“I didn’t have anything, really, besides this harrowing anti-life and lightweight clerical job that I escaped to five days a week, smiling and befuddled, in order to escape my cramped, depressing apartment.” Read new fiction by David Nutt on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/slat...

“UNCLE jungle DAUGHTER doctor” Read ten new poems by Craig Dworkin on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/ten-...

“When I went into the fridge next, I took a cucumber. I drank a glass of water. I read five pages of a book. I held a plank for seventy-three seconds.” Read three new stories by Hannah Applebaum on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“Just one thing more I promise. Do you have rain too? Drainpipes and waterfalls? (Did you tell me already?)” Read two new poems by Charles North on R&R, the poet that James Schuyler called “the most stimulating poet of his generation.” www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

“I’m always happy when people return their pizzas, that’s my dinner. I basically eat pizza every night. Albert Einstein ate the same thing every day, and never changed his clothes, and that’s why he was so smart.” Read new fiction by Dallas Campos on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/skit...

“Same poet, more in focus historically competent with pretty words rarely short-tempered, 5 foot 6 aggressively interested in football but that was always true.” Read four new poems by Isaac Jarnot: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“eBay collectors spend thousands on dollar bills with printing errors” Read three new poems by Tom Snarsky (@tomsnarsky.bsky.social) on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“Jenny’s misfortunes were more or less about how she came into the world. Mine were about wanting to get out of it.” Read new fiction by Grace Byron (@emotrophywife.bsky.social) on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/prin...

“I can’t decide what I want to be. Right now, I am becoming more careful with myself. I eat green foods. I’m dating around, but never stay out later than nine. Mom and Dad love me for being smart for so long.” Read new fiction by Jasey Roberts on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/vale...

“The sea monsters committed suicide in the mountains. There are no sea monsters in the world anymore. That’s why he grew up to work for Amazon.” Read three new poems by Yuyi Chen on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“Because I've been wallowing too long. And now, in a stranger's apartment, happiness reveals itself to be an obese cat, and a woman from Alsace.” Read new fiction by Steve Anwyll on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/leo/

“my little mother, my little father in the morning when the sun is new my father’s village on my head feeding me, shaking with laughter i smell them like beer in the night time” Read new poetry by Leo Dunsker: www.relegationbooks.com/article/naiv...

“The common denominator was the impression that something had happened to each person, maybe at once, maybe over the course of decades. An event or simply an idea. An emotion. Something painful or unforgettable or both.” Read new fiction by Angela Ma: www.relegationbooks.com/article/as-i...

“She was still thinking about the King James Bible, thinking there had been an error in the translation of the Latin, no, Hebrew. The English loved their Greyhounds so much they wrote them into the past.” Read new fiction by Mitchell Galloway: www.relegationbooks.com/article/grey...

“Why bother writing so much that your own writing doesn’t recognise you? If you mean to get everyone to publish you, you know how many people you’ll keep busy working for how many decades?” Read three new poems by Ouyang Yu: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“I want you to be happy like a man wants to live with his wife in neo-liberal derangement How she might feel about it is another poem” Read three new poems by David Larsen: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“And then the waterfalls are nice. They’re nice the way these things tend to be nice: they’re pretty and two minutes later you don’t know what to do with them.” Read a short story by Samuel Solleiro, translated from the Galician by Jacob Rogers: www.relegationbooks.com/article/grea...

“I thought the duration of human lives stacked up in a row and you could go back a century quite quickly if you only remembered a few lives would send you back to Rome” Read four poems by Hannah Piette on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

To celebrate his birthday today, June 6th, we are happy to share a never-before-published short story by Stephen Dixon. Read “The Day is Done” on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/the-...

“Lawson feels that he is in a kind of place he’s never been, a place with dark spaces above, below, to the left and right, front and back, kind of closing in.” Read new fiction by Clyde Edgerton on R&R: www.relegationbooks.com/article/deat...

“The Washington Metro is not sexy People read books like The Secret History of Neo-Liberalism They take calls from their realtor The floor is a Pollock-inspired linoleum It used to be industrial carpet” Read three new poems by Simon Schuchat: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

the final hidden palace thursday, june 5th, 2025 baltimore, 7pm with: jimmy cajoleas brian allen carr edy modica ariana reines poster by jason wallace

“Lilly wants that baby, and Samuel likes to give her what she wants. He’s given her a proposal, a marriage, a house with his car motor in the living room.” Read three new stories by Megan Koch: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

Relegation Books’ house magazine, @rnrmagazine.bsky.social, edited by @josephgrantham.bsky.social, opens again to submissions tomorrow; capped at 100: relegationbooks.submittable.com

“Nobody's perfect but people aren't stupid. Human knowledge may have gone boom but going boom is a thing that happens” Read four new poems by Bob Perelman: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“Thinking too much, fell off. Found out. Fell in love. In that order. No breeze today, in the breeze.” Read four new poems by Rod Smith: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“She had had a psychotic break when she was in college and started cursing everyone. She was treated for this, and eventually it passed, and she started wearing only white or beige, which looked lovely with her gold blond hair. New fiction by Sherril Jaffe: www.relegationbooks.com/article/vari...

