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ISSUE ZERO
FALL 2025
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ISSUE ONE
WINTER 2026
ISSUE TWO
SPRING 2026
ISSUE THREE
FALL 2026
THE ALEXANDER REVIEW
Paul Hostovsky - “Girded”
I’d fallen in love with someone who’d fallen out of love with someone else. I knew that someone
else. Not well, but I knew him. And I saw him, or thought I saw him, walking all alone on a cold
winter day a few months after I’d started sleeping with his ex. He was alone, solitary, but he
looked somehow girded by his aloneness, his solitude. “Girded” was the word that came to mind
in that moment. And a part of me wanted that. Wanted it for myself. All my life I’ve struggled with
this ambivalence: wanting and needing to be alone, and yet wanting and needing to be with
someone. I still haven’t figured it out. I don’t understand it. Maybe it comes from being an only
child. Or from being a writer. It’s a difficult balance. The choice, in the poem, to address the
lover instead of the ex whom the lover has spurned—who is the subject of the poem—made it
feel, when I was writing it, almost like I was building an argument for why we should break up.
But we didn’t break up. And the three of us are actually on good terms now. So there’s that. And
I got a decent poem out of it.
Girded
I saw him today in the Public Garden
walking briskly and alone, all bundled up
against the snow and against the fact
that you don’t love him anymore.
How heavy his heart, I thought, and yet
he stepped so lightly, looked so self-possessed,
walking down the narrow pathway between
the benches. I knew he was suffering because
you told me how he had cried. And as he lifted
a gloved hand to adjust his ear-muffs, I felt
something for him, something in that moment
that I knew you wouldn’t understand if I tried
explaining it to you tonight when I saw you—
because I still don’t understand it myself.
It was something like pathos but something more
like love, really—I felt a sudden rush of love
for this man whom you don’t love anymore
and haven’t loved for a long time, as you told me
after that first time we kissed, back in October.
Now it’s the middle of February and I wonder
about him. I wonder if his pain has stayed the same,
or gotten worse, or better, these five months I’ve been
making love to you without thinking of him—
and why should I think of him? But then suddenly
there he is, crossing my path today, looking
terribly alone, but also—I don’t know—girded
against the cold, against the loneliness, and I wanted
to follow him. Not to where he was going but
how he was going. A part of me wanted to be him.
A part of me wants to be with you but a part of me
wants to be with him, head down in the wind,
clenched against the cold loneliness raining down.
Paul Hostovsky - "High Tingling”
One of my lit profs in college said Keats’s “To Autumn” is his greatest ode. “A near-perfect
poem,” she said. Whatever that means. Anyway, I do love that Keats poem. And I love autumn.
But who can compete with Keats, right? I figured I’d just tell it like it is, or was, in a plain
speaking voice, a warm and unfussy plainspokenness with a dash of humor. I like clarity in
poems. And accessibility. And story. And an additive syntax. And as for the sexual tension, well,
there’s sexual tension everywhere, so why not here? I really did play that game as a kid, trying
to catch the falling leaves before they could hit the ground. It was a magical time. Sweaty and
breathless, and deliciously alone in the twilight of my childhood. It happened like that, and I put
it in a poem. Which I could probably say about almost all of the poems I’ve written. It happened
like that. Not exactly, but sort of. Maybe not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But
certainly the emotional truth. The subjective truth. The expansive and various truth of the
imagination.
High Tingling
I used to think spring was the sexiest season.
But now I think it’s fall
with all its burning smells
and the musculature
of the impatient trees with their
red pants down around their knees
already—and all this talk of peak
foliage, which reminds me of all the talk
of orgasms, which are both the point and
so beside the point. I mean look
how beautiful. I mean feel how impossible—
everything building, everything climbing toward a high
tingling, a ringing in the ears, a flying
down through the world from the highest
branches. When I was a kid
I’d stand with my back to the trunks of trees
(a kind of renunciation
of hide-and-seek) and count
with eyes wide open
the number of leaves falling right now,
then take off running, darting zigzag,
trying to catch them, to take them,
snatch them out of the air mid-dance before
they could touch the ground. I played that game
for hours and hours, years—
sweaty and breathless, happy
just to be catching the falling beauty
in my hands, then letting it go, throwing it back
into the world.
BY: Rachel Rodman
Rapunzel and Gretel
All morning,
the sisters
had been
compelled to wander
along
intricately
for- king fo- rest
p a th s:
mi- les o f un- willing ex- ile.
Of this unhappy expedition,
they retained only
the blurriest of mental maps.
Hungry.
Tired.
Abandoned.
But not lost.
Surreptitiously,
just before leaving, the elder had
affixed the tips of her hair
to the cottage doorpost.
Now, a perfect record
of their of their journey wended
through
the
trees:
a
labyrinthine
tangle
of
lovely
strands.
