This month, across continents, languages, and artistic forms, these writers and artists illustrate pathways towards personal and cultural endurance and survival. Though their subjects range from war to environmentalism, from mathematics to romance, the works are united by a central concern: how people preserve meaning and dignity while confronting the fragility of life. Together, they create a portrait of humanity struggling not merely to survive, but to transform pain, uncertainty, and impermanence into connection, beauty, and renewal.

The shadow of mortality and conflict appears repeatedly throughout these works. Pat Doyne honors those who sacrificed their lives during wartime, while Elaine Murray similarly forces readers to confront the devastating human consequences of war and the preciousness of life itself. Mohammad Sedigh Haghighi broadens this historical struggle, tracing humanity’s difficult movement toward democracy, liberty, and enlightenment against the forces of ignorance. Danijela Ćuk extends the argument into the present by urging humanity to abandon divisions and pursue peace. Lan Xin connects the larger world to our inner worlds, suggesting that we carry the capacity for both good and evil and that changing our mindsets can change society. Even Hamida Nazarova’s analysis of the works of Abdulhamid Cho‘lpon and Hamza Hakimzoda Niyoziy reveals another battlefield: not military conflict, but social injustice, particularly the suffering and oppression faced by Uzbek women. These works collectively suggest that human progress is measured not by conquest, but by compassion, justice, and the willingness to protect one another’s humanity.

Yet alongside destruction exists resilience. Darren C. Demaree writes of love, grief, identity, and survival, revealing how memory becomes a lifeline through suffering. Madina Asliddinova’s family saga captures the cyclical nature of existence through births, deaths, joys, and tragedies, reminding readers that life is never static but constantly renewing itself through generations. Jacques Fleury teases out themes of individual strength and determination to shape one’s own fate in Boston’s Huntington Theater’s production of Oedipus el Rey. Mai Văn Phấn similarly meditates on cycles of time, nature, suffering, and endurance, portraying resilience as something deeply intertwined with the rhythms of the natural world. Patrick Sweeney’s brief pieces linger in moments of nostalgia and connection, emphasizing how even fleeting experiences can carry emotional permanence. Fiza Amir’s poem transforms romantic loss and regret into gratitude, suggesting that pain can take on meaning through memory and reflection.

Several writers explore the emotional burdens placed upon individuals by society. Jesse Emmanuella Pheebemi’s poetry captures the crushing guilt and inadequacy produced by familial and societal expectations, while Eva Lianou Petropoulou’s poetry depicts a speaker exhausted by constant scrutiny over even the smallest behaviors. Sara Hunt-Florez mourns the loss of childhood innocence when a teenage girl is forced to mature too quickly. Sabina Tursunqulova laments in verse the loss of her childhood. J.J. Campbell presents a complex, introspective, and often melancholic exploration of the human experience. Isaac Aju reflects on how trauma can pull a person away from engaging with the world and quietly into themselves. These works expose how society often pressures individuals into performances of perfection or obedience that diminish authentic selfhood. However, Eva Lianou Petropoulou’s short story offers a possible remedy by insisting that love must move beyond isolation and enter the difficult realities of the world if it is to matter at all.

Art itself emerges as one of humanity’s primary tools for surviving emotional complexity. In Alex S. Johnson’s interview with avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, Galás argues that art achieves its greatest power not through raw confession, but through discipline, strategy, intellect, and creative transformation of pain. This idea resonates strongly with Yongbo Ma’s interview with J.D. Scrimgeour, whose reflections on humor, mystery, music, memory, creativity, and community suggest that poetry helps people navigate the emotional contradictions of being alive. Ma Yongbo’s own poetry likewise wrestles with impermanence, mortality, and the search for meaning, while Paul Tristram’s energetic poems connect creativity with mental health and self-discovery. Paul Murgatroyd approaches art through satire and absurdity, using humor and nostalgia to examine entertainment and poetry themselves. Egamberdiyeva Diloromxon Olloberdi qizi analyzes how Uzbek author Tohir Malik explores adolescent psychology. Duane Vorhees adds yet another dimension by exploring the hidden complexity beneath the surfaces of poems, people, and places. Together, these artists insist that art is not an escape from life’s difficulties, but a way of understanding and enduring them.

