Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

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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

Lord of the Rings

Eric D. Lehman’s Ten Favorite Books

Top Ten List Contributor

Notes on the Uses of the New Lyric You

Notes on the Uses of the New Lyric “You”

Tom Holmes

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

semiahmoo / credit: em

from Borderline Fortune: Three poems by Teresa K. Miller

Teresa K. Miller

tent city

3 Poems by Viatrix Curry

Viatrix Curry

More Poetry

Beat Generation

Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's On the Road

Excerpt from Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Paul Maher Jr.

Syncopated Sounds and Rhythms in Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

The Language of Bebop: Syncopated Sounds and Rhythms in Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

Nicole Henares

Jack Kerouac - The Sea is My Brother

A “lost” Jack Kerouac letter found . . . and “lost” again.

Paul Maher Jr.

William Burroughs, portrait by Graziano Origa, pen & ink, 1997

Junk Nightmares

Lee Watkins

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

The Crowd (detail) by Yongshin Cho

The Drift of Desire: An Interview with Yongshin Cho

Bill Wolak

Caving with Malcom (detail) - Rodica Miller

The Mists of Youth: Oil Paintings

Rodica Miller

More Art

Essays

lake padden

Something About Rage and the Light Dying

Jason Hardung

cache / image credit: de

The Muse Cuts: On Mental Health and Writing

Foster McKinnell

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.

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