Empty Mirror

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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

Visions, Symbols and Intertextuality: An Overview of William Blake's Influence on Allen Ginsberg by Alexandre Ferrere

Visions, Symbols and Intertextuality: An Overview of William Blake’s Influence on Allen Ginsberg

Alexandre Ferrere

Tin House 2014 notebook

Fully Aboard the Flesh Wagon: Tin House Writers Workshop, Summer 2014

Randy Osborne

More Essays and Interviews

Poetry

Addisonia / 1902

Three poems by Elizabeth Threadgill

Elizabeth Threadgill

Big Sur / credit: James Donovan

Sleeping by Big Sur

James K. Moran

More Poetry

Beat Generation

How Hip Was My Alley by Kenton Crowther

Review – Alleycats and Beatsters: The Hip, the Gone, and the Way Gone

Denise Enck

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.

William S. Burroughs and Cats

The Guardian and the Familiar: William S. Burroughs and Cats

Lee Watkins

The Ghost Sonata - Vincent Zangrillo

The Ghost Sonata

Vincent Zangrillo

More About the Beat Generation

Visual Art

visual poem (detail) by József Bíró

3 visual poems by József Bíró

József Bíró

You were made for me(detail) - Oscar Varona

Collages by Oscar Varona

Oscar Varona

More Art

Essays

cache / image credit: de

The Muse Cuts: On Mental Health and Writing

Foster McKinnell

daydream on the forest pond / credit: de

The Pointless Forest

Emily O'Neill

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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