A child walks the familiar road.A body is found at the mile mark.Still they do not suspect foul play.Still they say she was Not Afraid.—from “Girls Are Coming Out of the Water,” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.The first poem . . .
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This all happened in one of those good stretches of years, a time I like to call Pax Smiley. It wasn’t as bad as the Navy, or the six years I spent at Lino Lakes and various country lockups across the state of Wisconsin. I had that house at the end of . . .
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You don’t just get to decide to start eatin again, it happens slow,a groggy crawl and stumble out of a dream.I didn’t choose to starve mysel,I didn’t choose to stop. It was a cycle, my own metamorphosis—from “‘Eating like a Bird, It’s Really a Falsity,’” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell . . .
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dá’ák’ehdi dá’át’ąą yiighaad yéego dootł’izh ‘iiná yiłNiłtsą́ Bi’áád yiilzhoł shádi’aah dę́ę́—from “dá’ák’ehdi (in the cornfield),” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I attended a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school from tenth grade until graduation. It was one of those schools that . . .
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“Jim,” she said. He turned to her. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, that same sinking couch that had belonged to his parents, as had the house. She was in the kitchen making something to eat. They had been out late the night before, and had woken up . . .
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The first day of their year arrived four weeks later than the rest of the world’s. Or, perhaps, the rest of the world’s year had simply started forty-eight weeks early. In either case, the day was marked by great occasion: work and study were suspended for a week to accommodate cross-country travel . . .
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of a totaled car? Disc five there once,the library lectures-on-tape (Daily Life in the Ancient World)however fog-socked-in shattered day of arrival. But arrival: that would be the Present waitin for a Future to soothe—from “Is the Past What’s Left in the Glove Compartment,” Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020) Tell us about . . .
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For three hours I’ve been thrusting my body past the breaking waves on the northernmost beach in Tel Aviv, where the surfers go, and the lifeguards keep calling—little girl! Little girl, come back!—when I move just outside the border marked by red and white plastic lines tied to metal poles sunk into . . .
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Often we bledafterwards.A seep highin the nostrils,then red. Orour heads pounded& we sleptfor hours in darkrooms, waitedfor our thoughtsto unbrick.—from “Effluvium,” Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.The first story I ever wrote was a near-total plagiarism of “Popcorn” by Frank Asch. If . . .
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At seventeen, he didn’t have permissionlike his friends to go under the ice,to dive down and seewhat the river held secret in winter So he sat on the bank instead, bundledand waiting for the two diversto come up from the jagged manhole—from “Ice Diving,” Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020) Tell us . . .
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