Jennifer Acker's Blog
September 4, 2025
River Landscape
DANIELA ALCIVAR BELLOLIO
The image came to him all the time, uncontrollably, relentlessly: a face, combining incomprehension and terror perfectly, as though they were a natural combination. Pain was almost absent from this mixture, though he was certain that there, too, must have been pain.
The image came to him all the time, uncontrollably, relentlessly: a face, combining incomprehension and terror perfectly, as though they were a natural combination. Pain was almost absent from this mixture, though he was certain that there, too, must have been pain.
September 3, 2025
From IHOP
IHOP made sense for us both. Like all quintessentially American fast food chains, it’s instrumental, noncommital, infinitely replicable. In other words—simple, safe, unmournable by design.
August 29, 2025
Lily Lloyd Burkhalter on “Raffia Memory”
LILY LLOYD BURKHALTER
Lily Lloyd Burkhalter speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Raffia Memory,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. Lily talks about traveling to the Cameroon Grassfields to research the rituals and production of ndop, a traditional dyed cloth with an important role in both spiritual life and, increasingly, economic life as well.
Lily Lloyd Burkhalter speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Raffia Memory,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. Lily talks about traveling to the Cameroon Grassfields to research the rituals and production of ndop, a traditional dyed cloth with an important role in both spiritual life and, increasingly, economic life as well.
August 28, 2025
August 2025 Poetry Feature: Anna Malihon, translated by Olena Jennings
ANNA MALIHON
The girl with a bullet in her stomach / runs across the highway to the forest / runs without saying goodbye / through the news, the noble mold of lofty speeches / through history, geography, / curfew, a day, a century / She is so young that the wind carries / her over the long boulevard between bridges
The girl with a bullet in her stomach / runs across the highway to the forest / runs without saying goodbye / through the news, the noble mold of lofty speeches / through history, geography, / curfew, a day, a century / She is so young that the wind carries / her over the long boulevard between bridges
August 27, 2025
Dispatch from New Madrid, Missouri
MADELINE SIMMS
After midnight, cottonwoods are inconsequential teeth, ripped from the ground by the Mississippi River. An elm snaps like a bird’s neck: an egret. The current betrays every fluttering heart and rages on. A rock becomes sepulcher to the uprooted nest. The river could be less cruel, the winter, more forgiving.
After midnight, cottonwoods are inconsequential teeth, ripped from the ground by the Mississippi River. An elm snaps like a bird’s neck: an egret. The current betrays every fluttering heart and rages on. A rock becomes sepulcher to the uprooted nest. The river could be less cruel, the winter, more forgiving.
August 22, 2025
What We’re Reading: August 2025
AIDAN COOPER
A duck paddling in a pond is a memorial to the passage of time; winter snow doesn’t represent death nor sleep, but rather life at its most ferocious. With Cather, the world is flush with a force so powerful it can’t be predicted or contracted or even known, only guessed at and trusted in. A magic rushes from every stream, from every hog’s bark.
A duck paddling in a pond is a memorial to the passage of time; winter snow doesn’t represent death nor sleep, but rather life at its most ferocious. With Cather, the world is flush with a force so powerful it can’t be predicted or contracted or even known, only guessed at and trusted in. A magic rushes from every stream, from every hog’s bark.
August 21, 2025
Talks with the Besieged: Documentary Poetry from Occupied Ukraine
ALEX AVERBUCH
Russians are already in Starobilsk / what nonsense / Dmytrovka and Zhukivka – who is there? / half a hundred bears went past in the / direction of Oleksiivka / write more clearly / what’s the situation in Novoaidar? / the bridge by café Natalie got blown up / according to unconfirmed reports
Russians are already in Starobilsk / what nonsense / Dmytrovka and Zhukivka – who is there? / half a hundred bears went past in the / direction of Oleksiivka / write more clearly / what’s the situation in Novoaidar? / the bridge by café Natalie got blown up / according to unconfirmed reports
August 14, 2025
The Reading Life: You’re Going to Hear the Pages Turn
WILLIE PERDOMO
You didn’t go to school to learn how to be a writer. You wrote. So, I dropped out of my first attempt at college after my second year. Dropped out of my second attempt at college after two semesters. You can’t learn to be a writer. But you can wear yourself out garnering experience.
You didn’t go to school to learn how to be a writer. You wrote. So, I dropped out of my first attempt at college after my second year. Dropped out of my second attempt at college after two semesters. You can’t learn to be a writer. But you can wear yourself out garnering experience.
August 13, 2025
A Tour of America
MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER
This afternoon I am well, thank you. / Walking down Main Street in Danville, KY. / The heavy wind so sensuous. / Last night I fell- / ated four different men back in / Philadelphia season lush and slippery / with time and leaves. / Keep your eyes to yourself, yid. / As a kid, I pledged only to engage / in onanism on special holidays.
This afternoon I am well, thank you. / Walking down Main Street in Danville, KY. / The heavy wind so sensuous. / Last night I fell- / ated four different men back in / Philadelphia season lush and slippery / with time and leaves. / Keep your eyes to yourself, yid. / As a kid, I pledged only to engage / in onanism on special holidays.
August 12, 2025
Join Us for a Brooklyn Book Festival BookEnd Event!
Join us for a panel discussion and book signing at the Brooklyn Book Festival this September.
