Poetry Commons^™

Spring 2024

The Alembic

The Alembic - Spring 2024. 143 pages including covers and advertisements.

Table of Contents

Editors’ Note, vii

Poetry

S. Yarberry

Catherine’s Poem, 3

Looking at Robert Blake, 4

The Tyger , 6

Ethan Cunningham

Woman Under Water, 7

William Heath

A Bar in Santa Cruz, 8

In Asturias, 9

Joan Barker

Hometown, 10

Ella Bloom

Loneliness, 12

The Fog/A Lighthouse, 14

Found, 16

Tom McFadden

Where the Light May End, 17

If It Were Spring, 18

Bruce McRae

Daydreamers, 20

Does Your Dog Bite?, 21

A Strained Affair, 22

Erin Bolger

19 reasons, 23

Richard Dinges

Thunder, 24

Mulberry Trees …

Observations From The Edge Of The Abyss, Peter Johnson

English Faculty Publications

A book of prose poems/fragments available to download here for no charge

Spring 2023

The Alembic

The Alembic - Spring 2023. 142 pages including covers and advertisements.

Table of Contents

Fiction and Poetry

• Bibars, Sofia, The Glittery Bits In Our Home, 11
• Christiansen, Celine, A Good Man's Grave, 23
• Clarke, Fiona, By The River Of Babylon, 38
• Dinges, Richard, Conductor, 39
• Dinges, Richard, Grim Reaper, 40
• Dinges, Richard, Raising, 41
• Ellis, Mark, A Lady Names Sorrows Bloom, 42
• Flores, Mariela, My Name, 43
• Flores, Mariela, Five Ways To Look At Hands, 45
• Flores, Mariela, Hardest Thing Is To Say Goodbye, 47
• Flores, Mariela, Trash Day, …

Bad Harvest, Dzvinia Orlowsky

English Faculty Publications

This powerful sixth collection of poetry is like some kind of new world Genesis singing its stories with lyric, grace, comic intuition and tragic force. The poet leads us over the remains of drought, along empty riverbeds that run parallel to failure and death, but then twists to capture a more elusive truth, pluck one last grain to hold, redeeming a bad harvest to sow hope in this soiled world. Bad Harvest burns like revelation.

Spring 2016

The Alembic

Spring 2016. Full issue, 133 pages in total including front matter & table of contents.

Table of Contents:

• Levy, Jeffrey, A Story to Tell, 1
• Durbin, Branan, Namesake, 2
• Durbin, Branan, Hannah, 4
• Durbin, Branan, Zoraida, 5
• Price, Devyn, The Surly Bonds of Earth, 7
• Perchik, Simon, *, 17
• Moglia, Greg, Three Steps, 18
• Moglia, Greg, Try to Get Away, 19
• Moglia, Greg, Commander, 20
• Wright, Ben, 1000 Tea & Topology, 21
• Wright, Ben, Herstein & More Caffeine, 22
• Wright, Ben, Irrational Pi, 23
• Wright, Ben, Bullet from …

Ego, Konner Jebb

Student Publications

This is a prose poem that explores the issues of depression and body image through a horror and gothic-like perception. The speaker is haunted by a monster that lives within their own reflection.

Spring 2015

The Alembic

2015. Full issue, 193 pages in total including frontmatter & table of contents.

Table of Contents:

FICTION

• Barefoot Princesses, Jennifer Cyr, 4
• My GPS, My Love, Walter B. Levis, 19
• Rejection, Sten Spinella, 28
• Kamaloca, Stephen Jarrett, 47
• Blinded by the Sight, Diana Vlavianos, 74
• Choice, Blake Kilgore, 102
• Four-and-a-Half Feet, Neal Mercier, 121
• The Village, Collin Anderson, 133
• Purple Petunias, Lee Varon, 159

POETRY

• Simic, Guy Thorvaldsen, 1
• Nomad, Catharine Lucas, 2
• Eileen Marú, Matt Gillick, 3
• Beams, Laurie Patton, 10
• Home is a Human Being …

Silvertone, Dzvinia Orlowsky

English Faculty Publications

These poems both celebrate and question the psychological existence we give to the objects that define our lives: the silver spoon from which the speaker sips, during each Epiphany, the sacred Borscht which she later catches her mother, after guests have left, pouring down the drain; the acoustic guitar on which the speaker’s father strums his minor-keyed songs from Ukraine; or the granite bust of a national poet that, in the hot sun, fails to inspire. With heart and humor the speaker examines what stays, goes, and how every object, once illuminated by the past, has the ability to take …

