Latest Writing
-
INTERVIEW with AE HEE LEE
Ae Hee Lee is a Wisconsin-based poet whose debut collection, Asterism (Tupelo Press, 2024), was selected as the winner of the Dorset Prize by John Murillo. In Lee’s poems, heritage and belonging are examined rather than embraced. Visiting her father’s old home in Chungju, Korea, she asks the flowers growing there to “remember [her] from…
-
INTERVIEW with ROBIN LAMER RAHIJA
Robin LaMer Rahija‘s first full length collection, Inside Out Egg, was released in April. Ada Limón writes that “each poem contains the whole unbound strangeness of the human experience–the offhand remark, the blur of being in a body– all of this is written with a humility and understated wit that both growls and sings….” We were…
-
INTRODUCTION TO KORA RUMIKO & WAGO RYOICHI by Judy Halebsky
FIVE POEMSby Ryoichi Wago, trans. Judy Halebsky & Ayako Takahashi THREE POEMSby Rumiko Kora, trans. Judy Halebsky & Ayako Takahashi This folio shares recent translations from two Japanese poets, Kora Rumiko (1932-2021) and Wago Ryoichi (1968-). Kora’s poems are from the second half and 20th century, and Wago’s were written following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami,…
POETRY
-
THE BABIES by Dara Yen Elerath
I am watching the babies. The gray one in sticky pants who keeps picking his nose. The pale one with headlice, scabies and fleas. I am watching the babies. This one choking on a plastic bottle. This one talking to itself in the dark. I am hauling the babies to the park, to the library,…
-
YESTERDAY AUSTIN TOLD ME TWO SWANS by Arro Mandell
drowned a local man for coming too close and Thomas and I laughed but I still think if I don’t count my teeth they’ll be taken, can’t be careful enough out here. Last night I stepped onto a stage heaped with dead fish. I was looking for the right earrings…
-
PASSTHROUGH by Haley Lee
After the play we talk while we wait for the C with our shoes touching on the platform. Say, when the magician unrolled the sea, an old tunnel in us burst open. Lights off, all air – with you I believe in water wrung from paper. They didn’t need to use names to make us…
FICTION
-
THE LEAST AMERICAN FACE by M. Y. Li
The event is in thirty minutes. You don’t really know what it is. The leader of your Erasmus group said something in Spanish about a trip to a traditional Moroccan venue. But did he say the place is a restaurant or a themed bar? Your Spanish isn’t great, but it’s good enough to make out…
-
MEMORY FIELDS by Liz Howey
The orchard is beautiful. Meets the postcard standard of picturesque, as promised. Lines of foliage haloed by the rising sun, shades of green and brown and golden red, and for a second Maggie slips, imagines her and Brendon and a child that won’t exist. A little girl—no, a boy, a little arrogant boy, a mini-Brendon.…
-
VERDIGRIS by Mariana Sabino
Four years had passed since I returned to this building, the old city, and the old job. At work digitizing the poster of another Czech New Wave film—this one depicting algae sprouting from a woman’s head, dark eyes sparkling with silver pin lights that reminded me of plankton—my heart started racing so fast I handed…
TRANSLATION
-
THE PIER by Judita Vaičiūnaitė trans. Rimas Uzgiris
Your torn white shirt lies drying on the anchor.In the hush of my cheek I feel your gypsy hair, while huskyvoices echo across the water and through night’s rusting gear.Palms timidly touch the still aching…
-
TWO POEMS by Tomas Venclova trans. Rimas Uzgiris
Variation on the Theme of Awakening What echoes in the dark? Is it the wind of Junein the gardens by the lake? If so, the two of usare in the summer house up high, still young,having fallen asleep just before dawn. A muffled engine? Then we’re in that dive by the harbor, in a country where we’d…
-
TWO POEMS by Stefano d’Arrigo trans. Joe Gross
WHEN MEEK & THUNDEROUS When meek & thunderousspring makes its mooring& the heart wanes in wax,honeycomb homiliesflit from fin to wingof migrant fish & birdswearing whispers of your name;we imagine you, because it’s true,your destination, too, is mystery. OH IN ITALY A MEMORY Oh in Italy a memory of the womenwho turtledove-strut the windowsillssuddenly thresh…
From the Archives
Join our mailing list
Receive new issues and featured work in your inbox.