HCE received a lot of high-quality submissions for The Brutal Issue – sadly, too many to fit inside the magazine! So we offered some of our shortlisted contributors the chance to be published on our website.
Keep an eye on our social media for more great writing like this, in the run up to the release of The Brutal Issue…
(Spill-O’s Prayer)
Colin Dodds
In this motion led by heart and belly
in which to discern is to despise
in which loathing is locomotion,
Spill-O murmured
through tunnels, pipes, wires, rails, walkways,
switches, benches, lights, inducements,
Help me
in this unending pursuit and defense
of something priceless or worthless
and nothing in between,
not waste too many days
worrying which.
COLIN DODDS grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poetry has appeared in more than a hundred eighty publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The poet and songwriter David Berman (Silver Jews, Actual Air) said of Dodds’ work: “These are very good poems. For moments I could even feel the old feelings when I read them.” Colin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha. You can find more of his work at thecolindodds.com.
