Empty Mirror

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My Father’s Map

Jan Glazewski

My Father's Map - Jan Glazewski

After repeated requests, my father, in his later years, handed me a hand-drawn map of a place in eastern Europe on the river Dnestr, which meanders to the Black Sea. The map came with a page and a … [Read more...]

On Waiting

Yasmine Shamma

Zaatari Refugee Camp, Jordan

Standing at the stove, I am stirring the bright white of milk, waiting for it to set. The kids are asleep, and though I have other things to do, tonight I have chosen the anti-rebellion of cooking low … [Read more...]

essays in the face of uncertainties

rob mclennan

in the window / image by de from photo by milada vigerova

Canadian poet Lisa Pasold posts a photo of her neighbour’s cactus plants, suddenly in bloom with the hashtag #poetrykeepsmesane, along with a quote from something of mine. While I appreciate the … [Read more...]

Spot the Differences

Taylor Byas

photo by Yuxiang Zhang

When my mother met my father in 1992 in Chicago, she was 17 and my father was 20. My mother was a senior in high school, and my father out of school and working, already a supervisor at the Luster … [Read more...]

Chasing the Moon

Sarah Zanabli

The moon over Aaqrabâte, Syria / photo by Samer Daboul

Our story begins in a scalding desert city, the aroma of burning nearby: burning salty corn the size of a pistol and burning garbage on the side of semi-paved country roads. Strangers minding their … [Read more...]

Deadlift, by Cindy Bradley

Cindy Bradley

Photo by Jesper Aggergaard on Unsplash

I’ve heard it said that when properly executed, the deadlift is an almost perfect weightlifting exercise. The name of the exercise refers to the lifting of the “dead” weight without momentum, lifting … [Read more...]

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Brooke Knisley

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels, 205.5 cm × 384.9 cm (81 in × 152 in), Museo del Prado, Madrid

I. In early 2015, I was invited to a popup art show in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. My good friend Megan, an actor in the event, described it as a living replication of Hieronymus Bosch’s … [Read more...]

Surfacing the Toxins

Audrey Burges

current / credit: em

The twinge beneath my left breast was slight but insistent. My heart thrummed its customary rhythm, but every tenth or twelfth beat caught like a guitar string plucked by a hook beneath my sternum. I … [Read more...]

They Saved Me from Myself by D. Nolan Jefferson

D. Nolan Jefferson

d nolan jefferson

The first gay bar I ever went to was a lesbian bar called The Flame. It was on the edge of the gay neighborhood called Hillcrest in San Diego on Park Avenue. I worked in nearby Balboa Park, taking … [Read more...]

God and the Magical Potato Chips by Jennifer Jordán Schaller

Jennifer Jordán Schaller

God and the Magical Potato Chips by Jennifer Jordan Schaller

When I was a six-year-old child, it was the eighties. I sometimes stayed overnight with my Grandma Virginia in the South Bronx. My Grandma Virginia only spoke English when she talked to people like … [Read more...]

Lexington Avenue

Buku Sarkar

Lexington Avenue by Jeffrey Zeldman

The span of Lexington Avenue between 25th and 29th streets is flanked on either side by Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian restaurants; by buffets of masala chicken and palak, floating in layers of … [Read more...]

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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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Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

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