Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 21
August 5, 2024
Shadow Count
LAURA MARRIS
As I write this, I wonder if, in teaching me about birds, my father was actually teaching me how to unlearn loneliness. Telling me that though it may be impossible to step entirely outside human ways of understanding our surroundings, I should still value the longing to try.
As I write this, I wonder if, in teaching me about birds, my father was actually teaching me how to unlearn loneliness. Telling me that though it may be impossible to step entirely outside human ways of understanding our surroundings, I should still value the longing to try.
August 1, 2024
The Visual Poetry of Anzhelina Polonskaya
ANZHELINA POLONSKAYA
Snow, listen up. Your eyes are dead. / We know full well we’re being led / like hostages of universal blindness. / Who are we, then? Unknown and homeless. // We push ahead, there’s howling all around. / And far away we see a burning bush.
Snow, listen up. Your eyes are dead. / We know full well we’re being led / like hostages of universal blindness. / Who are we, then? Unknown and homeless. // We push ahead, there’s howling all around. / And far away we see a burning bush.
July 26, 2024
Podcast: A.J. Rodriguez on “Papel Picado”
A.J. RODRIGUEZ
A.J. Rodriguez speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Papel Picado,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue.
A.J. Rodriguez speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Papel Picado,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue.
July 25, 2024
July 2024 Poetry Feature: Megan Pinto
MEGAN PINTO
I sit beside my father and watch his IV drip. Each drop of saline hydrates his veins, his dry cracked skin. Today my father weighs 107 lbs. and is too weak to stand. / I pop an earbud in his ear and keep one in mine. / We listen to love songs.
I sit beside my father and watch his IV drip. Each drop of saline hydrates his veins, his dry cracked skin. Today my father weighs 107 lbs. and is too weak to stand. / I pop an earbud in his ear and keep one in mine. / We listen to love songs.
July 24, 2024
In Diamondville: Five Poems
LAKE ANGELA
Father dragged me by the arm without seeming / to see me, down in Diamondville where his ghosts live. / As if in prayer, he knelt and blessed a knife sharpened / in the setting sun, then bent to file three caustic letters / from his father’s white grave.
Father dragged me by the arm without seeming / to see me, down in Diamondville where his ghosts live. / As if in prayer, he knelt and blessed a knife sharpened / in the setting sun, then bent to file three caustic letters / from his father’s white grave.
July 19, 2024
What We’re Reading: July 2024
FRIDAY READS
Our Editorial Assistants recommend books that match July’s potency: storytelling that dazzles, prose that floods and sweeps away the sane, and historical truths delivered in lightning-bolt cracks.
Our Editorial Assistants recommend books that match July’s potency: storytelling that dazzles, prose that floods and sweeps away the sane, and historical truths delivered in lightning-bolt cracks.
Friday Reads: July 2024
FRIDAY READS
Our Editorial Assistants recommend books that match July’s potency: storytelling that dazzles, prose that floods and sweeps away the sane, and historical truths delivered in lightning-bolt cracks.
Our Editorial Assistants recommend books that match July’s potency: storytelling that dazzles, prose that floods and sweeps away the sane, and historical truths delivered in lightning-bolt cracks.
July 16, 2024
Muscle and Rubber and Cotton and Bone
JULES FITZ GERALD
Run for Jesus, her mother told her before the race, as she always does. But Jesus is a half-naked figure nailed to the crucifix above her mother’s bed, his blank wooden eyes watching to see if Joanna dusts under the lamp, the box of tissues, her mother’s ceramic guardian angel.
Run for Jesus, her mother told her before the race, as she always does. But Jesus is a half-naked figure nailed to the crucifix above her mother’s bed, his blank wooden eyes watching to see if Joanna dusts under the lamp, the box of tissues, her mother’s ceramic guardian angel.
July 10, 2024
Ho’omana’o
EDWARD LEES
The scrubbing out had been so forceful / that much was forgotten—the heat so intense / that gemlike crystals and glass / had formed, / like strange echoes.
The scrubbing out had been so forceful / that much was forgotten—the heat so intense / that gemlike crystals and glass / had formed, / like strange echoes.
July 8, 2024
Violence and Its Other: Toti O’Brien Interviews Dimitris Lyacos
DIMITRIS LYACOS
Could this be the answer, then? A society transformed somehow into a library like this one, and us, serene, contemplative readers, sensitive and profound, interconnected by waves of information, knowledge, and ultimately wisdom?
Could this be the answer, then? A society transformed somehow into a library like this one, and us, serene, contemplative readers, sensitive and profound, interconnected by waves of information, knowledge, and ultimately wisdom?
