web edition details!!

Speaking of Bees...

Short and sweet here because TV AUTUMN: AMERICAN GOTHIC is in the works. Coming out next week, in fact, which feels impossible, and yet, alas, here we are.

I don’t know which planetary alignment is to blame, but bandwidth has been a major theme for me this fall. And so, because of this, our fall edition (as well as winter, currently) will exist online only. Nothing about our publication schedule or model is currently changing, otherwise. Will print return in 2025? Very likely. But, I think there are many ways TV can add value to the literary space that do not require a quarterly print mag, at least for the moment. And since you already are here, and are likely a subscriber, I can’t imagine this will have any tangible impact on you.

There are so many “if onlys” I’m tempted to include here, but I will resist.

I have so much to say to all of you!!! But, in keeping with this season’s theme, I must turn my attention to the next edition. Trust, it is a good one. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more excited about a theme before. (Although GIRLHOOD certainly sits supreme, as well.)

Here we have two poems by poet Amy Devine. I love including them both together because I feel you really get a sense of a poet’s work when you read two pieces side-by-side.

Also, my daughter said “poet” this week. That’s a poem in and of itself.

See you next week!

xoxo,

Monica

By Amy Devine

When I hold my daughter to sleep I am aware
that I hold a bees nest made of windows.

My mother’s name means honey bee
and so they spill from her kitchen cabinets,
her bookshelves, her ears.
Her tongue drips their industry onto her outstretched hands.

My childhood best friend stood on a bee
at the beach
and though we no longer speak I know that our babies
were born one day apart

I was stung on New Year’s Day
and it was supposed to comfort me that the bee died
as though I were not already experiencing
the worst day of the year so far.

It is not true that bees should be unable to fly.
If it were, they would not.

I gifted my mother a book of bees
to show her how many different ways there are
to pronounce her name, to give a blessing.

In the Old Testament a man finds a bees nest
in the ribcage of a lion
and thousands of people die.

Wasps are not bees because they can remember faces.
Bees are not wasps because they do not get the chance
to forget.

When I went to give birth I thought that I was going to die
because there was something poetic about
being dismantled by creation.
There was something poetic about leaking honey
from my balled up fists, digging honeycomb holes
into the hospital bed
and calling it a blessing.

I would not have had the chance
to forget my daughter’s face.

By Amy Devine

It is not enough to be soft, you must become fluid.
Your mother cannot hold the things that leave grooves
in your shoulder blades as much as she may clutch for them.
They will grow on you, they will grow on you, they will grow on you.
Not every opalescent reflection is yours. If asked,
all of your friends would rank you the least likely to be kissed.
If you spin the chair fast enough you can blur the world
into a neutral pallet, just for a moment. There are worse things
than having a panic attack in the storeroom of the theatre department.
There is nothing worse than being alone in the last stall
of the second bathroom block. If your friend holds out her threaded wrists
she is asking for help and you simply cannot give it to her.
Every flower petal beneath your foot is paving the road to your birthday
in the emergency room. The most beautiful woman you have ever met
smiles as she weaves screams of frustration through her ribcage.
If you measure the space from her front teeth to her navel then you
could learn to weave too. When you are the first of your friends to be kissed,
it will taste like caramel and sunburn. Art is the most valuable
to the loneliest bidder and right now that’s you. You and your whole heart.
You can teach yourself to live on vinegar and tuna cans but somewhere else
someone will break their nails on the ring tabs you throw away.
You will get older and you will never forgive yourself for being so young
and for knowing so much. What a wonderful thing to be hard to kill but alas.
Alas.

Amy Devine is an artist from a lineage of artists whose work has been featured in several publications including Orange Peel, Gems and Beyond the Veil Press. She is based in Sydney, Australia and she is inspired by history and the narrative of humanity.