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Beyond This Place

November 8, 2015/in Poetry, Poetry, Winter-Spring 2016 / by Clint Smith

The air is thick with ambivalence.
The residue of those both forgotten and pushed away.
A watchtower too certain of its own authority.

The slow grating of a mechanical door granting
one passage in and out of the yard.
The dull gray of clothing rendering life

invisible against a backdrop of concrete walls.
Barbed wire coils itself precariously
around the edges of the prison.

It can be difficult to tell what they are trying
to keep in and what they are trying to keep out.
Chain linked fences standing upright as soldiers do.

Only what they are told,
only what they have convinced themselves
they have been built for.

But is anything built for what it ultimately becomes?
Stripped of any agency it might have had,
when this steel was melded into a false deity,

a pretense of human control,
did it dream of what else it could have been?
The wheels of a child’s first bicycle.

The monkey bars from which they would swing
to and fro.
The car a family drives on cross-country road trip

filled with laughter
and fighting
and spilled ketchup across the floor.

When did it learn it was to become a cage?

But how can a cage become a refuge?
A circle of men swallowed
by the world’s indifference.

Where the totality of their personhood
has been diluted to a single act.
That they have become singularly defined

by the worst thing they’ve ever done.
We don’t remember they are brothers,
husbands, fathers, friends.

We don’t remember that they are people
worth remembering. But their writing is a declaration
of all that makes them whole.

A classroom of men who refuse to forget themselves.
Each word provides the sort of liberation
a parole board can never grant.

So often they write about their family,
their children.
How they want them to remember

their father as the man whose laugh
would turn a room into a festival of rapture.
How he would read them stories before

they fell asleep to a world that didn’t always
make sense, but always made sense
in his arms.

It’s the sort of thing that reminds them
that they once existed beyond this place.
That they still do.

Clint SmithClint Smith is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University and has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He is a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion and was a speaker at the 2015 TED Conference. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in the American Literary Review, Harvard Educational Review, Mason’s Road, Off the Coast and elsewhere. He was born and raised in New Orleans, LA.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png 0 0 Miguel Magana https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Miguel Magana2015-11-08 19:49:332016-02-29 17:02:07Beyond This Place

Issue Archive

  • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
  • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
  • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
  • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
  • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
  • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
  • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
  • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
  • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
  • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
  • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
  • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
  • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
  • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
  • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
  • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
  • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
  • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
  • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
  • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
  • Issue 1: Spring 2012

Genre Archive

  • Creative Nonfiction
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Flash Prose
  • Lunch Specials
  • Poetry
  • Interviews
  • Translation
  • Visual Art
  • Writing for Young People

Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published every Friday.

Today’s course:

Peace, Love, and a lot of Loud Rock & Roll

June 17, 2022/in A Transfer, Blog / Sunee Lyn Foley
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Crosses to Pentacles

June 10, 2022/in A Transfer, Blog / Jazmine Cooper
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Table to Trash

June 3, 2022/in A Transfer, Blog / Franz Franta
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Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

QVC-land

May 6, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / D. E. Hardy
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Diana-Hardy_QVC_Feature_Photo.png 533 800 D. E. Hardy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png D. E. Hardy2022-05-06 23:45:322022-05-06 23:45:32QVC-land

Escape Artists at the End of the World

April 29, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / Lisa Levy
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The House in the Middle

April 15, 2022/in A Transfer, Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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More coming soon!

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

The Revolution Began at Book Club

June 20, 2022/in A Transfer, Amuse-Bouche, Fiction / Sari Fordham
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A Letter to the Dead Grandmothers That Raised Us

June 13, 2022/in A Transfer, Amuse-Bouche, Poetry / Levi J. Mericle
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Histoire D’amour

June 6, 2022/in A Transfer, Amuse-Bouche, Poetry / Robin Gow
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SL-Insta-Brendan-Nurczyk-2.png 1500 1500 Brendan Nurczyk https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brendan Nurczyk2021-05-12 10:18:392022-02-01 13:24:05I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-FB-Isabella-Dail.png 788 940 Isabella Dail https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Isabella Dail2021-04-28 11:34:132021-04-28 11:34:13A Communal Announcement

Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

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Word From the Editor

The variety in this issue speaks not only to the eclectic world we inhabit but to the power of the human spirit. We live in an uncertain world. In the U.S., we’re seeing mass shootings daily. Across the world, we’re still very much in a pandemic, some being trapped in their homes for weeks on end, others struggling to stay alive in hospitals. War continues to wage in Ukraine. Iran and North Korea are working diligently to make nuclear weapons. The list goes on. Still, we have artists who are willing and able to be vulnerable with one another, to share stories and art to help us try and make sense of our world.

More from the current editor »
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