In the end days, eyesturn around, softened mouth like fog on the window. The first tongue to catch the new language is a rotten egg—from “Salt for the Stain,” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.At first, my poems were basically a . . .
Read More
‘Ałk áą́’i’, long ago.Bąą, on account of, before our people emerged to the fourth world, Nihalgai, Glittering world.Chahałheeł, darkness, happened, and we would adapt to newness, the light, ‘adinídíín.Ch’ah and the western wear—the urban Indian cowboy, and for some, ranching became routine and we honored the animals since we emerged with them. Now . . .
Read More
This is the story of when I stopped trusting people. I’m seventeen, living the life. Work all day, drink all night, never worrying about bills or tomorrow. The songs I was listening to were my script. We’ve all been there; I don’t need to go into it. What happened, though, was that . . .
Read More
Hosteen dibé bitsą́ą́’ yiyą́ą́—hey yaHosteen dibé bitsą́ą́’ yiyą́ą́—hey yaHosteen dibé bitsą́ą́’ yiyą́ą́—hey yaHosteen dibé bitsą́ą́’ yiyą́ą́—hey ya—from “Sonnet 1,” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I took a creative writing class in high school. I wrote a poem about my father. It was . . .
Read More
The 2020 winner of the Anne Halley Poetry Prize is Samuel Taylor for his poem “Postcards from Babel,” published in Volume 60, Issue 1. Sam Taylor is the author of three books of poems, Body of the World (Ausable), Nude Descending an Empire (Pitt Poetry Series), and the forthcoming The Book of Fools: An Essay in Memoir and Verse (Negative Capability). A . . .
Read More
A Review of Martín Espada, Floaters (Norton, 2021). From the moment you open your copy of Martín Espada’s Floaters, you hear echoes of Whitman—and Espada’s own unmistakable, bold voice. Responding to our past presidential administration, this collection tackles the hot-button themes. In addition to being a voice for the voiceless, with booming, resonant, sinewy lines, Floaters takes . . .
Read More
On December 17, 2019, Lou Reed suspended his wild walk with death long enough to show me the cover art for the vinyl version of the extended single he had just recorded, a seventeen-minute-and-twenty-nine-secon rager called “Koy A’hoga.” The only image I have from this dream is the cover with Lou’s thumb . . .
Read More
I dreamed my mother called my name in a voice that ached with longing. I dreamed the acrid smoke of a fire stung my eyes, blurred the edges of the woman who held a deer antler with both hands as she pulled on a smoldering block of damp wood. The flames were . . .
Read More
Though we rarely think of them in this light, writers and professors of literature have training and skills with policy implications. They even, at times, feel called upon to weigh in on matters of national and international importance. In this country, however, I would be shocked if they were actually called upon, . . .
Read More
Mouth full of raven’s bones, eyes black beaks, on our exhausted bellieswe umbilicus to Earth. .54 mm bullets light up our backs, exit our bellies Pre-K: St. Michaels, AZ. Nuns, black scapular and white cowl, shuntmilk-blood prayers down constricted throats; gurgling cramped bellies.—from “Ghazal VI,” Volume 61, Issue 4 Tell us about . . .
Read More