Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 40
June 6, 2023
Welcome to the Department of Unanswered Prayers
NORMAN ERIKSON PASARIBU
Welcome to the Department of Unanswered Prayers! Here’s your ID. When it’s time to go home, put your badge in your bag and leave the bag in your car. Rather than tossing it in some drawer, I mean, or chucking it somewhere inside your room. Don’t worry. No one will steal it.
Welcome to the Department of Unanswered Prayers! Here’s your ID. When it’s time to go home, put your badge in your bag and leave the bag in your car. Rather than tossing it in some drawer, I mean, or chucking it somewhere inside your room. Don’t worry. No one will steal it.
June 1, 2023
Memory’s Underworld
LOUIS-PHILIPPE DALEMBERT
Every time I visit Cayenne, as soon as night falls, my feet always take me, almost against my will, back to la Crique. This notorious neighborhood of the Guianese capital was once known as the “Chinese Quarter,” but there’s nothing Asian about it anymore, or very little.
Every time I visit Cayenne, as soon as night falls, my feet always take me, almost against my will, back to la Crique. This notorious neighborhood of the Guianese capital was once known as the “Chinese Quarter,” but there’s nothing Asian about it anymore, or very little.
May 31, 2023
Slaughterhouse-Vibe
LISA ROSENBERG
There are no streetlights between the old slaughterhouse and the edge of town. The road that links them feels longer than its few hundred barren meters, proceeding above a rocky slope that ends in channel water—the former landing place of blood and entrails, arriving by chute while dogfish gathered.
There are no streetlights between the old slaughterhouse and the edge of town. The road that links them feels longer than its few hundred barren meters, proceeding above a rocky slope that ends in channel water—the former landing place of blood and entrails, arriving by chute while dogfish gathered.
May 30, 2023
Review of “I Will Not Fold These Maps”
SUMMER FARAH
My first encounter with Mona Kareem’s work was not her poetry, but her essay in Poetry Birmingham on the trend of Western poets “translating” from languages they are not literate in. Kareem brings attention to what she calls the “colonial phenomenon of rendition as translation,” in which a poet effectively workshops a rough translation done by a native speaker or someone who is otherwise literate in the original language. Often, this is the only way acclaimed writers reach Western audiences.
My first encounter with Mona Kareem’s work was not her poetry, but her essay in Poetry Birmingham on the trend of Western poets “translating” from languages they are not literate in. Kareem brings attention to what she calls the “colonial phenomenon of rendition as translation,” in which a poet effectively workshops a rough translation done by a native speaker or someone who is otherwise literate in the original language. Often, this is the only way acclaimed writers reach Western audiences.
May 26, 2023
Podcast: Robin Lee Carlson on “Reading the Ashes”
ROBIN LEE CARLSON
Robin Lee Carlson speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Reading the Ashes,” which appears in The Common’s fall 2022 issue.
Robin Lee Carlson speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Reading the Ashes,” which appears in The Common’s fall 2022 issue.
May 25, 2023
May 2023 Poetry Feature: New Poems by Our Contributors
TIMOTHY DONNELLY
Thorn-blossom! Tender thing, prone to solitude / like yours truly, don’t get it twisted if I reach out my hand— / it isn’t to pluck you, who are my beacon down this path, but a gesture / of acknowledgment common among my kind. / When the lukewarm breezes nod off
Thorn-blossom! Tender thing, prone to solitude / like yours truly, don’t get it twisted if I reach out my hand— / it isn’t to pluck you, who are my beacon down this path, but a gesture / of acknowledgment common among my kind. / When the lukewarm breezes nod off
May 24, 2023
How To Sleep In Your Car
COURTNEY KERSTEN
You thought to yourself, This is the way to avoid poverty in California while getting a PhD—just get a roommate you can share 250 square feet with: a lover. But as you watched him walk away, you realized you never cracked the system. You’re still in it. You always were.
You thought to yourself, This is the way to avoid poverty in California while getting a PhD—just get a roommate you can share 250 square feet with: a lover. But as you watched him walk away, you realized you never cracked the system. You’re still in it. You always were.
May 18, 2023
Colin Channer and the Diaspora of Dub
NOAH BERLATSKY
“My way is so long, so long, but my road is foggy, foggy,” reggae legend Winston Rodney, aka Burning Spear, chants on his 1980 song “Road Foggy.” The beat sways underneath him like a horse plodding on a mountain track, and the horns sound muted and distant through the mist.
“My way is so long, so long, but my road is foggy, foggy,” reggae legend Winston Rodney, aka Burning Spear, chants on his 1980 song “Road Foggy.” The beat sways underneath him like a horse plodding on a mountain track, and the horns sound muted and distant through the mist.
May 17, 2023
Still Life 3: The Suburbs
KELLY MCMASTERS
Interior of a silver Volvo wagon, back door pockets stuffed with Candy Ring wrappers, pencils, and rocks; I am looking in the rear-view mirror or over my right shoulder into the backseat.
Interior of a silver Volvo wagon, back door pockets stuffed with Candy Ring wrappers, pencils, and rocks; I am looking in the rear-view mirror or over my right shoulder into the backseat.
May 16, 2023
Her Precious Things
BOB JOHNSON
She rubbed her eyes and limped to the front window. A young man in a corduroy jacket stood on the porch. Joetta didn’t know him, though she decided he wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness. Those people carried tracts and bibles, not manila folders under their arms.
She rubbed her eyes and limped to the front window. A young man in a corduroy jacket stood on the porch. Joetta didn’t know him, though she decided he wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness. Those people carried tracts and bibles, not manila folders under their arms.
