Ashley Mallick – The morning after I rejected my best friend’s proposal of marriage at Union Station
The morning after I rejected my best friend’s proposal of marriage at Union Station Mom makes eggs one palm clasping the skillet handle, the other a spatula. Loose pieces of hair like flypaper glisten and cling to the sweat on her neck. Our AC’s broken, window cranked, Mom pauses mid-stir and looks at me elbow […]
Editors’ Introductions
Editors’ Introductions Pedestal’s editorial process is always an exhilarating and expansive experience. To see an issue come together – poem by poem, each with its unique voice, music, and intent – is gratifying and still, after all these years, brings me a rush of energy, a feeling of being on some kind of creative frontline. […]
John Amen – My Favorite Albums of 2020
Nine months of lockdown or semi-lockdown. COVID-19 ravaging the globe. Isolation, disconnection, economic crises. The months leading up to the election. The election. Post-election. 2020 was filled with unique challenges as well as magnified versions of the challenges we already faced. Through it all, art offered and offers a complement, a metaphor, solace, attunement, guidance, […]
Julie E. Bloemeke’s Slide to Unlock, Reviewed by Vivian Wagner
Julie E. Bloemeke Slide to Unlock Sibling Rivalry Press Reviewer: Vivian Wagner Julie E. Bloemeke’s Slide to Unlock is a collection focused on the powers of technology to connect people and to create distance between them. From phones to cameras to writing itself, the technologies referenced in these poems promise an elusive union, even as […]
Jen Karetnick’s The Burning Where Breath Used to Be, Reviewed by Ann Wehrman
Jen Karetnick The Burning Where Breath Used to Be David Robert Books Reviewer: Ann Wehrman In her 2020 collection, The Burning Where Breath Used to Be, Jen Karetnick escorts the reader through inner and outer worlds, personal and public. Writing with deep perception, irony, wit, compassion, and righteous fire, Karetnick spins a web of brilliant, […]
