The stairs of bookshelves that line my room | Alesha Suydam

impose upon me
histories upon histories
supine details
malice
bound by thread and paper

force language down my throat
that i may choke on verbs and
conjugation
drown in letters and
punctuation
and finally gain my breath between
italics and exclamation

points.

do not let this incense burn your
sacred decomposition.

let me climb you
and rest in your spine

my hand in
your hand opening and closing
in mine

your head in my lap
and contentment
folded in your mouth


Taken from the 2007 issue of The Wire Harp.

No Little Mother | Jane Johnson

I know you think that I am a natural appendage.
you look at me like you
look at your hand.
Whatever I say--it's a reflex
and you're sure you know the back of me
--but I am a Universe (you didn't know this).
People live
and die inside me--
no one ever leaves.


Taken from the 2002 issue of The Wire Harp.

Buried | Jason Rellik

After you left
I still had your smile,
locked up,
sealed away,
flung into a pit
and buried.
I long to gaze upon it
again--
but I cannot break
through the bedrock.


Taken from the 1998 issue of The Wire Harp.

Emily's Tyger | Steve Reames

How much starlight would it take
to make you sore, shepherd, afraid
of the dark or of indifferent cold?

Awakened by the slap
of single-handed night, I shudder
at the prickle of stars still as air.

In the firmament,
winter solstice burns bone zero.
Terror spreads like glory in my skull.


Taken from the 1994 issue of The Wire Harp.

Moon | Lindsay Williams

the moon,
when passing by,
became snarled in the overhanging branches of a tree.
I strove to free it
but, evading me,
it skillfully unspun the trap
and sailed away
beyond my grasp.


Taken from the 2004 issue of The Wire Harp.

Nausea | Bonnie Haines

I was afraid I'd barf up my guts,
and sure enough,
that's just what happened.
It took a long while to get all
the pieces stuffed back in there,
and I wasn't sure where those
loops of intestine belonged,
much less the elusive spleen
we all read about but never see.

So now I'm settling down to sleep,
hoping I did it all right.
Never happened to me before.


Taken from the 1993 issue of The Wire Harp.

Submission Guidelines

1. All submissions must be typed in standard font. Handwritten submissions will not be considered.

2. Your name, address, phone number, and email (please! our preferred method of contact) should appear in the upper left-hand corner of the first page of each submission:
Jane Doe
1234 My Street, Spokane, WA 99200
(509) 123-4567 JaneDoe@email.com

3. No more than 6 literary submissions in total, please (some may be poems, some may be short stories, some may be essays, but no more than 6 total). Poems: typed single-spaced. Stories and essays: typed double-spaced, limit the length of each story or essay to 6 pages. For these prose submission, please write “fiction” or “nonfiction” on the top. Thanks!

4. Submit to Laura Read’s or Connie Wasem’s mailboxes in Bldg 5 (across from the English Dept office) in a secured envelope. Write “Wire Harp Submission” visibly on the envelope.

For further information, contact: laurar@spokanefalls.edu or conniew@spokanefalls.edu

Preferred Submission Deadline: 3 Dec 2009 (end of Fall 09)
Absolute Latest Deadline: 10 Jan 2010 (2nd Monday of Winter ‘11)