From the Blog

10 Questions for Andy Jackson and Gaele Sobott

February 7, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

a sloth-slow strength stretches like lines of longiturde / sighing
    through my lingering life and other lives before / oh above
    and parallel to mine   gently curving  /  a fierce kink in
     meridians of knowledge  /  systems fixated on fixes
—from "how do we protect the mutant from annihilation by the 'normal'," Volume 64, Issue 4 (Winter 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
Andy Jackson: It's hard to remember what my earliest pieces of writing were. But I will always remember the first time I explicitly spoke about my bodily difference in a poem, and read it out in public. The...

Disability Justice: A Reading

February 3, 2023 - By

View a recording of our Disability Justice: A Reading event, featuring featuring Zefyr Lisowski, Bhavna Mehta, Claude Olson, and Saleem Hue Penny!

Closed Captioning is available, and an audio transcript can be found here.

10 Questions for Stephanie Papa

February 2, 2023 - By Edward Clifford

Pebble tossed, ricochets, sinks
The sea mounts, thrashes
I shake from my body
The wave's vengeance
—from "The Pebble" by Levent Beskardes, Translated by Stephanie Papa, Volume 63, Issue 4 (Winter 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
I think the first poems I translated were actually in Portuguese, rather than French. I went to Brazil in 2013 for a few months, and had the incredible luck of going to FLIP, an international literary festival in Paraty. I will never forget the atmosphere—papier mâché puppet parades, children reading books that dangled from trees by strings, crowds singing on the street, and rooms packed for poetry readings. There, my friend introduced me to Laura...

Shaping a Style

January 31, 2023 - By Peter R. Bush, with Albert Lloret

An Interview with Peter Bush, translator, by Albert Lloret:

You have recently published an English translation of Víctor Català's novel A Film (3,000 meters) with Open Letter Press. What kind of a novel is it? Does it belong to any genre?

No, it playfully skates between genres. In her prologue, Víctor Català refers to her book as a light-hearted movie the reader doesn’t have to take seriously. She even says the reader doesn’t even need to connect the threads of the plot. The orphan protagonist’s agitated quest for his parents means, on the contrary, that the reader is always trying to see how the rapid sequence of events...

Beers for Burns Night

January 25, 2023 - By Marsha Bryant

If a body meet a body
Goin’ for a brew,
If a lassie raised her glassie,
Would or wouldn’t you?

Auld Lang Syne and whisky fine
Can warm us all night through.
But a beer augments the cheer,
So let the pours ensue!

Here’s a lovely Scottish Ale
Translucent, copper-hued.
And its creamy head prevails
On tongues (and glasses, too).

Biscuity and gently hopped
And mildly malty through,
This Belhaven brew’s an op-
tion while the evening’s new.

Cross an ocean to the West,
And beers of U.S.A.
Honor Scottish styles with zest.
Here’s one to try today:

For if you see a Dirty Bastard
Comin’ through...