I do not know whether to say that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saved me or to ascribe it to God as we always do in Nigeria. When we studied so hard and passed an exam, we say it was God who did it…It is popular in Nigeria for Nigerian hospitals to display on their signboards: We take care, but only God heals.
Category: 21st century
ESSAY | I Have to Tell You – Laura Goncalves Ribeiro
When I arrive, you won’t be sitting at the kitchen granite table, where on rainy days we
shared pumpkin soup. I would not need to rehearse what to tell you at the granite table, with
no one around.
ESSAY | On the Decline – Sarah Davis
You’re on the decline, she said. I had come for a frozen shoulder. I didn’t even know that could happen. Apparently they just stop working, turn solid, you have to take your other arm, lift them up, plop them down and then they lay there useless. Right now one of my arm pits has deodorant on it, the other does not.
ESSAY | Don’t Rattle Granny’s Bones – Sharon Kirsch
I am the daughter of a man with a TripTik. You may not know what a TripTik is, or you may understand it to be a triptych, a work of art made up of three panels, often hinged together in a sacred altarpiece.
ESSAY | Corn and Chicken and Death and The Return – Alan Weltzien
The fact that we’d never visited Mexico apart from a couple of long-ago weeks in Tulum, Yucatan might explain my scanty knowledge of El Dia de Los Muertos or the Day of the Dead. I knew it wasn’t connected to Ireland’s Samhain or All Hallow’s Eve, beloved in my childhood.
ONE POEM – Adrienne Weiss
I find a seat,
hold a headache in my hands, cradle it like a rock
between fingers, think about how this birthday
will be soup and crackers and cancelled plans.
TWO POEMS – Chloe Hanks
I remember the shape of the word rainbow
on her puckered mouth, how we sounded
it out from my bedroom window.
ONE POEM – Morgan Boyer
Rain upon me your turbulent tales of locker-side loves,
the gossip of girls whose braces still encase their molars
ONE POEM – Elizabeth Seven
So next time you feel so anxious that you can hardly unlock the door,
remember that the world holds your feet
TWO POEMS – KG Newman
First day of the World Series,
autumn hanging on, each tree
seeing who can keep from
being a skeleton the longest
ONE POEM – Emilie Delcourt
one bright red strawberry on the strawberry plant
mist still low, tangled in the branches of olive trees
the way the pomegranates hang low
with the burden of their own weight
Book Review: The Woman Dies by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton – Arbnora Selmani
Reuniting with translator Polly Barton, Matsuda revisits similar themes in this new collection; across fifty-two stories, she tackles the pervasive misogyny faced by women in contemporary Japan and beyond.