Questions of language and culture also play a central role in preserving identity. Egamberdiyeva Diloromxon Olloberdi qizi explores themes of patriotism in the works of Uzbek poet Erkin Vokhidov. Rashidova Shohsanam addresses the challenge of protecting the Uzbek language amid youth slang, internet speech, and foreign influences, emphasizing that language carries cultural memory and identity. Giyosova Mohinur Yoqubjon qizi discusses ways to enhance linguistic capabilities of elementary students. Aleksandra Soltysiak’s poetry, translated by Jakub Sajkowski, similarly celebrates the balance between language, identity, nature, and beauty. Ahmedova Zamira Shokirjon qizi outlines the moral and cultural themes in Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi’s work. Italian critic Ivan Pozzoni discusses central themes of Western literary postmodernism. Christopher Bernard’s third installment of his novel Otherwise underscores books’ vital role in free thought and resistance. Fhen M.’s essay on Roger Kimball critiques approaches to literature that reduce art solely to politics or economics, arguing instead for the continued importance of aesthetics and imaginative value. Sevara Matnazarova celebrates the joy and wonder of reading. These works defend culture not as something static, but as a living inheritance requiring care, interpretation, and renewal.

Other writers focus on practical pathways toward a better future. Abdusalomova Marjona Jahongir qizi and Egamnazarova Shahina Shaxriyor qizi both emphasize determination and goal setting, presenting perseverance as a crucial force for personal transformation. Asalxon Xasanova learns to develop a realistic attitude towards her personal and academic struggles and to seek improvement where needed. Sobirova Iroda Abdulaziz qizi advocates for financial literacy among Uzbek youth, suggesting that economic understanding empowers individuals and communities alike. Sharifov Sirojiddin Shavkatovich celebrates mathematics as a profound intellectual framework for understanding the universe, presenting reason itself as a form of human achievement. Olimova Muslimaxon Odiljon qizi celebrates the success of her high school’s robotics team in their first competition. Abdumutalibov Islombek discusses students’ use of artificial intelligence technology. Mirzajonova Sabokhon turns to medical science, outlining the of iron in the human body, as does Merojxon Ahliddin qizi Majidova, who discusses treatments for liver and uterine issues. Azizaxon Shodmonova sends in a charming graduation poem saying goodbye to a wholesome elementary school year and to her teachers and classmates. Finally, Eshmurzayeva Jasmina Shodiyor qizi celebrates the new generation of educated, accomplished young Uzbek women. These works suggest that hope is not passive optimism, but active effort guided by education, discipline, and vision.

Environmental awareness forms another major thread uniting these voices. Sabrina O’ktamova discusses restoring the damaged soil of the Aralkum Desert through lichen, transforming ecological devastation into the possibility of renewal. Yeon Myung-Li celebrates a variety of animals after a trip to the zoo, including one who escaped. Timothee Bordenave proposes practical environmental conservation through innovative heating methods, while Jacques Fleury simply but powerfully urges people not to litter. Mark Young’s digitally altered maps of Australian geography blend language and vibrant color into imaginative landscapes, reminding readers that geography itself can become art. Christina Chin’s delicate haiku captures a quiet evening moment, revealing the beauty hidden within ordinary experience. Mushtariybegim Ozodbekova similarly argues that beautiful and well-maintained spaces are essential for human flourishing. In these works, caring for the environment becomes inseparable from caring for humanity itself.

Finally, several writers turn toward spirituality, longing, and human connection as sources of transcendence. Soumen Roy reflects on divine presence, interconnectedness, joy, and spiritual awakening, presenting existence as deeply unified beneath apparent separation. Yeon Myung-ji’s imaginative work explores desire, hope, art, and possibility, suggesting that longing itself can inspire transformation. Brent Yergensen’s old-style poem shows a person finding comfort just from the nearness of God. Paul Bavister’s poems look into connection, solitude, change and self-reflection. Jessie Vanderwall presents the depths of loneliness left behind after a great and soul-expanding love. Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar’s tender invitation to dance offers a smaller but equally meaningful expression of vulnerability and admiration. Even amid grief, conflict, and uncertainty, these works affirm the enduring human desire to reach toward others.

