Photo by Zvika Melamed
Song of the Younger Brother
1 I can think of nothing but the little one, the younger brother.
He holds his father’s hand. Peering into the camera, he…
Poetry
Photo: Kris Williams/Flickr Archipelago The enigma is some other thing – no gods live here Just men and the sea, immovable inheritance. Undeniable By dowry I received you at birth and I recognize…
Photo: Vincent Brassinne (Flickr.com/vainsang) Sand Woman A woman was lifted from the sand. She was perfectly intact, not even a split hair. When he left they say she didn’t eat or sleep. She didn’…
Editorial note: The Swabian versions of the following poems are read by the author. The English versions are read by Tegan White-Nesbitt. Abwesenheitsnotiz Aushäusig dahei…
Photo: Public Domain/Pixabay Untitled The wildflowers don’t bloom on command nor can their seeds be sown rebellious winds whirl at dawn winnowing seeds toward the ossuaries of the fields…
Photo by Fiona Baxter/Flickr i He once sold a portion of himself to a fish packing plant, slipped in the crates of the headless and dressed when all eyes were blu…- Filmed during the workshop and event "A-B-A-B-A : from hear to here" — choreographed by Christina Werner and Eric Ellingsen (Institut für Raumexperimente, UdK Berlin). Volksbühne Berlin, July 2014.…
Misrak Terefe (far right) with fellow Ethiopian performance poets. This says the meaning of country is sitting in the balance.In order to say, to be able to see,the balance, the leader must…
For a group of art performances in July 2013 called Wax and Gold organized by the Netsa Art Village, visual artist Mulugeta Gebrekidan presented “Invading Samsung Square” to protest the corp…
Photo by Brent Pearson/Flickr Negative Space I I was born on a Tuesday in April.I didn’t cry. Not because I was stunned. I wasn’t even mad.I was the lucky egg, trained for gratitudeinside the belly f…
Todd Stewart, “Fence Line, Tule Lake Relocation Center, 2001,” from Placing Memory: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese American Internment (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008). Eating No…
Author note: These flash semi-témoignages or reportages are inspired by stories people told me It began as a personal acco…
Photo by Gwaga Little Men Animals no longer speakDrums refuse to beatTanganyika slowly retreats From her shoresBloodied by the nightmare of menWhose pettiness piercesThe deep slumber of the ancient…
Translators’ Note Juan Hernández Ramírez describes both Nahuatl and Spanish as mirrors for his writing: “sirven de espejo, kewak se teskatl.” He does not write solely in one…- Clay Tablet Bearing the World’s First Alphabet That had comemuch later – After everythingalready had happened – Without witnessthe first stammered wordthis atomic flash forevercontaminating the oblivi…
- I Before what happened happened,I mean, before the towers became a stairway to the dayof reckoning, and the world split into twocamps, water and sand,I used to wish that I’d be among the poetswho woul…
- Letter to Baghdad Even if my father never speaks a word of it, I will knowhe brought a candle, a cough, and the occupied side of his heart.I will know the trees held him, that they rose above roofline…
- Ghazal Shakeel Badayuni My heart longs to go beyond the obsession of love,and find joy in a new session of love. Love drowned me in its tidesbut my heart hopes that was a mere dig…
- Placing Everything on the Line Zvonko Karanović A car stops in the middle of the screena gentleman walks out dressed in black, wearing a hat, grabs a frightened girl by the armblackmails her to…
- Blues Cola de Lagarto Su frenesí candentede espiral infinitamuere, revive– b…
- Photo by Bu Yousef/Flickr At the Market in Baghdad, 1940 Every morning the elder took his sons to pray,then let them swim through the heat of the dijlawhile he and his servant went to marke…
- Kookaburras in a tree. Photo by Jaraslavd/Flickr I thought it said on the girl’s red purseA kind of sad dance and all dayWondered what was being defined . . .The real love that followsEarly…
- Romantic Disagreement Of course I amagainst disturbing the moon.For many reasons.Not only is it an unseemly exaggeration—personally I’ve long avoided exaggeratingbecause of exhaustion—but it is also…
- Illustration by Ciaran Duffy/Flickr The Blue Whale Our five-year-old daughter bubbles with laughteras she bounces on her bed, pure joy flashingin her eyes like the glint of fingerlings in sunlit wav…
- On the Edges of Autumn I shall close death’s doors.I am the autumn’s last flower.– Edith Södergran My body is like algaeExhausted by the night’s diving.Gather me up in…