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JULIA BROOKES - TIMOTHY LIU - OLGA NARODITSKAYA - LAURIE WARD - AND MORE ISSUE NO. 1 | FALL 2026 RECLAMATION2THE ALETHEAN REVIEW Aletheia Ancient Greek ἀλήθεια (alētheia) noun Truth; in Greek mythic tradition, the personified spirit of truth and sincerity. OUR MISSION AT THE ALETHEAN REVIEW The Alethean Review is a literary journal dedicated to revealing the truth of diverse human experience. We are committed to amplifying voices of all backgrounds and identities so that history is written by all of us, and not in our absence. @thealetheanreview thealetheanreview.comFALL 2026 RECLAMATION3 EDITOR’S NOTE This section was always something I’ve enjoyed reading for years, but I find myself cringing at the thought of writing one, but alas! Here we are. For those who like numbers, 4,235 unique books were challenged in the United States in 2025, according to the American Library Association. 7,370 unique titles were banned in U.S. public schools during the 2025–2026 school year, resulting in 11,982 recorded instances of book bans, according to PEN America. Even if you’re no mathematician (because, same), you can easily calculate the amount of incredible concern we should be having right now. We need to write and publish our stories, our truths, now more than ever—which brings me to this inaugural issue! Immerse yourself into all the different embodiments of reclamation that can be found within these pages. I’ll let the glory of every line, every page speak for themselves. FUCK ERASURE. Love, Shaylynn Marks, Editor-in-Chief A very special thanks to my dear and talented friend, Alina Proschan, our managing editor. This wouldn’t have been made possible without you, and I couldn’t pick a more incredible person to create this with.4THE ALETHEAN REVIEW ISSUE NO. 01 TABLE OF CONTENTS POETRY FICTION NONFICTION Timothy Liu — Three Poems — 5 Paul Hostovsky — Lost Erections — 9 Julia Brooks — Two Poems — 11 Sambu Ramachandran — Renewal — 14 Matthew Perry — Roofing — 16 Elijah Perseus Blumov— Nearing Thirty — 23 Stephen Mead — Burn Holes — 24 John Grey — No Older — 25 Elizabeth Ambos — Neighborly — 26 Mara Lovelock — Two Poems — 29 Bunny Wilde — You’re Dead — 35 Matt Wall — It’s Been a Month — 41 Olga Naroditskaya — Her Body — 44 M. S. Sahu — Palu — 10 Lori Ward — Peonies — 27 Julie Chibbaro — Allegra — 32 Dawn Miller — The Girl Made of Glass — 37 Louise Wynn — Reclaiming My Momitude — 17FALL 2026 RECLAMATION5 The good life has to be more Than cleaning up mess after mess That you did not make— You touch yourself in the mirror thinking This is the only body that I’ve got— A tragedy. Hitting the gym won’t help. Nor mainlining designer drugs Said to cause death As a rare but possible side effect— Who’s going to love me now If I myself can’t even Muster up the strength? Some sauerkraut on my dog, please With a dollop of mayo On the side. Take care What you put in your body, he said When he whipped it out— A dead deer full of buck shot Leaping across the median On a two-lane road That led to grandma’s house Made famous for her Venison gravy— Grandpa a babbling idiot Drooling by the fire. He had such good stories to tell Once upon a time, even if They weren’t true. None of them were ever true. When was the last time You watched yourself giving yourself Pleasure? Framed By all the stories you told piling up Like volcanoes everyone TIMOTHY LIU 3 POEMS LAST-DITCH INVENTORY OF SHAME6THE ALETHEAN REVIEW ISSUE NO. 01 You left a lot of your stuff with me and I had to drag as much as I could to a green bank only to climb back up to where I had started knowing it would take more than a few trips and who knows how much of what we had would be taken away and the thing was this I almost couldn’t reach you you were always taking care of someone else’s flood even when I was standing right before you oh they say you were great last night! and what will you be doing next is what you were asking me again and again lost inside a future that had so little of the present in it our moments together robbed of the kind of texture I had wanted more of you know that feeling you sometimes get while lying down on a beach with the sun so powerfully horny you can’t stay out there without protection all the while THE KNOWER OF HIS WORDSFALL 2026 RECLAMATION7 all the while and everywhere around the too bright sand and all that pleasurable digging around as you try so hard to hold on to what little you no longer really have to have8THE ALETHEAN REVIEW ISSUE NO. 01 He was a real cowboy in the bedroom but refused to ride me, made me want him more. The rope burns told me to run as fast as I could— my heart hogtied to the four poster. The wind blew in. Then something crept inside, whispering the secret word years of therapy could not. THE MERCY Timothy Liu’s new book of poems, Last Chance Church, will be out next year. A reader of occult esoterica, he lives in New York’s Hudson Valley and teaches at SUNY New Paltz and Vassar College. @liu_po timothyliu.netFALL 2026 RECLAMATION9 PAUL HOSTOVSKY LOST ERECTIONS I’ll never forget that first one, how we looked for it together everywhere. Thinking she was the one who lost it, she apologized. But it was mine to lose, I told her. It’s our loss, she said, ruefully buttoning up after doing yeoman’s work to find it. I never saw her again and it remained lost forever. Robert K. Merton coined the phrase self-fulfilling prophe- cy: “The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error,” he wrote in 1948. Which explains why, after losing that first one, the fear of losing was hard to master. In fact, it made a (write it!) disaster of my sex life for decades after, undermining every love poem I ever wrote. “This could be a love poem,” says the attractive elderly woman in the poetry workshop where I am workshopping this poem. “Perhaps what you need to focus on,” she offers, “is the balance between imagination and memory, letting the latter Paul Hostovsky makes his living as a sign language interpreter and braille instructor in Boston. His poems and essays appear widely online and in print. paulhostovsky.comNext >