Black Mountain Blog

The Evolution of Enormity, by Savannah Sloane

Posted on October 2, 2019

unfocused black and white checkered floor seen through poor eyesight: spectacles long lost you see her, Mother, cut through sunflower stems with rusty scissors her ocean of hair sways daringly in the manmade breeze of the cheap rotating fan in the bedroom, you apply bark for wallpaper life, for you, a Monet painting   peach […]

Read More

Mangos, by Carrie Close

Posted on October 1, 2019

Body limp– blood splattered all over walls tastes like                                           mangos   how                                                […]

Read More

Erika Brumett Our First Writer in Residence

Posted on September 28, 2019

  Please welcome Erika Brumett, of Seattle, WA,  Oct 10th at the open mic at the Flood Gallery, 850 Blue Ridge Rd, Black Mountain, NC. Erika is the first winner of our competitive writer in residence grants at our Swannanoa residency location near Asheville, NC. Erika Brumett’s words appear in numerous publications, including The Los […]

Read More

The Skald and the Drukkin Troll, by Paul Brooke

Posted on September 26, 2019

Told using 21 different types of hattatal (Norse verse forms).   Hyrniardi –The Troll’s Verse Swollen and locked in this curse, stuck, Swept & cajoled into a troll, Bypassing crass laws, conviction, Consequences never ever felt. Required: reach for drink each day: Rum, gin, Brennivin (with shark) or whiskey. Dry drunk: erase dwarf, replace with […]

Read More

Overcast, by Stephanie Roberts

Posted on September 24, 2019

you’ve tasted the soup of scorched tomato and broccoli that set your teeth on edge but you’ve not met that loss that permanently skews the jaw grief that plants sunset in the eye forever remember the high-spirited mum with a quick and rainbow smile whose daughter died at nine many decades ago she carries that […]

Read More

Einige Kreise (Several Circles), by Stephanie Roberts

Posted on September 24, 2019

January – February 1926   I imagine it was cold. The exhibit audio said there was a voice, he got lost in it, switchboard operator, had to find her, have dinner that same night.   Several circles may well be a season grounded on nocturnal skyscape, colour scumbled, opaque & transparent, all of life and […]

Read More

The Sixty-Four, best poets of 2018

Posted on September 19, 2019

The Sixty-Four Special Congratulations to:   *First Place Poet ~ Stephanie Roberts* Stephanie Roberts is our first place poet. In 2018, she had work featured or forthcoming in over four dozen periodicals and anthologies. A 2018 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she was born in Central America, grew up in Brooklyn, NY, […]

Read More

Man. Horse. Tree., by Stuart Gunter

Posted on September 18, 2019

The guy next to me at the meeting is drawing as he takes notes. Simple, black figures: a man, a horse, a tree. I imagine preparations for a hanging.   Or the beginnings of a campaign to hunt down an unseen enemy. He is here. He is early. Have I been here, too? Or is […]

Read More

Son of a Bitch, by Stuart Gunter

Posted on September 18, 2019

For Mark Goldstein   Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog plays on an endless loop in my tinnitus-wild ears these days. A reflection of how I currently see myself. It’s not a question of metaphysics, or where I land on the time-space continuum (or is it?) but a darker reckoning, blooming from a conversation about a […]

Read More

A Time To Rebuild, by Ikeogu Oke

Posted on September 17, 2019

The brisk clock of a nation tolls, Ringing in a time to rebuild; It rouses its people with its sound that rolls; and bids them, “Arise?” for it’s sure they would.   “Arise, Nigerians, arise from your slumber! Learn to build on the strength of your number! Your vast land ever burgeoning with life! Arise […]

Read More