Whether through poetry, criticism, environmental activism, mathematics, storytelling, or cultural preservation, these creators demonstrate that survival alone is not enough. Human beings seek beauty alongside truth, memory alongside progress, individuality alongside community. Across all these works runs the same underlying conviction: though life is fragile and often painful, people possess an extraordinary capacity to create meaning, preserve dignity, and imagine renewal even in the face of impermanence.

Trash Tossing: Put Litter in Its Place

In Honor of World Environment Day

By Jacques Fleury

[From Fleury’s book: Chain Letter To America: The One Thing You Can Do To End Racism: 

A Collection of Essays, Fiction and Poetry Celebrating Multiculturalism]

Ah, this place called Earth…. Stop for a minute. Look around you. Try to see your earthly surroundings as if through the eyes of a fascinated child. Bask in the majesty of the Great Smoky Mountains or stimulate and overwhelm your senses with the geologic colors and magnitude of the Grand Canyon; the lush splendor of a giant redwood; a 150 feet tall tulip, an ash, a sycamore or a weeping willow. Stop for a minute on your way to work and behold the morning sun rising over the lofty landscape; its light feeding the plants through photosynthesis and at dusk be still and behold the full moon. Stop for a minute and think before you throw that empty plastic bottle in the river, on the city streets and sidewalks or in the public park; thus disparaging our environment.

     There are a number of things in this world that aggravates me, but none as pesky and infuriating as careless, indifferent and insolent litterers. Yes, you know who you are; the ones leaving your Dunkin Donuts cups behind on mail boxes, subways and park benches or tossing their plastic beverage bottles audaciously on city streets in spite of the presence of onlookers. Perhaps it’s because we live in a world where people are becoming increasingly rude and inconsiderate.

     During my formative years growing up partly in Haiti, I received a social and familial education unlike the education I received in my catholic school in Port-au-Prince. My family and even my extended community of family friends and neighbors contributed to my upbringing. Proper manners were an integral part of my life on the island. My mother—Marie Evelyne—was an advent figure in my learning of proper manners and etiquette and one such behavioral
teachings were to always “pick up after yourself” and to leave a place as clean as you found it.

In Haiti, even the very poor adhere to a strict code of what is considered to be socially acceptable behavior. Hence once in America, I continued this tradition of being conscious in how I conduct myself in a public setting and one such conduct is not tossing my rubbish on public property.

Now some may scowl reading this upon perceiving it as some type of a harangue about how they should conduct themselves but it’s not meant to be. I hope to express the frustrations most likely felt by fellow pedestrians who too are probably fed up with straddling litter on the city streets.

     “America, we’ve got a problem,” declares some state legislatures in an internet article titled “Toxic torpedoes.” Apparently there has been an influx of truckers tossing bottles full of their urine out the window, littering our countryside. This further exemplifies the problem with people—who for esoteric reasons disregard the environment in which they live through blatant effrontery in disposing of their debris on public property.

     “Littering is a mindset problem…We need to make it socially unacceptable to throw rubbish on the streets, “asserts an anonymous person in a letter to the editor in Design Week titled “It’ll take more than graphics to beat the litter problem.” He goes on to say, “Offenders must appreciate the link between dropping litter and the cost of cleaning it up and realize that litter is never thrown ‘away’—it’s just moved elsewhere.” This problem permeates apparently in other parts of the world, a number of people are ostensibly and collectively non-socially conscious when it comes to how they treat the environment. In Berlin, talking trash cans will soon thank
people for not littering.

     Another article in “The Science Teacher” promulgates that, “A 100-fold upsurge in human produced plastic garbage in the ocean is altering habitats in the marine environment.” This is based on a new study titled “Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition” (SEAPLEX), conducted by a graduate researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Apparently, in an area known as the “Great Garbage Patch”, the journal “Biology Letters” evinces that plastic shards in the surrounding area have risen 100 times over the last 40 years
causing detrimental shifts in the natural habitats of marine animals in particular.

