Karen Loeb
CONTACT:
Email: loebkaren@gmail.com
BIO
Karen Loeb grew up in Chicago, and though she's been away longer than the time she lived there, the city often still permeates her writing. In the 1990s her story collection Jump Rope Queen was published by New Rivers Press after winning a Minnesota Voices Project Award. She has received Pen Syndicated Fiction Awards and grants and a fellowship from the Wisconsin Arts Board. Recently, a story won the Wisconsin People and Ideas contest and another story won an editor's choice award in the Raymond Carver contest (see below for links). Her poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, Hanging Loose, Main Street Rag and elsewhere.
PUBLICATIONS:
“Alberto Tells Us About Walnuts” in Verse Wisconsin
"Cantaloupe" in Carve Magazine
"The Walk to Makino" in Wisconsin Academy
“The Bamboo Inn” in The White Crow
“Border Skirmishes” in Verbsap
“Catching the Drift” in Otis Nebula
“Kools in Chicago” in the Chest Journal
Poetry
He-Man
Charles Atlas, in his power
briefs, with his washboard chest,
flexing his biceps
was sure he had the answer
to these questions:
Are you a 90-pound weakling?
Does a bully at a dance
cut in when you’re dancing
with your girl? When you
protest, does he throw a punch
at you? Do you want to be the
one who punches him and
gets the girl? All this on the
back of Superman comics.
Send for the Charles Atlas
Dynamic Tension system and
become the Man of Steel you’ve
always wanted to be. This is
the answer to all your prayers.
First appeared in Mochila Review
Short History of Zero
Zero is
the last
in line on
the telephone
dial arc
almost forgotten
no pals
to hang out
with.
No matter
how fast
you dial
that zero
it always
takes its
time
getting
to the other
side
of the
finger stop
only to
lean backwards
as if someone
were reeling
it in
like a kite
with a colorful
tail of ribbons
caught in the wind
or a rainbow
trout
swimming
for its life.
First appeared in Pinyon