Convertible Night, Flurry Of Stones, Dzvinia Orlowsky

English Faculty Publications

Gertrude Stein writes: "Pink looks as pink, pink looks as pink, as pink as pink supposes, suppose." Dzvinia Orlowsky's poems in her new book are strung along the tension of a black thread stretched to near snapping as her tenacious, feisty speaker refuses for all women the typecast as another breast cancer statistic, another bumper sticker pink bow. Equal parts shepherd, punk, and auburn-wigged angel, Orlowsky, with torches in her hand, illuminates this dark passage with images of startling originality and honesty. The clear voice in this book joins those whose lives have been and continue to be altered by …

Except For One Obscene Brushstroke, Dzvinia Orlowsky

English Faculty Publications

What is moving about Orlowsky’s poetry is the manner in which she moves us through her images. Her poems progress like silent films that show the entire universe, then a galaxy, then a star, then a planet, then an organism, then an atom, then an explosion, although not necessarily in that order. There is an element of randomness, of transmitting events and thoughts as they happen, of moving from vastness to the finite; perhaps this accounts for the freshness, the beautiful brutality of Orlowsky’s poetry. – Jenny Boully, Maisonneuve At a time when so much contemporary poetry relies on either …

Edge Of House, Dzvinia Orlowsky

English Faculty Publications

Joseph Brodsky, in one of the essays in On Grief and Reason, writes that the twentieth century is the century of the displaced person. Writers in this century more than any other—from James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway to Paul Celan and Czeslaw Milosz to Seamus Heaney and Brodsky himself—have explored the ordeal of abandoning, voluntarily or involuntarily, a home that had become culturally or socially oppressive. Ukrainian-American poet Dzvinia Orlowsky, in Edge of House and Cuban-American poet Aleida Rodriguez, in Garden of Exile, while eschewing the political concerns of many of these writers, similarly draw on the impact of displacement …

A Handful Of Bees, Dzvinia Orlowsky

English Faculty Publications

The poems of Dzvinia Orlowsky negotiate matter and spirit with a feisty dreaminess. Wavering between these two worlds, the author of A Handful of Bees inhabits that pre-dawn landscape where wakefulness emerges only to recede, like a herd of horses or an outcropping of firs, into sleep mist. This is a countryside of honest uncertainty.
– Mary Maxwell, AGNI

I’d like to point out for particular mention Orlowsky’s handling of her religious background. Raised in a Ukrainian family, she was brought up to be a practicing Catholic. This subject has been explored by numerous writers, yet few can capture the …

Volume 27, Number 3 - February 1949

The Alembic

Volume 27, Number 3 - February 1949. 78 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Editorial"
• "Exchange"
• Daley, James T., Jr., "Miller's Reputation"
• Eagle, George L., "Embers In The Mist"
• Plummer, William H., "The Critic"
• Brott, Clifford J., "A Pastoral Meditation"
• Vayo, Harold E., "One Autumn Afternoon"
• Vayo, Harold E., "Winter Scene"
• Wooley, Charles F., "Kaleidoscope"
• Vayo, Harold E., "A Passing Thought"
• Henry, Wales B., "Meditation After Reading Dorothy Parker"
• Plummer, William H., "To A Meadowlark"
• Honnen, William, "Thirty Pieces of Silver"
• Henry, Wales B., "Unrequited Love"
• Henry, Wales B., "Idee Fixe"
• Eagle, George L., "Morning Classes"
• Vayo, Harold E., "I Wonder" …

Volume 27, Number 2 - December 1948

The Alembic

Volume 27, Number 2 - December 1948. 90 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Editorial"

• Doherty, Robert E., "Editors Also Know Despair"

• Brott, Clifford J., "Reunion"
• Boning, Thomas H., "66th Street, East of Broadway"
• Henry, Wales B., "Timpani in Tom-Toms"
• Geffroy, Guy, "The Way A Friend Would"
• Honnen, William, "Rue De Bom Jesus"
• Wooley, Charles F., "The Concrete Jungle"
• Brott, Clifford J., "Reverie"
• Beausoleil, Norman D., "Evolution of French Literature"
• Lynch, John J., "Gross Negligence"
• Henry, Wales B., "Five and Twenty Years Ago"
• Cochran, George Hunter, "Sonnet to Beauty"
• Eagle, George L., The Felon"
• Cochran, George Hunter, "One Rose"
• Marino, L. …

Volume 27, Number 1 - October 1948

The Alembic

Volume 27, Number 1 - October 1948. 58 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Paolino, Daniel, "Not I, Lord"
• Scungio, Raymond, "Rain in Trinidad"
• Doherty, Robert, "Adventures of Blunderjohn"
• Cochran, George, "Day Coach"
• Brott, Clifford, "Short Essays"
• Cruz, Valentine, "On F.E.P.C."
• Cochran, George, "Windsong"
• Kirtland, Robert, "St. Thomas Aquinas"
• Fleck, Richard L., "Resurrection"
• Henry, Wales B., "Clouds"
• Fitz Simmons, E. P., "Simplicity"
• Henry, Wales B., "Soap"
• Doherty, Robert, "On Gertrude Stein"

