Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

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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

Native Guard and Bellocq's Opheli by Natasha Trethewey

Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida

Tom Holmes

Faust (detail) - public domain

The Necessity of Tragedy—How What Goethe Played with is Still Entirely Relevant

Marina Manoukian

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

YOU in trees

Two poems by Lauren Saxon

Lauren Saxon

riversound (detail) / credit: de

Two poems by Emily Vizzo

Emily Vizzo

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Far-Flung Fragments of Forgotten Kerouaciana

A Few Far-Flung Fragments of Forgotten Kerouaciana

Gregory Stephenson

Larry Keenan, Photographer

About photographer Larry Keenan

Denise Enck

William S. Burroughs collage (detail) by Stephen James

Out to Lunch with William Burroughs: Who Owns the Dropper Owns the Fix

Leon Horton

Ruth Weiss / copyright Horst Spandler

In honor of ruth weiss on her 85th birthday

Horst Spandler

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Untitled for Awake - Doren Robbins

Artworks by Doren Robbins

Doren Robbins

Blue Bird Cult - Mette Norrie

Blue Bird Cult

Mette Norrie

More Art

Essays

Jenny Lynn

Jenny Lynn

Lloyd Bond

photo by Yuxiang Zhang

Spot the Differences

Taylor Byas

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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