Let’s face it. The world is an ever-evolving place. Now with the continuous dawning of the technological age, more and more “stuff” will continue to surface for us to dispose of. Now, I am cognizant of the possibility that not all of us were taught proper social behavior or etiquette, or if you were, you have forsaken your social manners and public etiquette over the years, but the cliché “It’s never too late to learn” or in some cases “re-learn” social formalities rings true in this
instance.

So Stop for a minute, look around and find a trash receptacle and keep the earth green and clean.

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Spirit of Change Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–

“No Extracurricular Moaning: Diamanda Galás on Suffering, Irony, and the Wily Mind”

Interview by Alex S Johnson

• INTRODUCTION 

In this newly released segment of Alex S. Johnson’s ongoing conversation with avant‑garde vocalist and composer Diamanda Galás, the artist dismantles sentimentalism in contemporary music, critiques the misuse of feminist rhetoric, and explores the philosophical and psychological architectures that shape her work.

Galás rejects the “namby‑pamby, like, crying into the hanky shit” of modern singer‑songwriters, insisting that authentic expressions of suffering must contain irony, perspective, and survival intelligence. As she states in the interview: “If you got nothing else in your deck to show me, then why don’t you just get lost… I want a punchline in there.”

Drawing on country legends like Hank Williams and Johnny Paycheck, she contrasts their sardonic, outlaw‑inflected storytelling with today’s confessional pop, which she finds “revolting” when stripped of humor or self‑awareness. She also critiques certain strains of contemporary feminist performance as “weak,” noting that “what they think is maybe feminist… is not feminist in the original sense of the word.”

The conversation expands into classical philosophy, the Stoics, and the Greek concept of wily intelligence—the survival‑driven cunning embodied by figures like Odysseus. Galás emphasizes that “wily is by no means a negative… it means you are a man who can survive in situations designed to destroy you.”

Finally, she discusses the conceptual roots of her piece Panopticon, drawing from Jack Abbott’s In the Belly of the Beast and the psychological violence of total surveillance. She describes the panopticon as “a system of mental destruction… a massive paranoia situation for prisoners,” and critiques the naïveté of releasing institutionalized people into society without support.

This exchange reveals Galás at her sharpest—philosophically incisive, culturally unsparing, and fiercely committed to artistic rigor. It is a portrait of an artist who refuses sentimentality, demands intelligence, and insists on the power of the wily mind

ALEX  07:59

Suffering has never been, and even earlier, I’m going back decades, suffering has never been for you as sort of an abstraction. A lot of artists will, in pop music, for example, they’re suffering in love, and again, I’m going back to you, I’m thinking of, you know, “I Put a Spell on You,” because you take this classic by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins,

Diamanda Galas  08:33

oh yeah,

ALEX  08:34

So this is, I’ll just give you my sort of theatrical interpretation of it…what I felt from it was that it’s there are two voices here, one voice is, is the one who’s genuinely in anguish, who’s genuinely hurt, who’s, you know, wants to be beloved, has been failed in some way, shape, or form. The other is more like the dark goddess manifestation, who is putting a curse on the person, assuming power, and with a lot of pop songs, it’s like, why did you leave me, like country western, it’s like, why’d you leave me, or, a female empowerment song, which is completely valid, but I – go ahead,

Diamanda Galas  09:29

Yeah, well, my take, yeah, actually, a lot of the songs, I think that when Hank Williams sang them, when, Johnny Paycheck was singing them, it was a very different time, and initially, and there was a lot of sardonicism, there was a lot of irony, and there were, they were just singing. Sing the life, life as they knew it, and they would sing about a lot of other things too, besides, you know, unrequited love, but I think that right now there’s a lot of singers who sing a lot of these songs, love songs, and poor me songs, and I really, when I hear a lot of women or men singing these kinds of songs without any irony, without any humor, without any perspective other than poor me, I find it revolting, because it’s just like, look, you know, I really don’t need to know all those details, you know? If you got more, if you got nothing else, in your, in your deck to show me, then why don’t you just get lost, because you know what? We all know what these things feel like, and I want a punchline in there. I want a punch line in there. I want a point of view that will help me survive that, if that, if you know, if that’s what I’m looking for. I don’t want all this namby-pamby, like, crying into the hanky shit. I can’t bear it. I still seriously can’t bear it, you know.

And, and I find, and musically, it’s like the singer songwriter tradition, that kind of thing. I can’t stand it. It’s with, with Hank Williams, or especially with Johnny Paycheck, there would always be this kind of, you know, two feet up on the bar,

ALEX  11:47

Right,

Diamanda Galas  11:48

And getting really drunk, and, and knowing that he was an outlaw, he was going to do the wrong thing every time, and then writing a kind of a sort of imitation poor me song, but always had these punch lines, were just like, like, with ‘Pardon me, I’ve got someone to kill.’ He sings, you know what I mean.

ALEX  12:10

I do.

Diamanda Galas  12:10

I don’t know..I mean, I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to leave you because I got someone to kill. I told her not to do it, and blah blah blah, and I’ve been so miserable, and blah blah blah. At the end of the song, he just says, ‘Okay, pardon me, I got someone to kill, you know?’ They’re on the hill, they’re on there. He talks about them being on the hill, and his wife and her lover, and.. and it’s.. it’s kind of like all in a, all in a day job, in a day’s job

ALEX  12:41

Right. Yeah, that’s…

Diamanda Galas  12:42

Their approach to art is the life that they’re in, that’s just the way it is, you know, and it’s sorrowful, but there’s no extracurricular moaning, and you know, and I think that a lot of women do that, just like what they think is maybe they think it’s feminist, that’s not feminist in the original sense of the word. The expressions that people use a lot of times right now that are supposed to mean feminist are for me just weak.

ALEX  13:18

Okay…

Diamanda Galas  13:19

And I don’t like all that weak shit. I don’t want to be around it. I don’t want to hear it, and too many sweet voices, fine sweet voices. I’m just like Jesus Christ, don’t strangle me to death.

ALEX  13:31

Okay, so examples, please.

Diamanda Galas  13:34

Nope!

ALEX  13:36

That’s fine.

Diamanda Galas  13:38

Examples, no, there’s so many examples, it would just be redundant.

ALEX  13:42

Okay? Because, because I know, I don’t hear a lot of sweetness, I hear a lot of what they call it, sort of selective outrage, or blaming men for shit that’s really structural…

Diamanda Galas  13:58

I think if you get to this point where you’re just sitting blaming men all the time, you know, you should make up your mind, just go out there with the scissors and just kill them,

ALEX  14:06

Okay?

Diamanda Galas  14:07

Or just, you know, do something else, but the same old theme over, over it, it just glorifies these, these people that they’re supposedly got a hate on for, and it’s just like, oh, for Christ’s sakes.

ALEX  14:25

Well, you know, that’s a fascinating because it makes me think of two things. First of all, Hegel, right, the master-slave dialectic, and also Nietzsche, you’ve got, like, fucking. I really, I’m not meek at all, you know, but I’m going to clad myself in the robes of meekness in order to dominate people, right, and try to gaslight them into thinking that they should be meek in order to be dominated by me.

Diamanda Galas  14:57

Well, that’s a stoic that comes from the Stoics. Actually, if you think about it, because the Stoics were the slave, the Greek, at first the Greek slaves of the Romans,

ALEX  15:08

Yeah.

Diamanda Galas  15:08

They were the counselors to the Roman emperors, and because they were slaves, of course, they could never, never express their feelings or any of their, their particular resentments or angers, they, but they were, they were sought after because of their use of logic, and they had to put an emphasis on certain things, logical thinking, and they were valued for that, because they will be able to make constructs that would work for the people they, for the people that employed them, military designs, just mental… how do you put it? How would I say this devious in Greece? There’s an expression in Greek which means wily thinking, [πολύμητις (polýmētis)] and to survive as a slave of the Empire, Roman Empire, with people that were syphilitic emperors and very evil, had to be extremely wily, and that’s a one of the most revered words in Greece, so you have these people, like you know, Zeno Heraclitus, and these others,

ALEX  16:47

Right,

Diamanda Galas  16:48

Helping plot, plot the rule of a Roman government, and that’s what I’m talking about, I think that that’s very interesting.

