VQR Online

Combating the myth of urban loneliness.

Literary magazines ranked by their Pushcart Prizes winnings.

Here’s one for you: “Karl Rove.”

It’s our Fall cover, which features a photograph by Ashley Gilbertson.

The road at the top of the rise
Seems to come to an end
And take off into the skies.

Let the downpour roil and toil!
The worst it can do to me
Is carry some garden soil

Lord, I have loved your sky,
Be it said against or for me,
Have loved it clear and high

It took that pause to make him realize
The mountain he was climbing had the slant
As of a book held up before his eyes

There’s first a gloveless hand warm from my pocket,
A perch and resting place ‘twixt wood and wood,
Bright-black-eyed silvery creature, brushed with brown

The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours