[Moved Somewhere] Moved somewhere. Stayed up to midnight. Flew elsewhere. Came back. Got […]

My mother wants to sell me oils. The oils smell like fresh-cut flowers and citrus fruits and the fishbowl stench of a house that’s been left unoccupied for several months. […]

I had a job over the summer, not because of financial necessity but because my mother held an unshakable belief in the virtue of work. She said that I needed […]

Don’t look at me I am new and born today Dreaming has changed me The night has Melted off all my influences I saw the big sky turn over twice […]

In Madame Bovary, Emma’s desire comes from the novels she reads. These novels are so full of fantasy that they lead her to a life that bucks the status quo […]

The King Must Die I do not trust the strength of our gods in the most fertile land I have seen people shredding each other apart our body bursts out […]

Hurricane seasons are like children, so you micromanage your first with a dizzying array of safeguarding steps. As you nail plywood to your windows, fill every container you have with […]

The diagrams below are excerpted from Emmalea Russo’s new book of poetry, Confetti (Hyperidean Press, 2022). Confetti begins and ends with ecstatic sunrises/sunsets in the 1970s, opening with The Texas […]

be my talismanic property be my new prize for wanting the narcissism of this hot world cut loose like a blimp I came to revirginize my willpower, a white light […]

It is within reach, what I need most; creative time alone. That is, no co-educational tits occupying the airspace above my shoulder as I labor to paint them, pink as […]

There was a horse I met, his name was the thought of a tree. I saw him in the backdrop of darkness in my mind, and on a farm, and […]

Here is a world, black and body, a mother who is protected and timeless, a father who is her husband and stays. a midwife with hands worth more than a […]

Irish poet Eavan Boland passed away on April 27, 2020. She will be remembered for her finely wrought lyric meditations on womanhood, domesticity, and Ireland’s colonial history.

The Columbia Journal is delighted to announce that the 2021 Winter Contest is now officially open for submissions in art, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation. Our judges this year are Arthur Lewis (art), Danielle Evans (fiction), Pamela Sneed (nonfiction), Harmony Holiday (poetry), and Wangui Wa Goro (translation).