ALEX  17:04

It is, it is very, very interesting. I almost.. I lost my, my thought. It was.. oh, yes. There’s a word.. I don’t know Greece. I don’t know Greek. I don’t know anything about it, except, you know, my poem, which is translated into Greek, which I don’t understand my own poem, but anyway, I’ve been assured that it’s really good Greek, and it’s called “Alchemist of Sorrows,” anyway, after Baudelaire, actually, but so, so in in the original Greek of the of the Odyssey, when, when, and I was wondered about this, you know, when Odysseus, they’re one of the epithets, is always used is, you know, you know, man, in many ways, or I guess it’s polytropos, probably mispronouncing it, but I, you know, and, and you know what’s, what’s her name, the she’s a professor at Columbia, Gayatri Spivak, right, translates it says basically sardonically big liar, so I’ve always, I’ve always been curious about that, and now you’re kind of filling something in for me, where that the mentality of being wily is not necessarily wrong, it’s just so Odysseus. What’s your, what’s your take on Odysseus and his ways?

Diamanda Galas  18:35

I, I, I don’t think I’m qualified to discuss.

ALEX  18:39

Okay, okay…

Diamanda Galas  18:40

Wily is by no means a negative, it’s a positive, it means you are a man who can survive right in situations that are designed to destroy you.

ALEX  19:03

Yes.

Diamanda Galas  19:04

And that means you must be extremely clever. You must be able to to see paradigms, and you must be able to recognize patterns before one is exacted upon you, and that is why they’re, we’re hired and revered,

ALEX  19:30

Right?

Diamanda Galas  19:32

So much as revered,

ALEX  19:34

Right? Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s that’s brilliant, and I think that, you know, pattern recognition is the, you know, skill set of our era in so many, so many ways, right? Yeah, so also I just wanted to kind of pivot to Panopticon. So you did a piece called Panopticon, immediately think, obviously, Jeremy Bentham, but famously Michel Foucault, and right, and could you, could you talk about the origins of that piece, and your, your, your use of vocal language to express the concept of the panopticon?

Diamanda Galas  20:16

One of the texts that I was reading at the time was was a, oh my god, in the morning I’m, I tend to forget it, a Jack Abbott’s In the Belly of the Beast.

ALEX  20:34

Yes.

Diamanda Galas  20:35

That was promoted naively by Norman Mailer, who fought very, very hard to get the guy out of prison, and as soon as the guy got out of prison, he killed somebody, you know, that was just it. It’s like that’s where you look at Norman Mailer, and you know, I remember that Truman Capote used to laugh all the time, he called him “the most vicious bitch in the world.” And my favorite things were to read in Gay Sunshine, they’re casting aspersions upon each other, and I would just fall out laughing…Norman Mailer was very protected.

So, anyway, when you talk about Panopticon, it’s really a system of many eyes, in, in, in the sense that the guards, the guards, and the warden are in the center, they’re in the center, they have the center seat, and they can see every cell in the prison, they so that there, there is a, there’s, it’s a massive paranoia, paranoia situation for prisoners. There’s no privacy, there’s no privacy at all…a system of mental destruction.

So you have a guy like, like Jack Abbott, and all these liberals are thinking about, ‘oh, poor guy,’ you know? Like, well, you could say poor guy all you want, but I mean, you don’t want to just hatch him out of prison, like, and give him 50 bucks and say have a good life, you know. It doesn’t work that way in your life. Doesn’t work that way.

It’s like when a person becomes institutionalized, that person becomes terrified of the outside world. That person does not know how to interpret gestures from the outside world. A gesture, I believe it was a gesture by a bartender or a situation like that that got killing him because he thought the gesture meant that it was he was threatening Jack Abbot and it wasn’t that…The thing is, is, is that the person to leave is, is a, is a second execution, is a second punishment, because, where do you go, where do you go, where do you go to learn the skills of, of, of a normative? It’s not a normative society, is it? But it’s called normative society. Where do you go to learn how to communicate and how to interpret signals after you’ve been in a place for eight years, and always have 24 eyes in the back of your head.

