Half Mystic began as a grand experiment in championing work that lives between literature & song, hope & fight, horizon & sea.

Featuring Lyd Havens’ poems “Unruly” and “206 days later”, and Marla Bendini’s song “Blossom”.

Featuring Ben Togut’s poems “Saudade: Autumn”, “Elegy”, and “Coercion Aubade”, and Bennett Bay’s song “Gone”.

Feat. Logan February’s “A Monument”, “The Gemini Man”, and “Husband Is the Loveliest Word”, and Love in the Ruins’ “Matt & Polly’s Suite”.

Introducing Synaesthesia

Welcome to synaesthesia: the blue undressing of voice; the song-scent wafting on wind; the tongues of memory & light.

Announcements, MusicTopaz WintersAugust 4, 2020

From the Editor: The Sforzando Issue

Nothing in this place has ever been abandoned. If we sound desperate, that’s only because we know what our hands can do.

The Sforzando Letters (a selection)

I write, as Roethke says, "to solve all the leaps of light." I write to do with letters what Thelonious Monk did with piano keys.

We don’t come to this decision lightly, & we believe the extra breathing room is truly necessary to publishing Issue VIII with care & intentionality.

How many times can you choose the thing that hurts before you can’t call it an accident anymore.

Thank you for teaching us the grace of sandpaper, the razor-kiss of wreckage, staccato-sharp skeleton strung up to a 4/4 time signature.