Fork Apple Press
A small press for big work.
THE CORE REVIEW
*NEW ISSUE*
THE CORE REVIEW *NEW ISSUE*
Issue 4 | Spring 2026
AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER
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PUBLICATION DATE: 08/01/2026
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AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER // PUBLICATION DATE: 08/01/2026 //
Winner of the The Slice 2026 Poetry Chapbook Contest
A Feast of Small Proportions
by Rivka Clifton
Description
A Feast of Small Proportions is a chapbook that interrogates how the body and mind are navigated and reclaimed, embodying themes of capitalist critique, death, consumption, and queerness. Clifton writes, “I had two shadows: one with and one without fangs. / Both wiggled their dark tongues inside my skull.” With visceral use of the lyric, Clifton brings out these different permutations of shadow; what it means to occlude, be occluded, and to move within these modes. These poems are ones that find us in the dark parts of the ordinary, whether in a junk drawer, a yard, a dog leash, a faucet. These poems call us to redefine how we create.
Praise for A Feast of Small Proportions
“A Feast of Small Proportions, Rivka Clifton's newest collection, is one that entices readers to sink their fangs into its flesh and never let go. In the captivating landscape of these poems, Rivka Clifton illuminates the beauty and violence that lurks in the darkness, in nightclubs pulsing with sweat and strobe lights, in cemeteries and funeral homes, in cities filled with night's ‘feral cries,’ and within the ruins of American capitalism. Rich with surreal, breathtaking imagery and surprising turns, Clifton wields her sharp poetic gaze with precision, nuance, and compassion, urging readers to resist apathy and distrust, and offering instead an irresistibly seductive invitation to embrace the unbridled animality within each of us."
— Ally Ang, author of Let the Moon Wobble“Rivka Clifton’s A Feast of Small Proportions presses, deliciously, into my bright bruises and reminds me of the fact that I have a body. These are poems that tongue each tooth and find the cavities that reach down to the pulp. ‘The voice won’t come / if the tongue is wrong,’ and Clifton’s, here, is so very right.”
— Canese Jarboe, author of Sissy“Courting both gloom and luminescence, the ectoplasmic particulates of A Feast of Small Proportions reveal the trace evidence of a life lived, a life lost, and a life one receives after a mother’s passing: ‘After death, there is always / another box to look into.’ Vivisecting moments of the titular small proportions, Rivka Clifton is mortician, necromancer, and engineer in turns, embalming memory with surgical precision, resurrecting with careful magic the dead and the gone, and rewiring the mechanical circuity of ordinary moments. These poems dissect pathos at a careful remove, with the deft precision of a gothic Brigit Pegeen Kelly: ‘That evening, I felt so dead / I had two shadows: one with and one without fangs.’ This feast feeds on and initiates you into the vampiric, into living dead. In that initiation, Clifton reveals, for the mourners, the waylaid, the phantoms, that the dark might be a refuge. She is a poet of molecular witness, pulling back the veil to reveal the truth: we spend our entire lives in invisible coffins.”
— Temperance Aghamohammadi, author of Battalion Shaped Girl
Who We Are
Fork Apple Press is a small, independent press dedicated to serving the literary community. Our literary journal, The Core Review, biannually publishes works of poetry, prose, and visual narrative. Our poetry chapbook and short story collection contest, The Slice Contest, annually selects one winning chapbook and collection for publication. For craft essays, book reviews, and further engagement with the literary world, check out our blog, The Juice Blog!
Purchase Copies of Our Titles on Our Bookstore
The Core Review
Poetry and Prose
The Core Review Issue 4 (Spring 2026) is the fourth issue of Fork Apple Press' biannual literary journal.
The Core Review Issue 1 (Fall 2024) is the inaugural issue of Fork Apple Press' biannual literary journal.
The Core Review Issue 2 (Spring 2025) is the second issue of Fork Apple Press' biannual literary journal.
Fork Apple Press is honored to publish Alex Baskin's I wake up tangled in pillows and sheets as the winner of The Slice Poetry Chapbook Contest (2025).
ISBN 979-8-9925064-0-2
Fork Apple Press is honored to publish Meg Mullins’ We Are All Having Fun Here as the winner of The Slice Short Story Collection Contest (2025).
We Are All Having Fun Here startles and soothes, inviting secrets and shadows out into the light and dazzling us with their complexity, humor, and tenderness. In beautifully crystallized prose, Meg Mullins dares her characters to the edges, asking us to stare right into the face of taboo. Without fear or judgement, each story unlocks a door to something hidden, toeing the line between discomfort and relatability. Explorations of kink, girlhood, grief, and intimacy find space on the page to push against assumptions and break boundaries. This collection brings clarity to what is so often obscured, inviting us to empathize with the unfathomable.
ISBN 979-8-9925064-4-0
The Core Review Issue 3 (Fall 2025) is the third issue of Fork Apple Press' biannual literary journal.
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The Core Review
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Poetry chapbook & short prose collection. Winter & Summer.
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