Alex S. Johnson — American author, editor, and cultural interviewer. Known for over 100 works in horror, bizarro, surrealism, and the dark fantastique, and for conducting a major interview with avant‑garde vocalist Diamanda Galás. His projects include Black Diadem: Magazine of the Fantastique and the Axes of Evil metal‑horror anthologies. Johnson’s work aligns with underground, mythic‑punk, and transgressive traditions; he has been praised by cyberpunk pioneer John Shirley, who called him “the Baudelaire of our time.” His interview with Galás situates him within the lineage of writers engaging with radical performance, political art, and the aesthetics of extremity.

FIRST Championship is not only a competition of robots and technologies, but also a beautiful bridge that strengthens friendship, culture and unity between young people from different countries. During the International FIRST Championship, we had the opportunity to meet talented participants from different countries, exchange ideas and learn about each other’s cultures and traditions. Even though we speak different languages ​​and are representatives of different nationalities, technology united us like one big family. 

This unforgettable experience once again proved to us that science and innovation have no boundaries. Through teamwork, respect and sincere communication, we not only created robots, but also built strong international friendships. While proudly demonstrating our culture, values ​​and traditions, we also got to know the rich heritage of other countries. Moments like these inspire young people to dream big, explore more, and believe in international cooperation. FIRST Championship is not just a competition for us — it has become a true celebration of friendship, diversity, and youth innovation. 

#FIRSTChampionship #Robotics #STEM #YouthInnovation #CultureExchange #Friendship #FutureEngineers #InternationalYouth #Technology #Innovation

Emily as the Predictable Question

Yes, she drew me in

as simply as a breath

& when she breathed

me out I was part

of the derivation 

of Emily, the world

that exists for everyone

else. I miss the before,

when her lungs

were making this me,

but it’s good to be

with you all.

How else could I mourn?

How else could I fight

my way back to her?

Emily as Well-Made Cake

I don’t need to be so modern

as to use plates or utensils or occasion,

I just need her in my mouth.

Emily as Obvious Beauty

Being simple, 

seeing good as a gift,

that re-made me.

Emily as Fifty-Seven Years Later

The frailties will be funny, too.

Death will be hysterical. Jokes we

barely remember, that’s oxygen.

All All #52

Now, now, now is when we sit on top

of America’s chest to see what 

good breath is left. No songs. No strutting

across the mythology of fields

with actual gods we blanketed

to smother. Just the weight of people

& a promise to bring back honey,

to bring back the drowning in honey

to the bee killers. Now. Now. Now. Now.

A Short Break

A short break, a space to think,
to work things out: his need
for order, her love of silence.
Outside, though the sun was bright,
the wind never stopped. Sand
hissed beneath the cabin door,
gulls skimmed the waves,
small birds flickered into bushes
after night flights over the ocean.
People drifted into the hard light.
Inside, he over-read each word,
he weighed every sentence.
They had never felt so far apart.
Each hesitation filled
with the hiss of the spring wind.
They ate at the kitchen table
while sand sifted over
the wooden floor.
The argument, when it came,
drove them back towards each other –
as if stopping
would be the end of them.

Metal Cabin

The cabin shook with a polar storm.
My son appeared on the laptop
and told me he was lonely
in his new job in the city.
Snow powder hissed
over the metal roof.
I turned up the volume.
He said he went to bars
almost every night
but always sat on his own.
I told him I was scared
of the guys in the control room.
He said he spent too long
in chat rooms
but there was nowhere else
to meet people.
Snow drifts pushed
against the windows.
I said I was always there for him
and when he nodded
I believed he was there for me too.

Technician

It was the first retirement party
I’d ever been to, and even though
they sang his praises, he was

always rude to me. Maybe
he used to be helpful and kind
but to me he was a bully,

resistant, angry. He was mean
about people who’d done nothing
wrong, yet on his last day

everyone had tears in their eyes
and said they would miss him.
Maybe he’d changed. Maybe

work had ground him down.
It’s 45 years later, and my turn
to accept a leaving gift.

My colleagues turn to the buffet
and fill their plates. I’m not sure
if I’ve upset them. I can’t tell

if I’ve changed or stayed the same.

Paul Bavister has published three collections of poetry with Two Rivers Press. His work has appeared in Confluence, Dream Catcher and Smoke. Starlings came highly commended in the Rialto poetry competition.