Ellen Wadsworth - "Star of the Sea"
I was quite young when my Nan passed away — I don’t really remember much from around
that time of my life. I remember when she got sick, then better, and then one day she was
gone from our lives. That was almost 10 years ago now, but the funny thing about grief is
how it never quite leaves you.
One morning on my walk to the bus stop I heard seagulls pass overhead. I live in the
Midlands, UK, nowhere near the sea, and so this was quite jarring for me. As I kept walking I
was transported back to a better time, one of seaside cafés and machines gushing out 2ps
at the arcade on the pier.
Sometimes I’d race back from school to the voicemail light flashing — it was always her, just
wanting to hear about my day. I’d give anything to hear her voice again. I miss my Nan
tremendously, and I wonder if she’d be proud of how I’ve turned out. This poem is dedicated
to her memory, to my Stella, my star of the sea.
Star of the Sea
The seagulls are calling —
but I'm not sure to whom.
Their shrieking melody carries,
winding along with the wind.
Rain splatters on the pavement
and I carry on walking.
The seagulls are calling —
am I hearing that right?
But they're so far from home.
A sunny beachfront,
old wooden piers,
waiting for the chance to
snatch up some chips
from an unsuspecting child.
The seagulls are calling —
I think maybe for me.
A memory flashes by
of rocks crunching under my feet,
childish screams of greeting,
ice creams all round.
They'd end up melting in the heat
whilst we sat outside the café,
munching on crisps and
sandwiches and jacket potatoes.
The seagulls are calling —
their screech haunts my mind.
In it I hear a voice
calling out bingo numbers,
I smell a glass of diet coke
fizzing on the computer table.
I see the flashing lights
of the coin pushers in the arcade.
I can taste the bread
from the Harvester's salad bar.
And I feel your hand in mine,
leading me onto the next adventure.
BY: Sarah Das Gupta
Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK who has lived and worked in India and Tanzania, She started writing aged 80, after a disabling accident, Her work has been published in over thirty countries in magazines and anthologies, She has recently been nominated for Best of the Net and a Dwarf Star.Best wishes from a gloomy Cambridge.
Puck, by any other name...
I answer to many names
Puck, Hobgoblin, Robin Goodfellow,
even foul fiend when Mistress
is truly vexed
by my mischievous tricks.
In the cool dairy, the milk turns sour;
hiding in the shadows,
I bewitch the butter churns.
At twilight, in the mothy gloom,
I pick fennel, parsley, thyme and
scatter the withering leaves,
confusing the kitchen scullion.
At harvest in the summer sun,
I creep into maidens’ bonnets
or in dusty barns where motes
dance in rays of light,
I steal grain as the winnowers work.
In the mill stream I tangle
the fishing lines.
The rose- spotted trout escape
to cool green shallows.
In autumn, I sit on the horse’s back,
as he ploughs, turning the dark soil
into earthy waves.
I pull his ears so he tosses his head;
the ploughman loses his footing.
In midwinter, I polish the ice in the farmyard
as Mistress carries branches of red-berried holly
and dark- brooding ivy to bedeck the hall.
I fill lovers’ ears with tales of deceit
before sleeping in the breathy warmth
of the murmuring sheep fold.
BY: Sarah Das Gupta
Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK who has lived and worked in India and Tanzania, She started writing aged 80, after a disabling accident, Her work has been published in over thirty countries in magazines and anthologies, She has recently been nominated for Best of the Net and a Dwarf Star.Best wishes from a gloomy Cambridge,Sarah Das Gupta
A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF THE PARSONAGE FIELD
Through patches of dead grass
green shoots push
towards the pale, February light.
Gentle, apologetic at first,
now urgent, ruthless,
impatient of decay and death.
Last summer’s corpse
feeds a new start.
Hedges, brown and dead,
begin their slow resurrection.
In sheltered spots, tips of emerald
catch the morning sunlight.
Pale, fronds of bracken,
wait shyly beneath
the now skeletal leaves of autumn
whose bony fingers rot and decay.
Sheep nibble at the grass shoots
welcome, after winter’s dreary diet.
Lambs test this new freedom,
then bleat in panic for a lost ewe
The new ferns slowly stretch
their well-fleshed, sappy limbs.
Round the five-bar gate
the wet mud dries in the hazy warmth.
Early summer, evenings lighten,
merging more softy into night.
Grasses now stand waist high.
Green waves flow across the field,
driven by a southerly wind.
The white foam of ox-eye daisies
tips this grassy sea.
By June, bright red poppies, scarlet wounds,
pinpricks of blood, predict summer’s
short span, the grass already marked
with funeral wreathes.
The hay is cut and stacked.
Light breezes blow in the fading light,
the end of summer,
the season’s dying breath.
