Hawaii Pacific Review

by hipacificreview | 09/11/2014 · 8:51 am

Guns and Country

by Meg Thompson

“To him who is in fear, everything rustles.” — Sophocles

I grew up watching my dad aim at groundhogs out the kitchen window. This is to say, my parents are rednecks. There are many variations of redneck, and they are the quiet and meditative kind. You can tell because they rarely speak or leave their farm. My dad has spent most of his life smoking cigarettes in a field, staring at the heifers. My mom has spent most of hers wondering where my dad is. Getting a glimpse of them out in public is like sighting wolverines. Continue reading →

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Filed under Nonfiction

Tagged as Meg Thompson

by hipacificreview | 09/08/2014 · 11:37 am

She Runs Where

by Christopher R. Vaughan

spikes claw trammeled sod,
where grass whistles like wind through cattails,

where dusk’s coattails are a slithering
and a disappearance. She runs where

the glint of a rumor inches into awareness,
the door shut like a gunshot, deadbolt Continue reading →

Crazy Horse’s Girlfriend

by Erika T. Wurth. An excerpt from her novel Crazy Horse‘s Girlfriend (Curbside Splendor Publishing)

Driving up, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. It was late May, and although the mountains still had some snow on the peaks, it had been a hard but short winter and things had been warming up for some time. We had packed Mike’s big, blue SUV and were on our way up 103. His right hand was resting on my leg and he was driving with his left. Our windows were rolled down, and Mike was playing another one of his white noise bands that I didn’t recognize, and I closed my eyes and let the raspberry, deep green, pine, dirt smell roll over me. It didn’t take too long to get to the foot of the mountain. We were planning on camping somewhere around the lake, but we decided to drive to the top of the mountain first. They had just opened the road up for the season and we drove, things getting bumpier and bumpier, which just made us laugh as we rocked back and forth in our seats, firmly buckled in. Continue reading →

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Filed under Fiction

Tagged as Book Excerpt, Curbside Splendor Publishing, Erika T. Wurth

by hipacificreview | 09/02/2014 · 8:31 am

The Shine

by Pui Ying Wong

On the day when nothing happens
windmills nod in the haze,
cars sprint to the ramp
like mice on running wheels.
In the geometric space between two
arching branches, the sun broods. Continue reading →

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Filed under Poetry

Tagged as Pui Ying Wong

by hipacificreview | 08/28/2014 · 12:05 pm

Soap

by Joseph Han

I’ll start when I still had the blue car. Karen, these are all the things I wish I told you before you broke up with me because maybe it would’ve changed something at least.

The parties I went to. At first it was just to be away from all those people I went to high school with. Even now when I run into them, these ghosts in new clothes, it’s a game of seeing how long you can ignore or avoid that person until courtesy gives. I’d hang on the walls leaning like a crooked painting, going whole nights not saying anything, just sipping on my beer with my mouth and words getting dry. Me not actually talking to other people, especially girls. Continue reading →