Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

  • About
    • About Empty Mirror
    • Get in Touch
    • Support EM
    • Colophon
  • Submit
  • Contributors
  • Essays
  • On Literature
  • Poetry
  • Reviews
  • Art
  • Interviews
  • Beat
    • Beat Generation
    • Ted Joans Lives!
  • +
    • Fiction
    • Music & Film
    • News
    • On Writing
    • Book Collecting

Empty Mirror 25th Anniversary

Empty Mirror celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 31, 2025! While we are currently on hiatus, we invite you to enjoy a quarter century of writing and art in our archives.

Click to read any of the pieces featured below, read more from the category, or refresh the page for a fresh selection!

On Literature

Mr. Henry David Thoreau

I Am Nothing: Thoughts on Thoreau

Paul Maher Jr.

Was Roosevelt Reciting Poetry?

Was Roosevelt Reciting Poetry?: The Need for a New Prosody

Dustin Junkert

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

six

Two poems by Alexus Erin

Alexus Erin

rosario / credit: de

Three poems by marcia arrieta

Marcia Arrieta

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs

Love and the Titanic: Notes on Last Words: The Final Journals of William Burroughs

Lee Watkins

Conversations with Allen Ginsberg

Book Review — First Thought: Conversations with Allen Ginsberg

Marc Olmsted

On the Road illustartion copyright Paul Rogers

David Handley interviews Paul Rogers about his work & the On the Road illustrations

David Handley

Marlie Centawer - a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon

a toast to ti-jean in a liverpool gloom saloon

Marlie Centawer

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

Jason Stoneking - Death to the Rebirth

Death to the Rebirth!

Jason Stoneking

Visible Thoughts, Mistaken Appearances (detail) - Hildy Maze

Thirteen mixed-media artworks by Hildy Maze

Hildy Maze

More Art

Essays

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash / edited by Empty Mirror

Milkman by Anna Burns: a soundtrack to street harassment

Laura Eppinger

Las Meninas (detail) by Diego Vasquez

Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994

Sara Schaff

More Essays

The EM newsletter

Receive fresh poetry, reviews, essays, art, and literary news every Wednesday!

Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

Subscribe Submissions Support

There’s more to read!

  • On Literature
  • Beat Generation
  • Visual Art and Visual Poetry
  • Poetry
© 2000–2026 D. Enck / Empty Mirror.
Copyright of all content remains with its authors.
Privacy Policy · Privacy Tools · FTC disclosures