Fall 2023

Thoughts on the Beat Generation

​Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
in conversation with Marin Sorescu

Romanian poet and playwright Marin Sorescu in conversation with Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti about performance poetry, the art of contemplative breathing, and how the Beat Generation redefined American poetics.
Read the full interview
Part II of an exclusive series of interviews
​never before translated into English

Four
by Rae Armantrout

Gray July day, / humming-bird hovers / beak-deep in a hank / of late-blooming wisteria. / Is it—are they— / ever aware of failing ...
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​Selected    Poems
by Laynie Browne

When every part of me does not want to go / What I knew I didn't / The mind's ceaseless games to avoid the actual / Counting days, reasons not to detach / Was it the day of my perpetual headache—you went ...
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Distance
by Paura Rodríguez Leytón​
​(translated from the Spanish by Janet McAdams)

You’d maybe converse / with smoke mixed up in fog / after being fire. / Maybe / with another poem, / with another word ...
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​Two
by Patrick Cotter

The boy who carries a large wallclock on his back / about-faces the temporary puddle which reflects him. / Time runs backwards in the puddle like the clock’s hands ...
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Flowers!

Paintings    by    Jocelyn    Ulevicus

Nature, change, and impermanence are dominant themes in  Jocelyn Ulevicus' work. Through a multi-faceted declination of the flower motif and the use of vibrant colors, she presents emotionally charged canvases which lay bare her intuitive sensitivity and boundless sense of wonderment toward the natural world. 
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Look    at    Yourself    in    the    Mirror
​by Paul Cunningham

look at yourself in the mirror / so I can see something backless / before tomorrow’s / mourning / for space and hashtags / or whatever sells data now ...​
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The    Bardo
by Anna Evas

Vested in bright green, he surveys the parking lot / for shopping carts, then drives them one-by-one / into metal corrals. A more able employee will herd them / into the store with a motorized rig ...
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Five 
by Ruth Lasters
​​(translated from the Dutch by Rosalind Buck)

Maybe it will take an eight-billion-strong / snowman army to demonstrate extinction to us, / setting them up one by one. / Maybe we first need to see each iced-water delegate / shrink, helpless, as the mercury rises ...
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The Strangers
by Jai Jamid Bashir

I am the phantom in the tree outside. / Standing in front of an old house where / an unremarkable schoolboy first took off / my bra and ran his hand over the band / of my underwear. He never found ...
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I've    Given    Up    Looking    for    Her    Song 
by Foster W. Donnell

My hometown echoes in the rearview mirror. / Up ahead on State Highway 18 the dividing lines / Dissolve to meet the Texas sky ...
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girl    scout    camp    pastoral
by Lip Manegio

the lake i’m learning to swim in is choking under algae bloom. / when it was built, with water pumped from the housatonic, / a whole village was buried ...
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Focus    on    . . .

Hilma    af    Klint

A look at some major works by Hilma af Klint, whose abstract paintings revolutionized modern art, yet only recently received their due international acclaim. On the occasion of the Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian exhibition (October 2023–February 2024), we celebrate the Swedish painter's visionary work and the mystical influences behind some of her most enthralling series.
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Bus    Ride
by Alex Braslavsky

I am the youngest one in this flotational room, / one only meant for roads, / but I will be the biggest ears. / In that room, parallel to ours, my friends froze to death / They outwrung their organs, / They insisted we all listen ...
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In    the    Burrowing    Slowness    of    Indifference
by Emily Munro

In the burrowing slowness of indifference / ​worm felt her middle jerk / watched eyeless as space opened / heard wind whisper if you only could / comprehend boggle-headed where a turn can take you ...
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A    Blessing
by Salma Sayed

Today was itchy. Itchier / than usual. A few names / kept scratching at the back / of my neck. I’d even cut / the tags off of the shirt ...
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Tomatoes
by Brian Sneeden

​The day I split my tooth you crossed an acre of red concrete cupping a tomato plant in your palm. It was the week before thrushes and after robins, when the rain is suddenly warm ...​
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I    Think    Too    Often    of    Modigliani
by Noelle McManus

I think too often of Modigliani / who is wiser, / deader than I, / who curls at the foot of my bed / like an oil-drenched dog / dragging strokes of cadmium yellowred / along the floor ...
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Monosyllabic
by J. R. Solonche

The best ones are the small ones, / those you need to hold in your hand / two or three at a time, those you need / to feel for size, and shape, and heft ...
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F  E  A  T  U  R  E  D

Poetry
​Marin Sorescu

Essay
Anna Badkhen

Fiction
​Shifra Steinberg

Poetry
​​Daniel Nemo

Interview
Khashayar Mohammadi