Editor @rnrmagazine.bsky.social, @josephgrantham.bsky.social , interviewed by Lucy K. Shaw for new literary news outlet, Zona Motel: zonamotel.substack.com/p/profile-jo...

“I don't think I would be able to do this if I lived in Los Angeles or New York or San Francisco.“ Joseph Grantham discusses @rnrmagazine.bsky.social, the year-old art and literary magazine published by Relegation Books in Baltimore, with Lucy K. Shaw: zonamotel.substack.com/p/profile-jo...

“The hard part of getting a mouse to sign a contract is that you have to hold him down using the cover sheet, but when you hold him down he can’t hold the pen.” Read three new poems by Renny Pritikin: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“I thought about you 3 times tonight from 7:30 to 8:30 from 8:30 to 9 & from 9 till I got home when I started to think about you again” Read four new poems by Elinor Nauen: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

“Things call and fall into place. Call like a curlew or a loon. Call hair ‘yellower than porchlight,’ children in from play... Call like a hoopoe or a crane.” Read new poems by Merrill Gilfillan: www.relegationbooks.com/article/stev...

FINDER by @josephgrantham.bsky.social southwestreview.com/volume-108-n...

“The day Elvis died, my father said we had to go out and buy his records, because one day they would be valuable. There might not be any left, he said, but we had to try. So we went out.” Read five new short stories by Paul Maliszewski: www.relegationbooks.com/article/five...

“The predator has been made legal by voting. First there was vetting and then there was voting. The voting was carried out by the people. Who will carry out the people.” Read three new poems by Eugene Ostashevsky: www.relegationbooks.com/article/thre...

“When I told my Foundations of Western Thought teacher that I wanted to examine Marx’s alienation of labor in terms of the strip club he’d blushed so hard I could see the pink showing through his combover.” Read new fiction by Mesha Maren: www.relegationbooks.com/article/gold...

hidden palace no. 37 thursday, april 3rd, 2025 baltimore, 7pm with: jazz boothby jarett kobek megan nolan willis plummer poster by jason wallace

“I could, but I don't. I could drink tea, but I drink coffee. I could take a sip right now, but I let it sit and keep writing.” Read new writing by Steve Benson: www.relegationbooks.com/article/on-f...

[email protected] reading from Antonio Di Benedetto's The Suicides in Baltimore tonight as part of the Hidden Palace reading series. Starts 7pm at Fadensonnen (3 W 23rd St.) Other great speakers, including @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social @josephgrantham.bsky.social @greedyreads.bsky.social

tonight in baltimore

“How are you dead while I'm still alive, still wondering where light ended and shadows began? How did I used to describe you? A rock star? A raptor? A pile of dirty shirts? A carpet of pornography? A bare bulb always burning” Read new poems by Sharon Mesmer: www.relegationbooks.com/article/two-...

Make plans to come see R&R’s First Art Show in Baltimore Closing: March 22nd, 5-7pm with performances by: Devon Welsh Austyn Wohlers Regis Hotel

“If I imagine all time sequestered in the fold of a daffodil, Close to the desire of sitting next to someone, It’s like a trip uptown and then one downtown, And my door is open to the revenge of snow.” Read four new poems by Vincent Katz: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

scenes from R&R’s First Art show opening

tonight in baltimore

Sneak peek of this week’s installation of @rnrmagazine.bsky.social: The First Art Show, curated by @josephgrantham.bsky.social and opening this Saturday, February 22, from 5-7pm in the gallery at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Mt. Vernon, one of Baltimore’s vibrant culture and arts districts. Join us!

“you on my body the giant dog beside the bed the murderer on the roof watches tv with us” Read four new poems by Kerry Desrochers: www.relegationbooks.com/article/four...

Editor @rnrmagazine.bsky.social and curator of the magazine’s first art show — celebrating one year of publishing and opening in Baltimore on 2/22 — @josephgrantham.bsky.social is on the road this week making studio visits to featured artists; seen here with Kathryn Lynch in Catskill, NY. Join us!

“The GameStop job wasn’t bad except if you imagined doing it for the rest of your life, or when someone from school came in.” Read new fiction by Mike Jeffrey: www.relegationbooks.com/article/blan...

Hidden Palace no. 36 (the three year anniversary of the series!) with Esther Allen Leila Register Paul Maliszewski Wayne Koestenbaum poster by Mary Beth Eisenstadt