Welcome to Wiki Lit

A German submarine surfaced
near a British Merchant Marine
unarmed ship.  The coal smoke tapered
from its four stacks as the engines
cut back on propulsive power.

Read more: A Great War Gets Underway by G.B. Ryan

His love-talk’s a sinning thing, a gutting. He thinks he can midnight express us both to Nashville and the clubs where the saxophone players and piano men are jazzing my songs.

Read more: “Bessie Smith Postcards” — Bessie & Ma, Bessie and the Chain Gang, Bessie Takes Aim at Billy Gee, Bessie Shames the KKK, Bessie’s Island Dancer Recalls the Fight for her Life by Stephanie Dickinson

I think too often of my childhood, of near homelessness and the feel of a belt buckle on my back and thighs, and the hopelessness of feeling the person I love slipping quite literally through my hands. I do not like these things but the thought of them persists despite my preferences.

Read more: A Year by Ashley Simmons

It is strange to feel so constantly
the liquefaction of your own heart,

Read more: Moving by Ashley Simmons

Something is not right about the way you
look, he said, adjusting my collar, his
hands straightening my part a little, […]

Read more: Lunch With Daddy by Sandra Kolankiewicz

Twice in Jaipur and once in Delhi,
female security officers grabbed
my hand, spread the fingers, incredulous
at the wedding mehendi. Startling, right?

Read more: Secret-Telling Bones by Jessica Mehta

I have one of you sitting
in my throat like a pigeon.
Dirty birds—

Read more: Nesting by Jessica Mehta

Last night I was a whore
at the seedy poetry brothel
where men and women bought
my time with poker chips. […]

Read more: The Poetry Brothel by Jessica Mehta

thirty years later the photo stares out
captured in memory’s spider perfect web
the message    a whisper     something
not to be said […]

Read more: The Photo by Doug Van Hooser

Your first name and initial: Donald R. It’s only fair he come first in money matters. He makes more. I am spouse’s first name and initial: Lorna, after an almost forgotten novel, and E.

Last names are different. Half-hearted feminism, keeping one’s father’s name and giving the kids their father’s. “Is that what you go by?” asked the bank teller, as if it were an alias. No, it’s my name. For better or worse.

Read more: Audit, 2016 by Lorna Wood

Y:         You are haunted by ‘Y,’ not because it’s the first letter in your
Family name, but because it’s like a horn, which the water buffalo in your
Native village uses to fight against injustice […]

Read more: The Origin of a Family Name by Yuan Changming

About Wiki Lit

Wiki Lit is a different kind of literary magazine. The aim is to build a living thing that, for the sake of simplicity, we’re calling an anthology. It’s more like a hypertext we’ll build together, week by week, that connects work published in the anthology to more work published in the anthology via in-text hyperlinks.

We’re brand-spankin-new so we hope you’ll bear with us as we grow into the project we’re aiming to be.

If you’d like to help us out, please check out our submission guidelines and send us your work. We’d also really appreciate it if you followed us on Twitter and Facebook, and helped us spread the word.

Thanks for being here! We think you’re pretty cool.