Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 24
May 2, 2024
The Fish Market
ESTHER KARIN MNGODO
You’re surprised to see a fish that’s blue. You’ve never seen such a fish before, let alone heard of one. You say to the fishmongers, “So it’s true, travel makes you new. I can’t believe how blue it is!” You’re told it’s called a Bluu Fish. Its color resembles the jeans you’re wearing.
You’re surprised to see a fish that’s blue. You’ve never seen such a fish before, let alone heard of one. You say to the fishmongers, “So it’s true, travel makes you new. I can’t believe how blue it is!” You’re told it’s called a Bluu Fish. Its color resembles the jeans you’re wearing.
May 1, 2024
Salamisim
CHARISSE BALDORIA
I have lived in this breath. This space between tension and resolution, concocter of magic and desire. I have learned to hold an audience in the palm of my hand, to deny them, which means, to deny myself. On the verge of arrival, there’s always a promise of fulfillment, of final release. Of approval.
I have lived in this breath. This space between tension and resolution, concocter of magic and desire. I have learned to hold an audience in the palm of my hand, to deny them, which means, to deny myself. On the verge of arrival, there’s always a promise of fulfillment, of final release. Of approval.
April 29, 2024
Review: Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging
KATIE NOAH GIBSON
Lee begins, in “Margins,” with the koi pond her mother constructed in suburban Canada, her mother’s longing for her Taiwanese homeland made manifest in building a backyard habitat for fish too fragile for Ontario winters. “She planted paper reeds and irises, floated water lettuce in between,” Lee writes.
Lee begins, in “Margins,” with the koi pond her mother constructed in suburban Canada, her mother’s longing for her Taiwanese homeland made manifest in building a backyard habitat for fish too fragile for Ontario winters. “She planted paper reeds and irises, floated water lettuce in between,” Lee writes.
April 22, 2024
My Sentimental Afternoon
LEILA CHATTI
Around me, the stubborn trees. Here / I was sad and not sad, I looked up / at a caravan of clouds. Will you ever / speak to me again, beyond / my nightly resurrections? My desire / displaces, is displaced. / The sun unrolls black shadows / which halve me. I stand.
Around me, the stubborn trees. Here / I was sad and not sad, I looked up / at a caravan of clouds. Will you ever / speak to me again, beyond / my nightly resurrections? My desire / displaces, is displaced. / The sun unrolls black shadows / which halve me. I stand.
Rabbit
JADE SONG
Hu Tianbao waves to asphalt and sky. The bumper of his mother’s car has long since exited the drop-off zone, yet he still stands moving his arm in the building’s entrance doorway. Left right left right dawdles his hand. A farewell to punctuality. He’s alone.
Hu Tianbao waves to asphalt and sky. The bumper of his mother’s car has long since exited the drop-off zone, yet he still stands moving his arm in the building’s entrance doorway. Left right left right dawdles his hand. A farewell to punctuality. He’s alone.
Thirty-Seven Theses on Time and Memory
SVEN BIRKERTS
Why do we keep hold of certain things, and nothing of others? Now I can remember, with almost cinematic granularity, an afternoon when a veterinarian came to our fifth-grade class to dissect a white rat for our science unit. I feel the heat of the room.
Why do we keep hold of certain things, and nothing of others? Now I can remember, with almost cinematic granularity, an afternoon when a veterinarian came to our fifth-grade class to dissect a white rat for our science unit. I feel the heat of the room.
It’s Important I Remember That Journalism is the First Draft of History—
CORTNEY LAMAR CHARLESTON
There is no justice here, he’s believed / to have said before being proven / correct, after the mob descended on his jail cell / with cocked weapons, wearing black masks, blacker / even than those that frame ivory teeth trained / to curvature by the terror.
There is no justice here, he’s believed / to have said before being proven / correct, after the mob descended on his jail cell / with cocked weapons, wearing black masks, blacker / even than those that frame ivory teeth trained / to curvature by the terror.
Symphony of the South
TAHIR ANNOUR
My father headed north. He said he would be back in a month. It all happened so fast I barely caught it, like a migratory bird resting in a dark corner of the forest, like all the things that crowd my memory. No sooner do they appear than they vanish.
My father headed north. He said he would be back in a month. It all happened so fast I barely caught it, like a migratory bird resting in a dark corner of the forest, like all the things that crowd my memory. No sooner do they appear than they vanish.
Around Sunset
JAMES RICHARDSON
The days seem kindlier near sunset, easier / when they are softly falling away / with that feeling of sad happiness / that we call moved, moved that we are moved / and maybe imagining in the dimming / all over town.
The days seem kindlier near sunset, easier / when they are softly falling away / with that feeling of sad happiness / that we call moved, moved that we are moved / and maybe imagining in the dimming / all over town.
Black-Out Baby
JULIET S. K. KONO
Somewea in Colorado. / One nite, one woman wen go into layba / wen was real hot unda the black-out lite. / Into this dark-kine time, one baby wuz born. / Da baby was me. One black-out baby— / nosing aroun in the dark / wid heavy kine eyes, / and a “yellow-belly."
Somewea in Colorado. / One nite, one woman wen go into layba / wen was real hot unda the black-out lite. / Into this dark-kine time, one baby wuz born. / Da baby was me. One black-out baby— / nosing aroun in the dark / wid heavy kine eyes, / and a “yellow-belly."
