by Ryan Sparks

Franklin Street Noise is proud to present its first interview. Poet Leonard Kress took the time to talk with me about his latest publication, Orphics, the importance of classical knowledge, transcending the status quo in contemporary American poetry, and the tricky path a translator-poet walks.

“Myth is timeless and universal. So, speaking with uncharacteristic boldness, why couldn’t Orpheus be living in America’why can’t ‘I’ also be, at times, Orpheus? Just as I think I/you/anyone could also be Orpheus or Daphne or Zeus or raven or coyote…”
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by Gabriella Herkert

‘When you first trudged off to kindergarten,’ her mother began.

‘I failed the bar exam,’ Anne hiccupped, her voice breaking. ‘You don’t understand. I totally messed up.’

‘When you first trudged off to kindergarten,’ her mother repeated, ‘I was concerned about you academically. Learning new things. Reading, writing.’

‘Everything I worked for all those years,’ Anne sobbed.
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by W.A.Smith

Laura was sitting up, looking down at him. The blue sheet was pulled to her waist, her breasts rising with her breath. “Good morning, Sweet.”

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by Ryan Sparks

We were in the Pufferbelly Ltd. restaurant, a converted railroad depot that sat between the rotting train tracks and Franklin’s bricks. The Great Ernesto and I had been invited by Bailey to share a dinner with the visiting poet, Leonard Kress. We’d arrived early to find one of the rare parking spots and passed the time until Bailey and the others arrived with Bass Ales and conversation at the tiled bar.
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by Susan Jane

‘God, that’s so bizarre, Rachel. She’s talking to air.’

Amy turned to her friend and, as she often did, spoke with a slim cigarette bobbing between her lips. The sun that had baked the playground all afternoon was receding, and the two women were sitting on the smooth lip of the park’s giant fountain.

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