Autumn, a sudden chill in the air,
The green bracken is tipped with russet.
Night comes unexpectedly,
crawling over the trees and dew-wet grass.
Morning mist floats across the ground,
a ghostly flock that haunts the chilly field.
Dead leaves, thick mud, mark the gateway.
Sparkling cobwebs, cover the hedges,
iridescent in the autumn light.
Dark fairy rings appear in the grass,
mushrooms, tiny, static, nuclear clouds,
explode from nowhere.
Autumn ends with storms and gales.
The creeping paralysis of winter
grips the field.
Winter comes, a heathen King,
crashing through the bare branches of the trees.
The grass already dying,
surrenders to the frost.
Brown cushions of dead grass,
like ancient prayer mats, wilt and rot.
The black branches of the hawthorn hedges,
lay bare the secrets of spring nests.
January snow drifts in waves,
a stark, lunar landscape,
lit by a blood-red sun.
Icicles point their sharp daggers
to a captive earth.
Only the prints of a lone fox
break the perfect whiteness.
A solitary owl’s hoot echoes
across the frozen field.
High on the North Downs, this field has not been ploughed
since the Domesday survey.
BY: Sambhu Ramachandran
Sambhu Ramachandran is a bilingual poet, translator, short story writer, and academicfrom Kerala, India. He is currently working as Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S.College, Pandalam. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Neon and Smoke, TheBombay Literary Magazine (TBLM), Wild Court, Madras Courier, The Alipore Post, MuseIndia, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Setu, The Chakkar, Ethos Literary Journal, Every BodyMagazine, and Sextet, among others. You can reach out to him on Instagram:@sambhuramachandran
Reversal
my grandmother’s voice sifts through
my terrors. I hold my breath and count
to a hundred, my heart clenching into shudder
with every passing second. my eyes conjure up
swiftswoon images, plucking from the mirror
a past muted to a spectral tread. the seasons wash
over my head, spring whispering my name
in a breath balmy & evanescent. the leaves
let fall by grief huddle in her clogged veins.
a slow music. polished thin by the sacrifices
piling silver upon her hair, the russet
in her voice. small fires crackling in her spine
have frozen into habit. memory grows
ambi-
dextrous
as I watch my grandmother age in reverse,
her long-lost childhood a parable
of forgiveness. the lines on her forehead
smoothed into courage. she sings folksongs
only the wind will quote in moments of longing
years hence. her molars grimy tombstones
blackened by tobacco stains, under which
the husk of her looming death
splits.
BY: Sambhu Ramachandran
Sambhu Ramachandran is a bilingual poet, translator, short story writer, and academicfrom Kerala, India. He is currently working as Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S.College, Pandalam. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Neon and Smoke, TheBombay Literary Magazine (TBLM), Wild Court, Madras Courier, The Alipore Post, MuseIndia, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Setu, The Chakkar, Ethos Literary Journal, Every BodyMagazine, and Sextet, among others. You can reach out to him on Instagram:@sambhuramachandran
Cycle
The washing machine’s dizzying carousel.
Clockwise & anticlockwise. Playful purgatory.
Time curls into my palm as I watch my shirts
bleed to whiteness on the clothesline. Over
the treetops, summer is advancing, its epaulettes
studded with the fury of unseen stars. Memory’s
broken hourglass. A drizzle strolls through
wrist-cutter leaves, rustling secrets. A procession
of ants carrying aloft a mangled earthworm
marches around my left heel to the underside
of a rotting log. I remember what Rilke says
about the stubbornness of suffering. The sound
of stealth. A rat scurries through a crevice
in my boundary wall, its sleekness strangely
enticing. Kill it, my instinct whispers in cold blood.
And so we swerve into violence, defending
what we think is ours. Yet my mother says
this land was once a tract of wilderness overgrown
with bamboo and pandanus where no one
set foot for fear of snakes. I don’t know when
a reptilian exodus could have taken place,
but now all you hear are bored fat rats
squeaking their trespasses. They know
my cat prefers processed meat. At night,
I have dreams in which I hear the serrated susurrus
of pandanus leaves. Walls of concrete retreat
behind tall columns of grass, and the luminous eyes
of ancestors swirl around my head. Rats play
hide-and-seek in my sweat-slick clothes and slip
into the embrace of snakes as the moon cracks
open its skull upon the sky’s vast sacrificial stone.
The washing machine comes on again.
Seasons change.
Andrew Careaga - “A SIGN UNTO ME"
There’s a walking trail just outside my house—just a stone’s throw away, as the saying
goes. My wife and I walk it often, and since retiring a couple of years ago, I sometimes venture
out on my own to stroll along this concrete path. One spring morning, not long after an early
Easter, I looked down to see a single candy cane, encased in cellophane and perfectly unscathed.
