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

Questioning Our Characters: Performative Identity in Nella Larsen’s Passing and Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, by Ben Berman Ghan

Ben Berman Ghan

Afghanistan Sky / U.S. Army

The Consequences of Violence

Steven Thomas Howell

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

summer hills / credit: de

no a/c in august: poems by Constance Shultz

Constance Bacchus

mosaic via sxc.hu/profile/ortonesque

4 poems by Sam Silva

Sam Silva

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Some Kind of Dharma 1 (detail) - Steve Paul

Some Kind of Dharma: Photographs

Steve Paul

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

The Creative Birth of Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac’s Creative Birth

Paul Maher Jr.

Jack Kerouac - The Sea is My Brother

Addendum to “Lost Letter Found”

Paul Maher Jr.

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

The Eyes Have It (detail)- collage by Cherie Hunter Day

Six collages by Cherie Hunter Day

Cherie Hunter Day

visual poetry (detail) by Sheila E. Murphy

Visual poetry by Sheila E. Murphy

Sheila E. Murphy

More Art

Essays

Edward Albee Speaks

Edward Albee Speaks

Sparrow

Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

(Part V) Alison Winfield-Burns memoir

Alison Winfield Burns

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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