Join us for our in person Publishing Party on Thursday, May 12, at 6:00 p.m. to celebrate the release of Volume 7 of The Alcalá Review. The event will feature selections from the journal read by contributors. Urbane Cafe and ShareTea provided. Copies of Volume 7 will be available for sale online here as well as in person during the event.
All are welcome to attend.
by Olivia Sutton
How soft and silent slush n’ sleet blanket, How life breathes warmth to thaw all frozen hearts; How fierce she scorches — redens her ambit, How yielding are rustlings, how the wind smarts. She pleaseth our dreams with wondrous white, Her viridescent ladies heaven bound; She blesses crashing waves and bright daylight, Her fragile feuilles as fire scattered around. Lately, m’lady has been betrayed by man. Her salty tears flooding her cheeky shores, As her hair’s a-flare, her dry skin crackan’, And her children distract themselves with wars. Act not, stand not, see nought, ignore, and soon, Thou shall not dare deny destined doom.
Olivia Sutton is a second-year student at USD. She is double-majoring in English and French. She is passionate about both poetry and prose, and she is an aspiring poet, author, and English professor. She is currently the Prose Editor of the Alcalá Review.
by Olivia Hunt
A masked nurse prods a six- inch swab up, up my nasal cavity. I try to focus on her elbow, it’s still— then moves in measured, tiny circles, tickling loosening, I’m sure, some brain matter. Then my mind goes to the summer rental— I lie back, watching the endless scroll of clouds and seabirds, my six-year-old brother packs sand into my ankles. Are you turning me into a mermaid? He lets out a long sigh, No. It’s a sarcophagus. As the sun sets, my throat cracks like clay. My chest sinks lower and lower into the shore. My nurse wears the mask of Anubis now, she draws out her hook— the last thing I tasted was salt.
Olivia Hunt is an English and French major at the University of San Diego. This piece was submitted for the Alcalá Review’s Fall 2020 Semester Staff-Produced Original Content. She is the Poetry Editor of the Alcalá Review.
Due to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding COVID-19, the Alcalá Review has elected to delay the publication of Volume 5, Issue 2, until the coming fall.
In the meantime, we are pleased to offer the following preview material, which includes a downloadable sample of the forthcoming print edition and a selection of poems read by AR contributors and staff members Davontae Reed and McKenna Christian.
by J. Sean Rafferty
For Patrick Kavanagh
The cop cars go by in twos and threes –
There’s a rave in Danny Dyer’s flat tonight
And there’s the half-emoji texts of delinquency,
the coarse, yank language, the drunken fights.
Half-past ten and there is not a parking spot
Upon a mile of suburb, no party thrown
That would turn out a sorority girl, not
A frat boy toking, blazing or stoned.
I have what every Irishman loves in spite
Of all the bitter talk of objectification.
Oh, god knows I have the right
To be the stereotype of a nation.
A road, a mile of suburb. I am King
Of shots and cheer and every blessed thing.
J. Sean Rafferty is a redhead, a godfather and an eejit. He is an MA English Lit student at Ulster University and was a finalist in the 2018 Ulster Poetry Slam. His work has previously been published in Gravitas and The Paperclip. When not losing games of pool he, sometimes, writes stuff.
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