A story my father likes to tellon late fall evenings. His brown,Jewish, thumbtack eyes pin youwith the details. The german countryside. A simple inn.—from “What He Saw” which appears in our Spring 2016 Issue (Volume 57 Issue 1). Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written.One of the first pieces . . .
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Laalini, the woman I married, recited for me three lines of poetry about this world of dew and confessed her love for Issa, and before I learned he was a poet, I thought he was an old lover, and the jealousy and the relief I felt then left me walking the city . . .
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IN MY EARLY CHILDHOOD, the people I loved most in the world made sure that I saw a silver tree. I remember taking a giant breath and then swallowing the sight of that tree so that it would never leave me. Late-born, with a far older brother and sister, I must have . . .
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My cityborn friend snaps limbs from trees for the bonfireand hands me their greenness. Why refuse this gift of smoke and hissing years of rain?Every tree is difficult. Take this oak and its burl—such handsome infection to climb. I am sorry but without Violence it’s too late to catch up with them…Was . . .
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“It was the air. The temperature and density of it, like it was being compressed around the city. It was the emptiness of the streets and the quiet. It was the time: there was no school, no one wanted lessons, there was nothing to do but read and breathe and try not . . .
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A review of The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground by Collier Nogues (Drunken Boat Media, 2015) While the conventional approach to poetic production is additive, involving the careful placement of words on the void of the blank page, erasure poetry is subtractive, starting with an existing text and deleting material until . . .
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The other mothers covered their children’s eyes. April covered her son’s ears. She might have expected the animal to cry, or to struggle, grasp for breath. But from the bleachers, there was nothing, not even a crack.— from “The Rodeo” which appears in the Summer 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 2). Tell . . .
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“The church looked strangely beautiful in the early morning light. The street between the houses was narrow and darkened the steps leading up to the wooden doors, but there was enough sunlight spilling out from behind the roof, and the Gothic façade—all angles and points and flying buttresses, architecture I’d always believed . . .
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It was the day after Christmas, and watching Danny Splighter skate for the first time in my life was like the holiday was happening all over again.—from “One Way Zebra” which appears in our Summer 2016 Issue (Volume 57, Issue 2). Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written.When I . . .
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“When my mother asked me what in the world I wanted, we weredriving across the Sagamore Bridge. I could feel the vibration.I was ten. My mother had never raised her voice before.” —from “The Light, the Bridge, and the Fish” which appears in our Summer 2016 Issue (Volume 57, Issue 2). Tell us about . . .
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