How odd this seemed to me, to find such a sweet on the path several months after Christmas. It
would seem more likely, I thought, to find more seasonal treats along the path than this pristine
candy cane. As I wrote in my essay, “If candy must appear along this path, why wouldn’t it be a
discarded jellybean or marshmallow Peep?”
The next day, I walked back to the spot where I’d found the candy cane, and there was no
trace of it. Perhaps a bird decided it would make good material for a nest under construction.
Perhaps a squirrel carted it off. Perhaps its rightful owner returned to find the prodigal treat. I
like to think that it went to a good home, somewhere. But I could not get the thought of this
simple piece of candy out of my mind, so I thought I’d try to exorcise it by writing about it and
about the season during which I’d found it. I originally titled the piece “Out of Season,” but the
more I thought of the candy cane as a symbol of Christmas—and, by extension, the story of
Christ’s birth, as told in the Gospels—I decided to borrow a phrase from the Book of Luke: “And
this shall be a sign unto you” (Luke 2:12, King James Version). So I changed the title to “A Sign
Unto Me” and borrowed more language from that verse of scripture, revising it to fit the
situation, and pondered in my writing whether there was any grander meaning to the discovery of
this candy cane.
Although the candy cane and its cellophane wrapper derive more from human
manufacture than from nature, I thought that the discovery, in a place surrounded by nature, fit
the mission and seasonal structure of The Alexander Review. I was pleased to have this essay
included.
A Sign Unto Me
It is not supposed to be here.
Not on this day, in this place, in this season.
Not on this warm April afternoon. It’s the kind of day you might call glorious: all blue sky and abundant sunshine. I’m walking along a tree-lined trail that serpentines along a creek and through neighborhoods, connecting park to park, point A to point B—a trail designed for walkers, runners, bikers, families, couples, kids on skateboards, kids and their parents on bicycles, wearing protective helmets as their mothers insisted. A place for vibrant young couples and the elderly who use canes and walkers to help them along. A place for people with dogs on leashes.
But today I am alone; no cyclists or runners close in from behind. No children laughing and shouting in the distance.
I’m surrounded by evidence of the emerging spring: tender nubs of pale leaves unfurling on bare branches; flitting robins and cardinals, performing their courtship dances; nattering squirrels, nature’s trapeze artists, scurrying along lichen-splotched trees and branches and across power lines, chasing each other through the transforming undergrowth.
And there on the sidewalk before me lies a single candy cane, sealed in cellophane. It is unbroken, pristine, as though ready to slip into a child’s stocking on Christmas Eve. It is small, no longer than my index finger. The kind you buy in packs of twelve at the dollar store.
Why is it here, on this sidewalk, this time of year? On a day when redbud trees labor with heavy purple blooms and dogwood branches erupt with swollen, emergent pale flowers that soon will burst into brilliant white blossoms like constellations against a brown and green universe of hickories, elms, maples, catalpas, mulberries, and sycamores?
Easter has barely passed. If candy must appear along this path, why wouldn’t it be a discarded jellybean or marshmallow Peep? Or if not candy, maybe a boiled egg, dyed in the pastel colors of the season and smelling of sulfur?
Easter, the celebration Christ’s death and burial and resurrection, is in my thoughts. Not Christmas, the Nativity and Baby Jesus and caroling. But then I saw this candy cane, and now Christmas has insinuated itself into my thoughts.
And ye shall find the cane
Wrapped in cellophane,
Lying on a sidewalk.
Shall this be a sign unto me?
BY: Mary Oliver Brown
Dark Rhythms
On a Detail of James Van Der Zee's photograph "Song Birds" (1932)
With my mind full of the glory of the Lord, I turned
My camera lens toward the throbbing heart of Harlem.
Then, in 1916, I opened Guarantee Photo, my studio on 135th Street. Weddings, funerals, celebrities, socialites - all were captured
In the merciful light. From the humble & mundane to the idealistic Worlds of elegance & beauty, refinement beyond compare. Worlds of wealth not attained elsewhere.
Aspiration for Negro pride and self-determination Became the project of my representation in light.
I revealed to the world the family of Harlem.
What is seen in the patient eyes of four Black girls gazing toward heaven? What gospel hymn do I hear from the piano's ivory keys?
Or is it a popular song once played while stompin' in the Savoy Ballroom - The mecca of dance for young, Black sophisticates?
I witnessed five young women. Four standing straight and strong,
Right arms extended as if in salute to the mystery of song,
And a fifth girl accompanying her sisters on the piano.
I witnessed a ceremony in white silk and satin,
The arms raised as if to obey a secret desire to fly away, To be carried above by the ritual-spirit of dark rhythms.
Years have passed since first I captured this photograph. The images are faded to sepia brown.
Yet, I still can see four young girls, right arms held aloft, With their sister seated at the piano.
I hear their divine song.
On the day the world ends
