The Hemlock Anthology Volume One
Produced by The Hemlock; edited by Shazia Parveen
The Hemlock Anthology Volume One is the first-ever anthology by The Hemlock: A Literary Arts Journal. It’s a celebration of the diverse voices and creative expressions that unite us across borders and cultures, featuring writers and poets from more than ten countries, spanning India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Iran, Pakistan and beyond.
From bustling city streets to serene rural landscapes, from the depths of personal introspection to the heights of collective imagination, the works in this volume traverse a wide spectrum of emotions, ideas, and perspectives. They invite us to explore the complexities of the human experience, to empathize with the struggles and triumphs of others, and to find beauty in the tapestry of life itself.
Poetry by Antje Bothin, Ben Nardolilli, Christian Ward, Christopher Arkwright, Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith, Daniel Lockeridge, Diana Kurniawan, Dipti Silvia Romould, Elizabeth Adan, Eman Mansoor, Gerard Sarnat, GTimothy Gordon, James Kangas, John Muro, John RC Potter, Jonathan Fletcher, Jonathan Chibuike Ukah, Laura S. Martineé, M F Drummy, Renee Chan, Rikki Santer, Rina Malagayo Alluri, Ruchi Acharya, Sangni Singh, Shahryar Eskandari Zanjani, Shamik Banerjee, Sophia Jamali Soufi, William Doreski
Prose by Angela Townsend, Clyde Liffey, DC Diamondopolous, Gary Beck, Nick Young, Ruchi Acharya, Sarah Das Gupta, Thomas Elson, Tom Ball
In Search of the Lambs: And Other Stories
by Divyank J.
Characters searching for love, hope, and peace. Ten stories of searing beauty and deep emotion.
A fresh-faced soldier clears a village near the Indian-Pakistani border. But when an old Imam’s sheep ignore the human-drawn boundaries, will he learn to see the world as the lambs do?
A husband takes his wife to the train station to visit her sister. Their dog’s separation anxiety could be the defining moment of their marriage.
When nine-year-old Divya accompanies her father to pour her mother’s ashes into the sacred river at the foot of the Himalayas, she expects to play in the waters. But when she sees what the ritual has wrought, she wonders if they should have come at all.
In these and seven other compelling tales, Divyank J. weaves a literary spell of ordinary people facing extraordinary revelations. Set in his native India and exploring themes of isolation and loneliness, he offers a profound reflection into the human condition and poses questions about our assumptions. Will a suicidal boxer find a reason to live? Can a migrant father get his son to safety during the COVID-19 crisis?
In Search of the Lambs is a mesmerizing anthology of ten literary short stories. If you like fiction with thought-provoking insights, uncomfortable truths, and characters facing critical decisions, then you’ll love Divyank J.’s captivating collection.
Buy In Search of the Lambs to delve into humanity today!
The Palette of Words: Poems
by Yuu Ikeda
The Palette of Words is a moving and thought-provoking poetry collection. Each of the poems opens with a one-word title, selected from the extensive palette of words in English. Poet Yuu Ikeda has crafted her reflections and feelings about each of the chosen words into a poem.
Although the poems are presented alphabetically, from “Afterglow” to “Zero,” this organizing framework does not feel clumsy or artificial. Indeed, the contents of the volume flow as naturally as water in a stream or blood in the veins. Throughout the book, Ikeda’s poems glow like gems from the pages.
Remnants of a Life: Poems
by Duane L. Herrmann
In this volume, Duane L. Herrmann invites readers to follow him across the rolling plains and dark roads of Kansas, encountering creatures wild, tame, or something in between. One of the beasts in the book, the “incognitum,” is long extinct. Most are more familiar – rabbits, birds, and even mosquitoes – but seen from new perspectives. The most frightening creatures in these poems, though, are human.
Herrmann wrote some of the poems after his mother’s death, as a way to process that experience. Others were written to document and re-examine earlier incidents from that fraught relationship. They are shared here in hopes that those with similar experiences might be reassured they are not alone.
Remnants of a Life explores the shadows we usually keep hidden, as well as the beauty of the natural world and life on the plains. With a view of prairie grass and endless sky as its backdrop, the book is ultimately hopeful: a testament to the power of words to help us survive difficulties, and a reminder that spring always returns.
Happenings, Heartbeats, and Mental Breakdowns: Poems
by M. B. Manthe
Sometimes I think summer has its own
pattern after all, some weirdly repeated
series of actions, happenings, heartbeats,
and mental breakdowns.
These are the first lines of “Road Work,” the poem that opens this collection and sets the tone for the rest of the book. The poems are personal, emotional, and sometimes confessional, but Manthe always strives to engage readers’ minds as well as their hearts. Many of the poems reflect the author’s lifelong struggle with depression, and others who have experienced the isolation that often comes with mental illness might find a little comfort and a sense of familiarity in these pages.
There are lighter moments, too: follow the nervous driver of “Nighttime on 95,” enjoy a snack of “Apples and Hot Chocolate,” and watch the speaker become first enamored, then annoyed, with a guy named Phil in “A Slice of Otto B.” From adolescence, and the joys and pains of young love, to marriage, motherhood, and the deaths of her parents, Manthe’s poems explore what it feels like to be constantly buffeted by the forces and stresses of everyday life, when she’d rather be lost in a book.
In addition to approximately 50 poems, the book contains a short essay entitled “Losing Everything but Our Appetites,” which Manthe wrote following her father’s death.