Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
But have you ever heard such quietness as aftermath: senility of fight, diminuendo truth, that slow regress? June. Whole world “can’t breathe.” Vicarious sufferers. All swallowed fire. Bright. But have you ever heard such quietness as four months later? Protests in undress. White badge of courage earned. Click mute on cries. Diminuendo truth (that slow regress). My country ’tis of thee, the passiveness of fast-expiring…
Lisa says food is sad, hasn’t eaten in three days. Jan is made of matchsticks, wants the boys to light her, light her, light her. Sean gives herself a buzz cut, grows girl tired. Mae chews bubblegum and paints a perfect smoky eye. Lu stays home, keeps mother company, draws open-faced camellias and hums ice-cream-truck music. Mela packs her suitcase, drives Arizona, finds the boy…
What’s it like to make a lit mag in the middle of mass upheaval? As a student-run magazine, Portland Review’s staff changes yearly, meaning we’re used to learning as we go and teaching each other. Usually we do this in-person, waving someone over to have a look at a submission or walk each other through some html. This year, we switched to online-only operations and…
It’s 1989 and, before Hurricane Hugo hits, the jungles of Puerto Rico are vibrant and loud. The snakes hiss, the birds chirp, and the frogs, las ranas, those wonderful coquís, they sing proudly on the isla. I say sing and not croak because in Puerto Rico nothing croaks, we all sing. And the coquí, that tiny little green ranita, sings loudest of all. Its slow,…
Joy Ladin’s The Book of Anna is a vital investigation of genre resistance and redemptive doubling. “Today I decided to write great poetry. / Or die trying.” Anna Asher, the protagonist of Joy Ladin’s The Book of Anna, is a firebrand, a woman searching for meaning, aware of her own internal strain and visceral hungers. A Czech-German Jew, Anna lives in post-war Prague where she…