintings. She continues this practice today, gaining much of her creativity from the natural world. Her figurative realism paintings and drawings offer a narrative that echoes a provocative daydream, communicating both the human disposition and our relationship to the land.

Carroll received her Master of Fine Arts degree in both painting and art history from Radford University, graduating in 2010 Summa Cum Laude, and was awarded the University’s best graduate thesis. Her work is in the permanent collection of the New Salem Museum of Fine Art in Salem, Massachusetts, and has been exhibited in many other spaces. You can find her work published by these magazines and others liket them: American Art Collector and Fine Art Connoisseur. She is represented by RJD Gallery, Abend Gallery and Lovetts Gallery. Carroll lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.

NOTES

Work in this chapbook first appeared in Literary Orphans, Jellyfish Review, Spelk, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.

READINGS

Hear Kathryn read from this chapbook.