Empty Mirror

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Empty Mirror 25th Anniversary

Empty Mirror celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 31, 2025! While we are currently on hiatus, we invite you to enjoy a quarter century of writing and art in our archives.

Click to read any of the pieces featured below, read more from the category, or refresh the page for a fresh selection!

On Literature

IF by Rudyard Kipling

The Middle Word in Life: Dennis Hopper and Rudyard Kipling’s “If”

Stephen Lee Naish

A Wreath for William H. Gass by Alex Lanz

A Wreath for William H. Gass

Alex Lanz

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

eastern washington image: em / copyright 2017

Three poems by Constance Schultz

Constance Bacchus

bay wind / d.enck

Three poems by Clair Dunlap

Clair Dunlap

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Photo by Robert Wilson. Used by permission.

Notes on Three Lost Poems by Gregory Corso

Gregory Stephenson

Before and After Desolation: Two Sojourns by Jack Kerouac at Seattle's Hotel Stevens

Before and After Desolation: Two Sojourns by Jack Kerouac at the Hotel Stevens

Gregory Stephenson

Carl Solomon - Mishaps, Perhaps

Two Songs for Samson: An Invective Poem for Carl Solomon

Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

Gregory Corso mug shot -- prison

Poetic Licence: The Crime and Hard Time of Gregory Corso, or A Portrait of the Poet as a Young Felon

Gregory Stephenson

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Cynthia Yachtman - Woman with Heron (detail)

Mixed-media pieces by Cynthia Yachtman

Cynthia Yachtman

Renunication, Mixed media on paper, 22x32, 2006

Meditations: Paintings by Kurt Rostek

Kurt Rostek

More Art

Essays

Seizure - essay by Stephanie Andersen

Seizure

Stephanie Andersen

eyes on 8 by Emilie Kneifel

eyes on / horizon by Emilie Kneifel

Emilie Kneifel

More Essays

The EM newsletter

Receive fresh poetry, reviews, essays, art, and literary news every Wednesday!

Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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