New Ohio Review

07/10/2025

"He’d wasted whole days, infinitely precious days, cursing the Universe for not blessing him with marriage or children, when he should have been on his knees in ecstasy over the smell of flowers and the little ditties that robins sang in his backyard." From "The Tooth" by Colton Huelle

https://newohioreview.org/2025/06/01/the-tooth/

07/09/2025

"Richard had set off fireworks that night. The way they popped and fizzled and materialized out of nothingness, out of the darkness. How she sat in the lawn chair and watched, trapped somehow even then." From "The Names of Those We Love" by Kenyon Geiger

Featured art by Stephen Reichert

https://newohioreview.org/2025/06/01/the-names-of-those-we-love

By Kenyon Geiger Featured Art: Stephen Reichert, Untitled, 2012. Oil on canvas, 16″ x 20″. “Cirlce” series. It was finally settled: the competition was rigged, and Mrs. Klei…

07/08/2025

"It may have been wonder, childlike awe, / primordial immanence in my tear ducts; / or, maybe just the child who needs to know, / who breathes dreaming into the world he floats." From "Ichetucknee" by J.D. McGee

Featured art by Stephen Reichert

By J.D. McGee Featured Art: Stephen Reichert, Untitled, 2013-2014. Oil on canvas, 12″ x 12″. “Cirlce” series. Archaeological exploration has discovered the site of a 17th ce…

07/07/2025

"On this wall tick your childhood and mine, your loves /
and mine, your regrets, cacophonies of memory // and harmonies in your ear, coagulations of unuttered grief, / relentless news from a grittier Belfast" From "Wall of Clocks" by Kathleen McCoy

By Kathleen McCoy “We rarely hear ‘truth and reconciliation’—just ‘truth and justice.'” —David Park, author of The Truth Commissioner On this wall tick your childhood …

07/06/2025

"Is it miracle-proof? God sent a messenger to say, Believe her. And would do it again, would do it in a heartbeat. All we do is stay in the foreground, we bend low, we write it down." From "Miracle-Proof" by Emma De Lisle

https://newohioreview.org/2025/06/01/miracle-proof/

07/05/2025

"Ever hear that song that goes don’t throw the past away, you might need it some rainy day? From All That Jazz? Wayyy too obscure for you guys, I’m sure. Peter Allen wrote it and thirty years later Hugh Jackman sang it while playing Peter Allen in a musical. So, really, there’s only one story, and we’re all in it. We’re all telling it. Saying our lines back to one another—uh huh? uh huh. uh huh? uh huh—which is how we navigate down here in the dark . . ." From "Paste" by Joe Plicka

https://newohioreview.org/2025/06/01/paste/

07/04/2025

"...That night, / my dad and I stopped watching football // so they could watch Lawrence (an’ a one, / an’ a two . . . ), his Champagne Music Makers, / The Lennon Sisters, and Myron Floren / as, no doubt, Jim Taylor went for ten / and Max McGee went deep. I never played football, / though sometimes when I think about the past / I feel like I’ve been hit. But on nights like this, / I am watching football with my dad." From "Watching Football With My Dad" by Mark Williams

By Mark Williams Saturday night, fourth quarter underwayof a close Packers game. Bart Starr era.My dad and I were sitting on the couchin my Grandma Mabel’s apartment.My legs barely reached the foot…

07/03/2025

"The rhetoric is as fluid as his fashion. God works through his hands. It’s all divined, preordained. He is but a vessel, an instrument of something higher, more profound than him." From "The Surgeon's Wife" by Dena Pruett

By Dena Pruett He tells us he is like that boss, you know, the one from the movie. “That’s all.” He’ll trill as he flutters past in a mockery of the boss, the movie, us.  We can tell how a sur…

07/02/2025

"Language is insufficient, and the dread of the writer is to snare reality. I dread mistaking myself, forging a misrepresentation." From "Taxonomy of the Self" by Maya Friedman

https://newohioreview.org/2025/06/01/taxonomy-of-the-self/

07/01/2025

"As we waited on the curb for it to arrive, I turned to see if we had left a mark on the casino’s revolving glass door, but a bellboy already chased our fingerprints away with a thin, white rag." From "Butter" by Meghan Chou

Featured art by Stephen Reichert

By Meghan Chou Featured Art: Stephen Reichert, Untitled, 2014. Oil on canvas, 12″ x 12″. “Cirlce” series. I first saw her aboard the JADE PRINCESS, a cruise ship several mil…

06/30/2025

"I was broken before I knew my flesh / would stretch to accommodate a lifetime / of acorns in my cheeks, that I would learn / to survive the wild winter." From "Self Portrait as Horse Mouth" by Laura Vitcova

Featured art by Stephen Reichert

By Laura Vitcova Featured Art: Stephen Reichert, Untitled, 2012. Oil on canvas, 12″ x 12″. “Cirlce” series. My lips spread open like the doors of a carnivalride flashing to …

06/29/2025

"But it was the child’s laughter, pure and bright, that wrapped around him like a song, a melody that moved through his veins. Every clap of the child’s hands sent a jolt of warmth through him, like a beat he could dance to." From "Can Mickey Dance?" by Sayandev Chatterjee

Featured art by Stephen Reichert

By Sayandev Chatterjee Featured Art: Stephen Reichert, Untitled, 2013. Oil on canvas, 12″ x 12″. “Cirlce” series. The jarring shriek of the alarm clock slapped Srinath into wakefulness. Fumbling th…