Editors’ Choice: Adriana Páramo

Oil Spills Remind Me of Him The moment we walked into a trendy club in the upper-class party strip in Bogotá, the women stopped talking. Their heads turned in our direction and their smiles got silly flirty. He smiled back, did this thing with his spiked-up hair, winked with a slow flutter of his eyelashes [...]

Read Full Post »

Thank You

It is with a heavy heart I report that despite the efforts of the dedicated students, faculty, and staff, the Board of Trustees of Chester College of New England last evening announced its decision to close the college. Without Chester College, Compass Rose will no longer exist in the way you’ve come to know in [...]

Read Full Post »

Volume XII Available Now!

Compass Rose is pleased to announce Volume XII is available. We would like to thank all of you for your patience and we hope you enjoy this collection of poetry, prose, and artwork as much as we do. You can buy Volume XII here.

Read Full Post »

Compass Rose Announces Flash Fiction Contest Winner

The editors of Compass Rose are happy to announce the winner of our first flash fiction contest is “The Lifter” by Eliot Wilson of Denver, CO. Our final judge, Tim Horvath, also awarded a second prize to “Midsummer,” by Amelia Boldaji of Salt Lake City, UT. Both pieces will appear in our Volume 12, scheduled for [...]

Read Full Post »

Editors’ Choice: Fred Yannantuono

Emerging Poet So the shithead stays up drinking all night since he thinks he’s Dylan Thomas, and he’s so drunk he can’t begin to read, and now he wants to be backlit. He doesn’t even wait for that, but, turning his back on the audience, begins to bleat how sad he is, how gay he [...]

Read Full Post »

Editors’ Choice: Corey Ginsberg

My Quarterlife Crisis I can’t decide what the worst part about my job is. Maybe it’s cleaning the caked, orange urine stains from the inside of the Fabi’s toilet bowl rim. Maybe it’s being hungover from drinking cheap vodka out of a You’re #1 mug alone in my apartment last night while I ignored term [...]

Read Full Post »

Editors’ Choice: Bryan Estes

Love is Nothing Like a Rose except that it seems like a good idea at the time, when the back yard is dead and gray, to step out of the dim kitchen into the cold rain, to claw at some mud and bury a few mangled bulbs among the worms, having trivialized (again)   the [...]

Read Full Post »

Editors’ Choice: Susan Calvillo

His Secret Garden Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells And marigolds all in a row. the boy had been trying to pluck me out from underneath the bed, where I hid and refused him he came daily and poked his head down to stare at me [...]

Read Full Post »

Editors’ Choice: Sam Lane

Don’t Make Fun of the Deaf A deaf man once told me, with such angry hands—his signals loudly gnashing— I speak in sound asshole listen to me Sam Lane is an English major in Georgia who has been published in The Odredek and On Tap.

Read Full Post »

Editors’ Choice: Mira Martin-Parker

As It Is and Ought To Be —Immanuel Kant It must have been painful seeing Truth sprawled out on the page without her dress and powder. She must have looked so undone— under bright lights dissected, examined with cold fingers. In your eyes I had ravaged the maiden and you kicked and screamed like a [...]

Read Full Post »