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

D.H. Lawrence's Pansies, Nettles, and More Pansies: A Jeremiad by Kenneth Pobo

D.H. Lawrence’s Pansies, Nettles, and More Pansies: A Jeremiad

Kenneth Pobo

Marcel Duchamp by Man Ray

Concealing The Light From The Lit

Bobbi Lurie

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

Big Sur / credit: James Donovan

Sleeping by Big Sur

James K. Moran

Skagit farm / credit: em

3 poems from The Beauty of being Hated by Jack Leaf Willetts

Jade Leaf Willetts

More Poetry

Beat Generation

The Intersection of Buddhism and the Beat Generation

The Intersection of Buddhism and the Beat Generation

Sean Negus

Marlie Centawer - a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon

a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon

Marlie Centawer

Mario Cesariny by Carlos Botelho

Remembering Surrealist Mario Cesariny

Denise Enck

photo credit: adjac

Heeding the Call of the Open Road

Kyrsten Bean

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

watercolor (detail)- Mattina Blue

Traveling Home: watercolors by Mattina Blue

Mattina Blue

Red Wheelbarrow (detail) -- Tisa Walden

San Francisco in the 21st Century: 75 color photographs and poem by Tisa Walden

Empty Mirror

More Art

Essays

Rebecca LaFontaine-Larivee - Richard's Coat: Remembering Richard Irwin

Richard’s Coat: Remembering Richard Irwin

Rebecca LaFontaine-Larivee

Cowboy

El Condor Pasa

Sarah Glady

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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