Volume 26, Number 3 - March 1948

The Alembic

Volume 26, Number 3 - March 1948. 105 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Alembiscope"

• Eagle, George, "Another Vintage"

• Brott, Clifford J., "Those Tender Years"

• Kurguz, Peter William, "A Students Prayer"

• Meagher, Francis T., "History's Lesson"

• Lynch, John J., "Modern Trends"

• Henry, Wales B., "The Dim Red Glow"

• "$64 Question"

• Cochran, Hunter George, "Modern Poetry and the New Slavery"

• Doherty, Robert E., "Memoirs From Bedlam"

• Weir, Fantasy, "Illustration"

• Scungio, Raymond, "Things Are Really Racy In Rio"

• "Football and the Friars"

• Eagle, George L., "Hearse-Verse"

• Doherty, Robert E., "From Europe About the Marshall Plan"

Volume 26, Number 2 - January 1948

The Alembic

Volume 26, Number 2 – January 1948. 71 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Editorial
• Poutray, A.R. "Three for a Dime"
• Cochran, George Hunter "To St. John of the Cross"
• O'Brien, John J. "Design for Intellectuals"
• Doherty, Robert E. "Austrian Interlude"
• Eagle, George "How Far We've Come!"
• Henry, Wales B. "The Twelve Steps"
• Scungio, Raymond "The Commander's Husband"
• Knickerbocker, Jr., M.R. "The Catholic Novel: Its Problems"

Volume 26, Number 1 - November 1947

The Alembic

Volume 26, Number 1 - November 1947. 71 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Editorial"
• Henry, Wales B., "The Uncertain Mind"
• Cochran, George Hunter, "Man To His Soul"
• D'Ambrosio, Raymond, "Turret and Tree"
• Goulet, Norman, "Social Justice"
• Doherty, Robert E., "Resume"
• Cochran, George Hunter, "Infinitus"
• Deasy, John, "Looking Down The Years"
• Boning, Thomas, "Tears"
• Fitz Simmons, Edward P., "The Village Art Show"
• Eagle, George, "Peculiar Company"

Volume 25, Number 1 - February 1947

The Alembic

Volume 25, Number 1 – February 1947. 58 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Editorial
• Doherty, R.E. "The Beast"
• O'Brien, John J. "On Coffee"
• Eagle, George L. "A Stranger in Strasbourg"
• Shanley, Joseph V. "Reflections"
• Doherty, R.E. "Thoughts on New York"
• Gnys, Edward L. "Chaos"
• Morrison, Coleman "On Floorwalkers"
• Eagle, George L. "Moment of Vision"
• Deasy, John "Living History"
• Fortin, Andrew G. "Effects of Studying the Essayists"
• Critique

Volume 25, Number 3 - March 1943

The Alembic

Volume 25, Number 3 - March 1943. 49 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Stafford, John, "Frustration"

• Davitt, John H., "Among The Missing"

• "War And Nutrition"

• Weintraub, Jerome Irving, "A Study Of Sir John Falstaff"

• Fournier, Conrad A., "Come Follow Me"

• Carroll, Jr., Walter F., "Auntie's Favorite"

• Buckley, John F., "Isaac Hecker And Brook Farm"

• "Reveille"

• "Divertissement"

Volume 25, Number 2 - December 1942

The Alembic

Volume 25, Number 2 - December 1942. 54 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Fingers In The Pi"

• Lee, Edward A., "In God We Trust"

• Gorman, Jeffrey, "On Etiquette"

• Davitt, John H., "Before The Wave"

• Stadnicki, Francis A., "Saroyanism And Surrealism"

• Shiel, James F., "Rauschning Has The Answer"

• Fournier, Conrad, "Check--$50,000"

• O'Shea, Joseph C., "Blueprints For A Just Peace"

• "By The Way"

Volume 25, Number 1 - October 1942

The Alembic

Volume 25, Number 1 - October 1942. 58 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "New Fingers in the Pi"
• Hughes, Riley, "A Catholic College and War"
• Gerhard, John, "The Father"
• Kelly, Matthew "Fast Freight"
• Kenny, Joseph, "Revolution in the Making"
• Holleran, Thomas, "Journey to Scotland"
• Kiernan, Leo, "Cancer Research"
• Fay, Michael, "We Shall Meet Again"
• Gerhard, John, "By the Way"

Volume 24, Number 4 - Summer 1942

The Alembic

Volume 24, Number 4 – Summer 1942. 55 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Kenny, Joseph "A Woman of Letters"
• Rosen, Louis "The Gazette Goes to Press"
• Gerhard, John "When the War is Over"
• Young, Peter "Need Money?"
• Shiel, James "Alembichords"
• Gerhard, John "The Truck"
• Sherman, James "Conquistador"
• Gorman, Jeffrey "On Late-Comers"
• Sharkey, John "St. Georgie and the Dragon"
• "By the Way'

