"Left Ascension" by Ernest Williamson from the premiere issue of Corium

Named after the inner layer of skin beneath the epidermis, Corium‘s debut issue features some terrific writers and writing, including Kim Chinquee, Laura Ellen Scott, Sheldon Compton, Sam Rasnake, Cami Park and more—not surprising, considering its veteran team: Lauren Becker, Heather Fowler, and Greg Gerke.

The site’s minimalist design is deceiving. What seems to be beneath the skin is violence: domestic violence in Stephen Elliott’s “Once More Beneath the Exit Sign,” the violence of war in Shaindel Beers “The Children’s War: Poems on Children’s Artwork of War,” and sexual violence in Andrea Kneeland’s “Pretty.” All of these pieces raise interesting questions about the relationship between hegemony and power.

Two micros from Scott Garson’s forthcoming collection American Gymnopédies, “Des Moines Gymnopédie” and “Manhattan Gymnopédie,” address class politics by way of music culture. Christina Murphy’s “Chilling Effects” is metafiction at its finest, reimagining artifice as loss. And Kathy Fish’s wonderfully funny “Still They Hear What They Want to Hear” is representative in its clever quirkiness of the debut issus as a whole:

A man and a woman talk in a bar.
A man and a woman talk while eating pudding.
A man and a woman talk about trivial matters with underlying sexual tension.
A man and a woman examine newspaper clippings.
And talk about their gigantic, oozing pasts.
She must be young and pretty, but kind of a slut.
He must be somewhat mysterious or dark or torn.
They must love themselves and each other.
But they are kind of lazy.
No, they are really lazy.
A man and a woman talk on a mattress.
A man and a woman talk while lighting matches and flicking them at one another.
A man and a woman talk talk talk in a diner.
A man and a woman have their first conversation.
And talk about an unknowable universe.
She says, “Why…”
He says, “Sweet Potato…”
They are given to sudden realizations.