Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 89
November 10, 2020
For Want Of
JEREMY KLEMIN
Lusophones love to tout the uniqueness of their (our) language, and in even the most roundabout of metalinguistic conversations, all roads eventually lead to saudade. But aside from a vague quasi-mysticism about loss that surrounds the word, the meaning is straightforward—saudades tuas, I miss you. Saudades de Portugal. I miss Portugal.
Lusophones love to tout the uniqueness of their (our) language, and in even the most roundabout of metalinguistic conversations, all roads eventually lead to saudade. But aside from a vague quasi-mysticism about loss that surrounds the word, the meaning is straightforward—saudades tuas, I miss you. Saudades de Portugal. I miss Portugal.
November 6, 2020
Friday Reads: November 2020
Curated by ISABEL MEYERS
In the November installment of Friday Reads, our Issue 20 contributors reflect on the pedagogies of teaching over Zoom, the engines of colonialism, and the process of breaking down cultural divides. As the weather gets colder, curl up with one of these recommendations, and make sure to pick up your copy of Issue 20 today.
In the November installment of Friday Reads, our Issue 20 contributors reflect on the pedagogies of teaching over Zoom, the engines of colonialism, and the process of breaking down cultural divides. As the weather gets colder, curl up with one of these recommendations, and make sure to pick up your copy of Issue 20 today.
November 4, 2020
On Halloween
VASYL LOZYNSKY
I feel greedy, I have a frog in my throat because of this / expensive beer. I start to ask around, like a detective, / and immediately get some info / from the writer sitting at our table nearby.
I feel greedy, I have a frog in my throat because of this / expensive beer. I start to ask around, like a detective, / and immediately get some info / from the writer sitting at our table nearby.
Author Postcard Auction 2020
It's that time of year again: bid for a personalized, handwritten postcard from your favorite author through The Common's seventh annual author postcard auction! The personalization of the postcards makes them fantastic gifts, just in time for the holidays.
October 28, 2020
All the Ways to Experience Issue 20
Issue 20 is here at last! Click here to purchase your print or digital copy, starting at just $7. Click here to browse the Table of Contents, including online exclusives. Love Issue 20’s portfolio of writing from the Lusosphere? Donate to support The Common’s mission to feature new and underrepresented voices from around the
Attraction
ROSE McLARNEY
The mansion where Gone with the Wind was written sits up on blocks / like a trailer, underpinnings exposed, like a trailer, trucked down a road, / relocated from one county to another that also can’t afford its restoration, a / green curtain of vines drawing over the decay.
The mansion where Gone with the Wind was written sits up on blocks / like a trailer, underpinnings exposed, like a trailer, trucked down a road, / relocated from one county to another that also can’t afford its restoration, a / green curtain of vines drawing over the decay.
Beyond the Tejo
JEFF PARKER
Times like these set one to worry. Far down the list of immediate worries, well beyond concerns about mask filters and how far exactly is six feet and decapitated tomatoes and crooked fences, lurks that ever-present concern, Does literature matter?
Times like these set one to worry. Far down the list of immediate worries, well beyond concerns about mask filters and how far exactly is six feet and decapitated tomatoes and crooked fences, lurks that ever-present concern, Does literature matter?
and the amazed girls….
ELEANOR STANFORD
I turn over the soil, my son chattering beside me. He wants to talk about time, its intransigency and evasions. Our hands breaking up the clumps, pulling out old roots. / In another possible world, another peaty bed. Time, slippery and permissive...
I turn over the soil, my son chattering beside me. He wants to talk about time, its intransigency and evasions. Our hands breaking up the clumps, pulling out old roots. / In another possible world, another peaty bed. Time, slippery and permissive...
Nobody Goes to Mértola
OONA PATRICK
The Alentejo is the landscape of heartbreak. Or at least it was to me. Even its trees are clearly loners, set apart from each other at distant intervals across miles of sere brown fields. The Alentejo is all about waiting, with its numbered cork trees, their skinned underbellies...
The Alentejo is the landscape of heartbreak. Or at least it was to me. Even its trees are clearly loners, set apart from each other at distant intervals across miles of sere brown fields. The Alentejo is all about waiting, with its numbered cork trees, their skinned underbellies...
The Home Front
SILVIA SPRING
James was tall, long-limbed, with dark hair he had to brush away from his eyes before shaking my hand. Katie busied herself cleaning, washing a frying pan whose nonstick surface had burnt off the middle and then rinsing the plates under a swan-necked faucet.
James was tall, long-limbed, with dark hair he had to brush away from his eyes before shaking my hand. Katie busied herself cleaning, washing a frying pan whose nonstick surface had burnt off the middle and then rinsing the plates under a swan-necked faucet.
