Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 5
May 29, 2025
May 2025 Poetry Feature: Dante Alighieri, translated by Mary Jo Bang
DANTE ALIGHIERI
O pointless fretting of mortals, / How defective that deductive reasoning / That makes you flap your wings below. // One was heading for law, one was drawn / To doctoring, one to pursuing the priesthood, / One was ruling by force or by fraud.
O pointless fretting of mortals, / How defective that deductive reasoning / That makes you flap your wings below. // One was heading for law, one was drawn / To doctoring, one to pursuing the priesthood, / One was ruling by force or by fraud.
May 28, 2025
Podcast: Lucas Schaefer on “Tuesday”
LUCAS SCHAEFER
Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common’s brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas.
Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common’s brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas.
Podcast: Lucas Schaefer on ”Tuesday“
LUCAS SCHAEFER
Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common’s brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas.
Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common’s brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas.
May 23, 2025
What We’re Reading: May 2025
TERESE SVOBODA
Curse and spell, Wright weaves ancient aboriginal beliefs, swooping and dipping like the swans, with fairytales and ominous “real life,” using time warps and fiercely beautiful language to register the vast environmental and social disaster that we as a people, among all others, are sure to endure.
Curse and spell, Wright weaves ancient aboriginal beliefs, swooping and dipping like the swans, with fairytales and ominous “real life,” using time warps and fiercely beautiful language to register the vast environmental and social disaster that we as a people, among all others, are sure to endure.
May 21, 2025
Fathom
SARA RYAN
When the whales wash up on shore, my friend grieves. I feel it too, but it feels further away. Deep in me, treading water, legs furiously churning under the surface. The first whale washes up on the oceanfront, just off the boardwalk. People drive out to stare at it. Its dark wet form deflates into the sand.
When the whales wash up on shore, my friend grieves. I feel it too, but it feels further away. Deep in me, treading water, legs furiously churning under the surface. The first whale washes up on the oceanfront, just off the boardwalk. People drive out to stare at it. Its dark wet form deflates into the sand.
May 14, 2025
Crafts Like the Old Country
NINA SEMCZUK
That morning Irina Pychenko found herself in the ditch, again. It was the fourth time in a month. “Third time this week I’ve found someone right here,” said the gentleman outside of her window, who was hooking a chain to the tow hitch under the back bumper.
That morning Irina Pychenko found herself in the ditch, again. It was the fourth time in a month. “Third time this week I’ve found someone right here,” said the gentleman outside of her window, who was hooking a chain to the tow hitch under the back bumper.
May 12, 2025
Celebrate 15 years with us in NYC!
We're throwing a party in New York, and you're invited! Join us for an evening of refreshments, conversation, and mingling in honor of our 15th year in print.
The Moon as a Beacon of Human Earnestness: A Conversation Between Boston Gordon and July Westhale
JULY WESTHALE
I decided to write a modern epic about space travel, but I wanted it to be about a place we didn’t know anything about, something that perhaps wasn’t entirely astronomically true...A moon is familiar to us; the moon of a moon is less so.
I decided to write a modern epic about space travel, but I wanted it to be about a place we didn’t know anything about, something that perhaps wasn’t entirely astronomically true...A moon is familiar to us; the moon of a moon is less so.
May 5, 2025
Holding the World’s Coat
DANIEL MOYSAENKO
I do not like what you’ve done to yourself— //
predictable theatre of struggle /
I’m in the wings /
of /
world //
Instead take this /
translucent /
pisces-glyph bug: //
Its antennae flitting to test /
the space just in front of its face /
It struts right into a recluse web
I do not like what you’ve done to yourself— //
predictable theatre of struggle /
I’m in the wings /
of /
world //
Instead take this /
translucent /
pisces-glyph bug: //
Its antennae flitting to test /
the space just in front of its face /
It struts right into a recluse web
Raffia Memory
LILY LLOYD BURKHALTER
By this point, Albert was holding my shoulders in a tight grip. Neither of us spoke. In the museum’s subdued light, time sputtered to a halt—as it must have for the boy years ago, facing down the snake or the village elder, depending on what one believes.
By this point, Albert was holding my shoulders in a tight grip. Neither of us spoke. In the museum’s subdued light, time sputtered to a halt—as it must have for the boy years ago, facing down the snake or the village elder, depending on what one believes.
