Literature — Blog — Half Mystic

“I felt like a hair standing up on the arm of the world.” (Maria Gray on Vesper)

There is something otherworldly about daytime unhinging itself from the necessity of light.

Literature, Music, Personal EssayGuestJuly 20, 2026John Keats, Ocean Vuong, Susan Sontag, Annie Dillard

The Vesper Letters (A Selection)

I never write a poem unless it is a song, and I never write a song unless it is a poem.

“What have we lost in the separation of me from you?” (Jordan Escobar on Vesper)

We don’t have to bruise ourselves to be in love with this process. We can listen to the music and let the evening carry us.

“There are some songs whose rooms I can walk through for hours.” (An Interview With Matt McBride)

Surreality brings me closer to reality.

“These poems were a map of the ocean I’d crossed.” (Matt McBride on At the Mercy of the Flies)

I wrote as a way to explain the world to myself—to feel like I had some agency, even if my only power was as a witness.

Literature, Music, Personal Essay, PoliticsGuestApril 24, 2026Matt McBride, Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Announcing Half Mystic’s Nominees for the 2026 Pushcart Prize

Our Pushcart Prize selections are landmarks & lighthouses; they are wryly tragic & agonisingly gentle; they live with one foot in the ancestral & one in the visionary.

From the Editor: Willows Wake and Walk Away

As it leads you through a world where healing moves with the patience of river water, may Willows Wake & Walk Away offer you a place to rest, to reckon, & to rise once more.