Prose
The Envied Ones
Some years ago, during a discussion of the fine arts among the colored people, a critic said, "I do not pity the Negro writer. I envy him. "I envy him for his background, for the vast and dramatic knowledge into which he is born. I envy him for his heritage of suffering and of close …
The Temples of Learning
Ling Ki came to America for an education. His cousin, on the Hu Road, had an honored friend whose brother dwelt in Canton as a tea merchant, and he knew a man who had gone to America for an education. This man lived near the river, and he dealt in rice. He was not a …
Alicia Ostriker. The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog. University of Pittsburgh Press.
In her new collection The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog, Alicia Suskin Ostriker brings together a trio of voices—each a living thing, each mortal and yet calling out its truths in a clear tenor. These three voices, extraordinary in their ordinariness, build conversations that whirl around each topic. They catch angles of consideration …
Lemonade
Your grandmother is on her deathbed now. She made it a long time ago. Which is to say it was made for her. Which really means she doesn’t want it but she’s going to lie down anyway. You prop her pillows for her, lace her lemonade with Demerol because she is dying and dying hurts …
Night Island
That was what they should have called it, thought Isabella, as she trudged behind Billy along the beach, phosphorescent plankton throwing off light in response to each footstep. Night for the color of the sand. Night for the hours they were awake there. Halfway to the mangroves, their flashlights, covered in red contact paper, caught …
Karachi Raj
“Aiy, Seema, open the door! What, thieves will come and rob you, so you have to hide?” Hafiz’s nineteen-year-old sister, the unacknowledged pride of the Basti, was hiding out. Late afternoon, when her parents and brother were at work, was a precious time to study. She loved solitude. But neighbors had other ideas. Mithi bai …
Call My Name
When I was seven, my sea captain father at sea, my mother a strobing lighthouse of missing, I stood alone in my bedroom, renaming all my toys Melissa. You, and you, and you. A child’s narcissism, maybe. A punishment for my dolls. I didn’t choose my name, but I could choose to give it away. …
Review: Afaa Michael Weaver. The Government of Nature. University of Pittsburgh Press.
At the end of his poem ‘‘The Impossible,’’ a poem that unflinchingly recounts a memory of sexual abuse, Bruce Weigl writes, ‘‘Say it clearly and you make it beautiful, no matter what.’’ I’ve always had a contentious relationship with this line—feeling both its truth and its impossibility at the same time, and, of course, that’s …
Árida Zona
Too tall. That’s what the teacher with the green eyes, the one from the boy’s side, says. She’s too tall to play Mary. Joseph is only just a little thing. She could be a shepherd or the innkeeper’s wife, but the teacher says no. She is too big for the sheep costumes, and they can’t …