by Donald Vincent He takes up triple space— One seat, two seat, three On the train, the ‘other’ Is always evasive. Mommy, Look, a negro. I’m afraid. It is here, he is confronted With the responsibility of race, The weight of his ancestors, A collective prison. She shushes the child And apologizes to the man— Sorry, sir. My child doesn’t…
by Donald Vincent “We need magic / now we need the spells, to raise up / return, destroy, and create. What will be / the sacred word?” –Amiri Baraka The sacred word is not, hands up, don’t shoot Nor vivre la revolution. The magic word can’t be Murmured in a state of asphyxiation. Where there are words, there is no peace.…
“Imagine you are swimming in the ocean. Something brushes against your leg while you are treading water. It is most likely a piece of seaweed, but your heart stops because you know it’s a shark and suddenly the shore seems impossibly far away.”
by Valerie M. Griggs The thing about an LP— I’ll get back to that— An LP orbits around its own soul, black valences charged by a diamond needle. Static click pop out spins the music into the listener’s landscape. But what’s moving about an LP, the thing about an LP is its singularity: track order, liner notes, lyrics, labels, photos—…
On the one hand, Stephanie Danler lives in the “Writer House” of our dreams: a small cottage hidden away in Laurel Canyon, with a yard for dinner parties and a mythic history that may or may not involve Fleetwood Mac.
by Jed Myers This other light she’s wrapped in lifts the furrows life left in her skin. All her ages now, or none—no shadow where she leans at something like a desk. Her dark pen streams an ink- black shine along the vein-blue lines down one white page then the next. The letters weave like seaweed in a tide-swept river…
Don’t Read the Comments is Eric Smith’s fifth young adult novel. Smith heavily integrates popular culture into his fiction, and this novel is no exception. The protagonist, Divya Sharma, is an eighteen-year old celebrity gamer known as “D1V” who supports herself and her mother through corporate sponsorships,
For Sandy Hound (2000 – 2015)
I remember the sweet shade.
Sandy hound scoops the bit of bark and tosses it, catching it in her paws as she did as a pup. Except now, the dirt’s on the blaze of her muzzle that’s showing more white than fawn. She gnaws the bark, cabbage palm worn smooth and the size of a small sea shell, then cradles it in her paws.
The breeze comes across. It’s warm, draped in humidity already, but it feels good. I put my pack down beside the cabbage palm and get out the Dukjug with the small glacier of ice clinking inside and Sandy hound’s bowl, and I rest my hat atop the pack. My eyes adjust to the shade.
Only a few hours after Jennifer Spiegel is diagnosed with breast cancer, she is immediately on the page, sorting her thoughts and emotions through writing. “At this point, I have no clue what stage it is, if I’m going to die, if I’ll have one or both breasts cut off, or if nothing will be removed at all. I will tell you this: I instantly feel that my body is the enemy.” The result is a candid and compelling debut memoir by novelist Jennifer Spiegel, Cancer, I’ll Give You One Year: A Non-Informative Guide To Breast Cancer, A Writer’s Memoir In Almost Real Time.
Spiegel’s memoir in “almost real time” reminds me of a story I once heard about a man suffering from Alzheimer’s. The man was due to give a presentation to a large gathering of people and had only recently been diagnosed. Right as he walked on stage, he forgot why he was there and what he was presenting. Looking out to a silent crowd, and not knowing what to do, he started to name out loud the emotions he was feeling. Frustrated, confused, frightened, alone. It was a method his psychiatrist had recommended that could help him to calm down when he had a memory lapse and began to feel anxious. Standing on that stage, it helped. He started to relax and remembered why he was there. After the event, many of the audience members approached him and told him that was the most powerful part of his presentation. Spiegel’s memoir has a similarly powerful effect.
