On "Oregon Convinces Straight Men" by Kelly Magee (265 words) ****

Here's a prose poem. I'm not a huge fan of the form generally--I'm tied to convention: poems break into lines, prose doesn't. Flash has a plot or explores a moment. I don't know that this does any of those. But like a poem--indeed, as a poem--this piece is built on metaphor. It's about a stripper. No, it's about the landscape. Doesn't matter. The language here is beautiful, the two ideas wonderfully tied together. Read the piece here at Diagram.