State of the Wards
Words By Levi Andalou, Art By Ryan Gajda
She applies ink to her lips and begins running her mouth on the page. The folk explanation for the irresistible urge to eat dirt. Organs in the head are the last to live and the first to die. We put our hands against our heads in moments of shock, as if to contain the enormity. As…
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Levi Andalou
Levi Andalou’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Minnesota Review, Lake Effect, Spillway, BOMB, Virga Magazine, Sugar House Review, DIAGRAM, Cleaver Magazine, Sonora Review, Phoebe, Ruminate, Pembroke Magazine, and Tampa Review. He is a finalist for both the 2018 Greg Grummer Poetry Award and the 2018 Puerto Del Sol Poetry Contest, and a semi-finalist for the 2018 Boulevard Emerging Poets Contest. A reading of his work was featured on the literary podcast “On the Edge.” The Poetry Editor of Black Warrior Review has said of his work: “These poems and their linguistic turns reinvigorate the prose poem.” The Poetry Editor of Washington Square Review called his work “hypnagogic, surreal, and incantatory.” He graduated from Brown University, where he studied with C.D. Wright, Michael S. Harper, and Ange Mlinko. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can read more of his work or contact him at www.leviandalou.com.
Ryan Gajda
Ryan Gajda is an illustrator based in Bristol, UK. His work has been seen on billboards, the walls of shadowy whisky bars, giant LED screens and (in the words of one reviewer of his print shop) framed with “a special place in the guest bathroom.” Instead of sleeping he likes to get ink on his hands and light switches while drawing pictures of Bill Murray. You can give him a tiny hit of dopamine by visiting him on Instagram @ryangajda.
