Jennifer Acker's Blog, page 98
June 5, 2020
Solidarity and Support
We at The Common are ashamed by this country’s injustices and support the nationwide protests against anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and police brutality. Our mission has always been to serve as a public gathering space for the exchange of observations and ideas. Now more than ever we apply ourselves to the work of soliciting and amplifying voices that illuminate.
June 4, 2020
Dick Cheney Was Not My Father
AMY STUBER
But he could have been. My father was a similar man. And his name was Richard Cheney, though he never went by Dick, and he never lived at the Naval Observatory. Rather, he was an orthopedic surgeon in suburban Kansas City who said stupid things like, “These hands are gold.”
But he could have been. My father was a similar man. And his name was Richard Cheney, though he never went by Dick, and he never lived at the Naval Observatory. Rather, he was an orthopedic surgeon in suburban Kansas City who said stupid things like, “These hands are gold.”
June 3, 2020
Trill
KRISTA J.H. LEAHY
Sometimes something is / so funny even my legs laugh. // I do not know / the frequency of god, / but I adore / the frequency of laughter.
Sometimes something is / so funny even my legs laugh. // I do not know / the frequency of god, / but I adore / the frequency of laughter.
May 29, 2020
May 2020 Poetry Feature
KERRY JAMES EVANS
Everyone’s so proud / of Jethro for seeing the light, / which he will truly see next Tuesday, / when he rolls his Ford F-150 over a guardrail / and into the Buttahatchee River, / where so many dead bodies / have been devoured, even the river / has lost count, cattle-thick / water churning like the preacher’s doubt / when he commits the unfound body / to the earth.
Everyone’s so proud / of Jethro for seeing the light, / which he will truly see next Tuesday, / when he rolls his Ford F-150 over a guardrail / and into the Buttahatchee River, / where so many dead bodies / have been devoured, even the river / has lost count, cattle-thick / water churning like the preacher’s doubt / when he commits the unfound body / to the earth.
May 28, 2020
The Common Among 2020 Literary Magazine Fund Recipients
Amherst, MA, May 28, 2020 -- The Common, the award-winning literary journal based at Amherst College, is one of 13 2020 Literary Magazine Fund Grant Recipients, awarded in alliance with the Amazon Literary Partnership. Since 2017, funding from the Amazon Literary Partnership has helped further The Common’s mission of publishing and promoting emerging and diverse authors who deepen our individual and collective sense of place.
May 26, 2020
Review: Then the Fish Swallowed Him by Amir Ahmadi Arian
FEROZ RATHER
Amir Ahmadi Arian’s Then the Fish Swallowed Him is an unswerving portrayal of an individual’s tormenting journey to self-realization in a totalitarian theocracy. By reproducing the minutiae of one man’s stolen solitude, Arian has created a powerful critique not only of the Mullah-dominated politics of Iran, but also of the very nature of political life in this society.
Amir Ahmadi Arian’s Then the Fish Swallowed Him is an unswerving portrayal of an individual’s tormenting journey to self-realization in a totalitarian theocracy. By reproducing the minutiae of one man’s stolen solitude, Arian has created a powerful critique not only of the Mullah-dominated politics of Iran, but also of the very nature of political life in this society.
May 21, 2020
Jesmyn Ward on writing honest novels with good titles, inhabiting ghosts, and learning to love Faulkner
JESMYN WARD
When I came up with the idea of creating a fictional town that’s based on my hometown, one of the reasons I wanted to do so was because I felt like the place where I’m from is so small that it would be harder to write about if I didn’t transform it. Sometimes I feel like the Bois Sauvage that I write about is this idealized version of my hometown.
When I came up with the idea of creating a fictional town that’s based on my hometown, one of the reasons I wanted to do so was because I felt like the place where I’m from is so small that it would be harder to write about if I didn’t transform it. Sometimes I feel like the Bois Sauvage that I write about is this idealized version of my hometown.
May 20, 2020
On Empathy & Time, Re: Wildness
MELISSA MATTHEWSON
I killed a turkey and didn’t turn back, but the light from the passing afternoon was like honey, and with the traffic steady at four p.m. on the two-lane road and the storm having just moved east, I considered the death of the animal a possible inconvenience to my daily commute. A temporary delay. But no—that’s not what it made me feel.
I killed a turkey and didn’t turn back, but the light from the passing afternoon was like honey, and with the traffic steady at four p.m. on the two-lane road and the storm having just moved east, I considered the death of the animal a possible inconvenience to my daily commute. A temporary delay. But no—that’s not what it made me feel.
May 18, 2020
The Common Young Writers Program
The Common Young Writers Program is a two-week (Monday-Friday) online creative writing program for high school students. Taught by the magazine’s editors and editorial assistants, the summer 2020 course will focus on the short story. Through writing exercises and contemporary reading assignments from The Common, we will introduce students to the building blocks of fiction (scene, character, plot, image) and guide them through the process of writing and revising their own short stories.
May 14, 2020
Kazakhstani Poet Aigerim Tazhi in Translation
Aigerim Tazhi
you see this sun / repainted by the snow / in gray / do you believe / I am the same inside / emboldened / as if you / do not interfere / I illuminate the world / precipitating / shades of white / to the weak consistency / of watery tea
you see this sun / repainted by the snow / in gray / do you believe / I am the same inside / emboldened / as if you / do not interfere / I illuminate the world / precipitating / shades of white / to the weak consistency / of watery tea