Volume 24, Number 3 - March 1942

The Alembic

Volume 24, Number 3 – March 1942. 49 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Cavanaugh, Paul "Captain Charles E. Rosendahl, U.S.N."
• "New Fingers in the Pi"
• Mulligan, Thomas "Writing for the Alembic"
• F.M., Extension School "God Bless Them"
• Bracq, Edward "'Liberal Education'"
• McCormick, William "Certitude"
• Young, Kenneth "The Chinese Language"
• Murphy, James J. "In the Land of the Shamrocks"
• O'Shea, Joseph "The New Fleet"
• Maguire, Frank "Alembichords"
• Rosen, Louis S. "Futility"
• "The Enchanting Young Ghost"
• Shiel, James "By the Way"

Volume 24, Number 2 - December 1941

The Alembic

Volume 24, Number 2 - December 1941. 62 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Dedication"

• Sharkey, John S., "Poets At Sea"

• Shiel, James F., "Keating and the Four Masters"

• Hickey, Vincent J., "The House of Rurik"

• McWeeney, Leo, "The Hero of the Russian Peasants"

• Gill, James, "The Political Police of the Soviet Union"

• McCool, Edward, "Peter the Great"

• Kaminski, Robert, "The Soviet Press"

• Krupowicz, Z.A., "Some of Russia's Leaders and Governments"

• Greenstein, Maurice, "Stalin"

• Garber, Martin, "Social Life in Russian Farm Communes"

• Gennaro, Anthony, "Social Conditions of Russia"

• Maddren, Herbert, "Russian Language and Literature"

• Mulligan, Thomas, "Damon Runyon At College"

• "Alembichords" …

Volume 24, Number 1 - October 1941

The Alembic

Volume 24, Number 1 - October 1941. 49 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Dedication"

• "New Fingers In The Pi"

• Gerhard, John, "Defence Efficiency"

• Whalen, Jr., Frank J., "A Few Minutes Of Rest"

• Gerhard, John, "Brains"

• Cottam, Charles F., "Strawberry Love Song"

• Sharkey, John, "On First Looking Into Newspaper Rumor"

• Doyle, Thomas J., "Her Majesty The Cook"

• J. A. C., "Alembichords"

• "By The Way"

Volume 23, Number 4 - May 1941

The Alembic

Volume 23, Number 4 – May 1941. 66 pages including covers and advertisements. (Only 36 pages available in archival copy.)

• The Quality of Decorum
• Conway, Joseph A. "For the Fatherland"
• Rich, Harold "End of a Visit"
• Gallagher, Matthew P. "How Long, O Lord?"
• Murphy, James J. "Holy Man of Dublin"
• J.A.C. "Records and Discords"
• Greene, John "Thought"
• Maguire, F.J. "In Quest of Arcady"
• Jodaitis, Annie T. of the Extension School "Women's Posiition in the Early Social World"
• "By the Way'

Volume 23, Number 3 - March 1941

The Alembic

Volume 23, Number 3 – March 1941. 66 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Editorial
• Kaylor, Edward "The Rivals"
• Williams, Jr., Ira T. "Fool's Folly"
• J.A.C. "Records and Wrecked Chords"
• Sweeney, Charles E. "Children of the Sun"
• Gallagher, Matthew P. "The Master"
• "By the Way"

Volume 23, Number 2 - December 1940

The Alembic

Volume 23, Number 2 – December 1940. 64 pages including covers and advertisements.

• Dedication
• Perrotta O.P., Rev. Paul C. "The Soul's Lasting Armistice with Christ"
• Murphy, James J. "Queen at the Crib"
• Gallagher, Matthew P. "A Bow-Legged Saint"
• Sharkey, J. "The Hunt"
• Murphy, Leo "The Hill"
• Conway, J.A. "On Not Having Seen the World's Fair"
• Smith, Raymond C. "A Child's Christmas"
• Whalen, Frank J. "Jim Scares Me No Longer"
• Mulligan, Thomas A. "Go to the Office"
• McGovern, Charles "A Footnote to History"
• Williams, Jr., Ira T. "The Still of the Night"
• "By the Way'

Volume 23, Number 1 - October 1940

The Alembic

Volume 23, Number 1 - October 1940. 66 pages including covers and advertisements.

• "Traumwelt"

• Sweeney, Charles E., "Men Against A Tide"

• Rosen, Louis, "Fantasy At Night"

• Gallagher, Matthew P., "The Kettle"

• Maguire, Francis J., "Excuse Please"

• Conway, J.A., "The Wines of Germany"

• Falcas, John M., "To Prince Henry The Navigator"

• Williams, Jr., Ira T., "Lest We Forget"

• Anonymous, "Home of the Brave"

• "By The Way"