Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 46
February 20, 2023
Poems from Olio
TYEHIMBA JESS
My God is the living God, / God of the impertinent exile. / An outcast who carved me / into an outcast carved / by sheer and stony will / to wander the desert / in search of deliverance / the way a mother hunts / for her wayward child. / God of each eye fixed to heaven...
My God is the living God, / God of the impertinent exile. / An outcast who carved me / into an outcast carved / by sheer and stony will / to wander the desert / in search of deliverance / the way a mother hunts / for her wayward child. / God of each eye fixed to heaven...
Poems from The Trees Witness Everything
VICTORIA CHANG
Once I sat in rain, / opened my mouth to the sky. / I yearned to be changed. / But each drop was a small knife. / At first I fainted, / but when I woke up, all the / ticking had gone and / all the centuries were one. / My choices no longer hurt.
Once I sat in rain, / opened my mouth to the sky. / I yearned to be changed. / But each drop was a small knife. / At first I fainted, / but when I woke up, all the / ticking had gone and / all the centuries were one. / My choices no longer hurt.
February 17, 2023
Excerpt from Cheap Land Colorado
TED CONOVER
The prospect is daunting: a lot of people live out here because they do not want to run into other people. They like the solitude. And it is daunting because many of them indicate this preference by closing their driveway with a gate, or by chaining a dog next to their door.
The prospect is daunting: a lot of people live out here because they do not want to run into other people. They like the solitude. And it is daunting because many of them indicate this preference by closing their driveway with a gate, or by chaining a dog next to their door.
Excerpt from The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
MEGHAN O’ROURKE
The stories we tell about illness usually have startling beginnings—the fall at the supermarket, the lump discovered in the abdomen during a routine exam, the doctor’s call. Not mine. I got sick the way Hemingway says you go broke: “gradually and then suddenly.”
The stories we tell about illness usually have startling beginnings—the fall at the supermarket, the lump discovered in the abdomen during a routine exam, the doctor’s call. Not mine. I got sick the way Hemingway says you go broke: “gradually and then suddenly.”
Excerpt from Imagine a City: A Pilot’s Journey Across the Urban World
MARK VANHOENACKER
I’m thirteen. It’s after school. I’m in my room, at my desk. I look out of the window over the drive and towards the garage. It’s late autumn and it’s almost dark outside. There’s frost in the corners of the window and snow is falling. I look across the room, at the light-up globe on my dresser. I go to it, flip the switch on its cord and watch as the darkened sphere turns blue in the failing light and starts to shine as if it were in space.
I’m thirteen. It’s after school. I’m in my room, at my desk. I look out of the window over the drive and towards the garage. It’s late autumn and it’s almost dark outside. There’s frost in the corners of the window and snow is falling. I look across the room, at the light-up globe on my dresser. I go to it, flip the switch on its cord and watch as the darkened sphere turns blue in the failing light and starts to shine as if it were in space.
Excerpt from The Man Who Could Move Clouds
INGRID ROJAS CONTRERAS
Nono was a curandero. His gifts were instructions for talking to the dead, telling the future, healing the ill, and moving the clouds. We were a brown people, mestizo. European men had arrived on the continent and violated Indigenous women, and that was our origin: neither Native or Spanish, but a wound. We called the gifts secrets.
Nono was a curandero. His gifts were instructions for talking to the dead, telling the future, healing the ill, and moving the clouds. We were a brown people, mestizo. European men had arrived on the continent and violated Indigenous women, and that was our origin: neither Native or Spanish, but a wound. We called the gifts secrets.
February 16, 2023
Looking for the Weirdness: An Interview with Jim Shepard
JIM SHEPARD
The best writing advice I always give, I think, is not to lose touch with the concept of play: that ability to say to yourself, especially in the early going, “I'm just messing around here. Relax.”
The best writing advice I always give, I think, is not to lose touch with the concept of play: that ability to say to yourself, especially in the early going, “I'm just messing around here. Relax.”
February 15, 2023
Dispatch from Moscow, Idaho
AFTON MONTGOMERY
The neighbor children are in the Evangelical cult that Vice and The Guardian wrote about last year. They’re not allowed to speak to us, which is a thing no one has ever said aloud but is true, nonetheless.
The neighbor children are in the Evangelical cult that Vice and The Guardian wrote about last year. They’re not allowed to speak to us, which is a thing no one has ever said aloud but is true, nonetheless.
February 13, 2023
Intentional Offerings: jaamil olawale kosoko interviews Nicholas Goodly
NICHOLAS GOODLY
I've been interested in poetic forms that respond to different art forms, in shape and language. It’s not necessarily a new practice, but I think I don't want to get trapped into writing good poems for poets. I just want words that make me feel and I have to actively work away from one to get to the other
I've been interested in poetic forms that respond to different art forms, in shape and language. It’s not necessarily a new practice, but I think I don't want to get trapped into writing good poems for poets. I just want words that make me feel and I have to actively work away from one to get to the other
February 8, 2023
Announcing LitFest 2023
We hope you’ll join us for the eighth annual LitFest, hosted in conjunction with Amherst College. This year’s lineup includes Pulitzer Prize winner Hilton Als, MacArthur Fellowship winner Valeria Luiselli, and 2022 National Book Award finalists Meghan O’Rourke and Ingrid Rojas Contreras, among others.
