Hello.

We’re Windows Facing Windows Review.

We think that the poetry world is a bit too much like a wall of turned backs, a bit too much of a club, and we’re trying to stake out some space to counter that dynamic. In virtually every literary magazine, author bios rattle off qualifications like prizes, prior publications, and diplomas. Sometimes it seems like poets have to name-drop and network like business-class serpents to get their writing out there. Come on, this isn’t a fucking career fair! Why bother with all of this professionalism?

According to us, poetry shouldn’t bind itself to anything that behaves like a goddamn CV. Poetry should speak to everybody and menace the status quo, or at the very least give it some side-eye. Poetry is not just for rich white men. Poetry should unsettle the parts of us that hold power in the same instant that it heals us where we’re hurt. Poetry should always invite interrogation.

If you’re holding down a day job (or maybe two) where nobody as much as mentions poetry, feeling unseen as a student naked of snazzy writing credentials, working the night shift, at home building a family and jotting down lines between diaper changes – you name it – and you’re reading and writing in the margins of your life, however large or small they may be, then this journal is for you (it’s for you if you’re a professional poet or critic, too, but hey, you already knew that). Whoever you are, we’re mighty glad to have you.

The team.

Emma Alexandrov.

Emma’s a Youthful, Inquisitive, Kafka-loving, Existential Scientist currently based in Bloomington, IN. Catch them on Twitter.

Kimberly Nguyễn.

Kimberly is the Vietnamese-American poet of I Am Made of War, flesh, and ghosts in the stalks. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, she’s currently living in NYC. As a journalist with The Miscellany News of Vassar College, she penned articles that garnered the attention of the community and catalyzed institutional change. She aspires to a fruitful career as a writer, in whatever capacity it may be, and eventually wants to hold an advanced degree. Follow her on Twitter and Insta and check out her site.

Legal.

We are not copyright lawyers.

We don’t have any copyright lawyer friends, either. That being said, we have applied a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License to our publication. All that means is that you’re free to share and/or adapt and share material on our site and in our PDF issues provided that you give us credit and you don’t make money from it. There are two important and intuitive exceptions to this: first of all, individual contributors get to decide whether it’s ok for you to modify their work (duh…). Second of all, we’re absolutely fine if contributors use their own work for commercial purposes after it appears here (in fact, we’d be very excited!). It belongs to them! All of this is just to say “be respectful and give credit where it’s due.”