Aesop’s Language The language of Aesop eludes me, and it’s too late to be taught a new tongue; whether they’re villains, reprobates, or robbers, I’m used to calling the powers that be—with no provisos, no thought for rank or title—by their actual names. I won’t thin complicity among the many, or inflate an individual shame. […]
Over the winter of 2014, as Arctic air plunged the American Midwest into its cruelest winter in decades, my mother and I—both Thai immigrants—watched as our homeland’s political troubles reached a new low. In November of the previous year, thousands of civilians started occupying Bangkok’s streets in order to protest the government of then-prime minister […]
Page 17 Don’t let me leave with little Jamie Bulger, he’s so puny and so scared. Don’t let me let go of little Jamie Bulger, he screams for his mum and wants to go home. On the guard’s monitor we are small jointed dolls in grainy black and white. Two thwarted explorers. Two embalmed children. […]
Blas Falconer is the author of The Foundling Wheel (Four Way Books, 2012); A Question of Gravity and Light (The University of Arizona Press, 2007); and The Perfect Hour (Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press, 2006). He is also a co-editor for The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity (The University of Arizona Press, 2011) and Mentor & Muse: […]
Antonia Crane’s Spent is a memoir for readers who enjoy gritty, surreal narratives and stories that eschew easy conclusions. In Crane’s world, vicious cycles can’t be broken, self-reflection doesn’t lead to happiness, and lessons aren’t always learned. There’s a weariness to Spent that emphasizes the title, an undercurrent of longing for a job that doesn’t […]
Janet Fitch is a long-time lover of history and Russia. During a student exchange in England, Fitch realized she wanted to be a writer. She published her first book, Kicks, in 1996. After her second book, White Oleander, made the Oprah Book Club, she was swept up in a whirlwind of critical acclaim. In 2002, […]
Lady Maria, +++++++++++ivalue and valiance, joy and beauty and intelligence, +++++ihonor, worth, and hospitality, noble speech and pleasing company, fine, sweet face and merry countenance, +++++igentle gaze and loving glance— all these, in you, and not the trickster’s art, they draw me toward you with an honest heart. I pray you, if it please you, […]
“Once upon a time, many moons ago, people didn’t have wings.” All the stories my mother used to tell me when I was a child started like that: harking back to an ancient and perhaps mythical time when people had not yet acquired the ability to fly. I used to love listening to those stories, […]
I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at this blank page, fingers poised over the laptop’s keyboard. But it feels like a long time. A very long time. And my thoughts are all over the map; I see them as an army of impossibly tiny steer running in every direction and there’s me without […]
(excerpts from the essay collection Petit éloge des grandes villes (Small Praise for Big Cities), © Gallimard 2007) From JFK airport, Queens; the middle of an October night Rain lacerates the taxi windows. Between two sudden downpours, water runs in rivulets, blurs my view already dulled by sleep. It’s 9 p.m. (3 a.m., Paris time). Car headlights set […]
Jill Marr is an agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. She graduated from San Diego State University with a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in History. She has a strong Internet and media background and nearly 15 years of publishing experience. After writing ad copy and features for published […]
I recently spoke with Anne Ursu, who has written both adult and young adult novels. She lives in Minneapolis and teaches at Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children, which is a low-residency program. Ursu is the author of five middle grade fantasies as well as two novels for adults. Her most recent book, The […]
LITTLE STREET FOR SEX I live in the shopping center of the world, it’s open 24 hours. There are, for example, streets for luminous bodies, and there’s no end to the lights, lace lampshades, chandeliers, bulbs of every breed; then a street of screws and nuts, and an endless line of fish restaurants, a side […]
Papeles No tengo papeles. Así, tengo papeles— En el carro en la silla. En la casa en la mesa En el cuarto en la cama. Papeles de la corte, Papeles del avogado, Papeles del estado, Papeles de la migra. Papeles que me notan, Papeles que me representan, Papeles que me llaman y Papeles que me […]
Just Following Orders With its forelegs a mantis pins down its prey there are circumstances just following orders a strip of rabbit fur by the incense burner releases the wood’s fragrance how can I warm the hearth when all the cranes fly over to the north without stopping to drink water If You Raise […]
Coiffure / Hair-do The beautiful American word hair-do lacks the élan of the French word coiffure. Hair-do is flat-footed & matter-of-fact. It does what it says it does; Americans adore that. I could run hairstylist up the flagpole as a word to salute—that’s as Cadillac as our idiom gets. But Cadillac looks suspiciously French—about as […]
No Voy a Forget Mi amor, espero que Yo recuerde the way You sound with three Buttons undone, tu voz Baja, cariñosa. Will I remember the feel De tu nombre the first time I wrapped my lips around it? When I made the exception To my rule that yo sólo Me casaría con un hombre […]
This is how he leaves you. Door pulled quietly closed, last glimpse of a weathered leather bag and brown hair matted to the back of his head. You sit on the couch in a pair of running shorts—knees up, legs crossed, heels tucked underneath you. He doesn’t look back. That night you drink orange juice […]
The man on the other line calls me doll speaks in exclamations: don’t do it you crazy fool! Someone loves you out there! I’ve spilled a beer on my lap and sit in wet jeans with a blanket at my feet. Outside it’s like I always imagined it would be – a dark and dreamy […]
My therapist says it’s normal for people to touch themselves. Ew, not like that. I mean, not sexually. She says it’s not weird, and that feels like the permission slip I need to do it whenever I can. I touch my knobby knees. I never feel like they point in the right direction. I poke […]
As my father did with me and Tobias, I took my family camping. When I told Roberta that it was time to prepare to lose one of our sons, she walked into our bedroom and packed. Her eyes were pooled with tears, but she didn’t cry. “Roberta,” I said, shutting the door behind me. “Please […]
My eyes adjusted to the Monday morning light peeking through our bedroom curtains and I looked at Jen, my wife, who stood by the side of the bed, the goddess of patience. My checklist started as I prepared to meet my son, our firstborn. Pre-packed bags of baby supplies: already in the car. Car seat: […]
Have you eaten today? I doubt you’d answer. Still, I ask, hoping you open your mouth, that this letter reminds you how I peeled grapefruit on my bedspread, and you pecked, in the way of your fascination with birds and the daintier things, the fruit’s pink flesh right out of my palms, admiring the thinness […]
Navigating wind in the chest I walked the path between two solstices with a swarm of angels a flock of insects, miniature jaguars and the rattle of day still reverberating. Those seminal forces luring me to the honeycomb where the hummingbird and winter cicada whirred. Navigating toward high seas dad and mom are two coasts […]
The man who had been nicknamed The Count wanted to know if I was a painter. “Not really,” I said. But I could see why he would think that. I was standing in the middle of the alley holding a heavy painter’s brush and looking down on a row of dusty cans of Benjamin-Moore blue, […]
The day before the party, Valerie asked her boyfriend Andrew to buy her a book. Actually, that’s not how it happened. It was Andrew who volunteered to get Valerie a book, and in the end he bought her two. “I know tomorrow’s going to be hard for you,” he said. “Is there anything I can […]
“To James, In Requiem,” the wedding present ditty reads. I open a yellowed envelope and find it tucked in a “Wedding Congratulations” card dated April 10, 1948, signed by twenty-seven people. My father’s coworkers at his engineering firm perhaps? None of the names seem familiar. A lavender orchid decorates the front of the card, with […]
you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you —Billy Collins, “Japan” There are days I have been cast (down) in bronze. Gloom pervades me like patina. I am the bells of Mary-le-Bow, long (fallen) silent, mute, tongueless, hollowed out. The claws of my dead dog clatter on the floor. […]
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