Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 65
February 1, 2022
Sometimes the Sun Becomes a Dragon You Can’t Escape
RACHEL KOZLOSKI
Sometimes the sun becomes a dragon you can’t escape. It was that kind of Sunday when Nicole and her sisters sat bored and panting on their stoop, too tired and sun-stoned to fight with each other, or to find something to do. Occasionally one of them exhaled loudly, with noise, “Huuhhnnnnn” because that was the only way to feel release.
Sometimes the sun becomes a dragon you can’t escape. It was that kind of Sunday when Nicole and her sisters sat bored and panting on their stoop, too tired and sun-stoned to fight with each other, or to find something to do. Occasionally one of them exhaled loudly, with noise, “Huuhhnnnnn” because that was the only way to feel release.
January 28, 2022
Steven Tagle on “Notes on Looking Back”
STEVEN TAGLE
Steven Tagle speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “Notes on Looking Back,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Steven talks about writing this essay, originally in Greek, as a way to explore his love of the language and the experience of learning, speaking, and writing in it.
Steven Tagle speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “Notes on Looking Back,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Steven talks about writing this essay, originally in Greek, as a way to explore his love of the language and the experience of learning, speaking, and writing in it.
January 27, 2022
January 2022 Poetry Feature: Austin Segrest
AUSTIN SEGREST
The groom’s behind the horse / turning it back from Saul / in the foreground by the bridle / his other hand gentle on the soft / white muzzle. / His balding pate and deeply / rutted, obsequiously bowed brow / intent on sparing his master—what? / Interruption? Embarrassment?
The groom’s behind the horse / turning it back from Saul / in the foreground by the bridle / his other hand gentle on the soft / white muzzle. / His balding pate and deeply / rutted, obsequiously bowed brow / intent on sparing his master—what? / Interruption? Embarrassment?
January 26, 2022
Dispatches: Stella Wong
STELLA WONG
If you have to read this out loud, / you can never take drug tests, hush money, or go // to church. I’m just an electric red honeymoon / away from honeypot boss. From the top, // Naval Intelligence likes writing oaths / to the wedding band’s frontman
If you have to read this out loud, / you can never take drug tests, hush money, or go // to church. I’m just an electric red honeymoon / away from honeypot boss. From the top, // Naval Intelligence likes writing oaths / to the wedding band’s frontman
January 20, 2022
January 2022 Poetry Feature
MADELEINE MORI
and I were both hurt by that cold, hard change, / the snap of my leg bones. / I saw the root in the trail as a swag-bellied dog / with a cape I wanted to support—
and I were both hurt by that cold, hard change, / the snap of my leg bones. / I saw the root in the trail as a swag-bellied dog / with a cape I wanted to support—
January 19, 2022
Cockroach
RAJOSIK MITRA
It is 3:46 A.M. July, 2019. This cockroach is a creature of habit, something that crawls out from the cracks right after the lights are out. Nobody sees it till it is right there, suddenly there, on that exact same spot every night.
It is 3:46 A.M. July, 2019. This cockroach is a creature of habit, something that crawls out from the cracks right after the lights are out. Nobody sees it till it is right there, suddenly there, on that exact same spot every night.
January 14, 2022
Podcast: Noor Naga on “Who Writes the Arabian Gulf?”
NOOR NAGA
Noor Naga speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about co-editing The Common’s first-of-its-kind portfolio of writing from the Arabian Gulf, which appeared in Issue 22. Noor penned an introduction to the portfolio, titled “Who Writes the Arabian Gulf?”, , which explores her experience growing up in the Gulf.
Noor Naga speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about co-editing The Common’s first-of-its-kind portfolio of writing from the Arabian Gulf, which appeared in Issue 22. Noor penned an introduction to the portfolio, titled “Who Writes the Arabian Gulf?”, , which explores her experience growing up in the Gulf.
January 12, 2022
Quarters
BEINA XU
I live in the wrong colonial quarter of Berlin. My neighborhood is called Afrikanisches Viertel, and my flat is on Guinea Street. There’s Kongostraße, Togostraße, Kamerunerstraße, Transvaalstraße, Sansibarstraße, Otawistraße—I could go on, but you could also just Google Germany’s colonial conquest of Africa.
I live in the wrong colonial quarter of Berlin. My neighborhood is called Afrikanisches Viertel, and my flat is on Guinea Street. There’s Kongostraße, Togostraße, Kamerunerstraße, Transvaalstraße, Sansibarstraße, Otawistraße—I could go on, but you could also just Google Germany’s colonial conquest of Africa.
January 11, 2022
The Common to Receive $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts
The Common literary journal will receive its sixth grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2022. The Art Works grant of $10,000 will be awarded to The Common to help publish and promote place-based stories, essays, and poems by new and underrepresented writers from the US and abroad.
January 7, 2022
Craft Masterclasses: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry & Translation
Give your writing a boost this spring. Join The Common for a series of craft classes in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation with four literary luminaries.
