Prose, Poetry, and Art since 1956
To be examined and to be understood are two very different things. I wondered if an examination gives way to understanding upon learning one of the recipients of the 2018 O. Henry Award was Lara Vapnyar, for her semi-autobiographical fiction piece about her family friend who falls in love with a Deaf-Blind individual (“Deaf and Blind”, published in The New Yorker). I discovered Vapnyar’s story…
On a Sunday morning, I sat four rows away from a bored gate agent, phone pressed between my ear and shoulder—an attempt to ward off the woman trying to goad fellow passengers into a ‘dialogue’ about her support of “our president” and “the Wall”—listening to a friend lament the current state of literary pop culture. Their main complaint: the number of books praised as feminist…
In these moments of upending crises, when the torments of war arrive in cities across the globe and render thousands homeless, many are forced to leave behind loved ones and cities in ruins. Because of this torrid climate, readers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are calling for immigrant voices, yet many literary journals rarely include them. Immigrant and refugee writers, after making it out of…
About this project: In English as well as Polish, the word for the chart of symbols containing information about how to read the map is called a legend. There is more here than just two-dimensional spatial orientation. There are also stories, interpretations, memories. Thus, each little circle representing this little town or that giant city is more than just a fact, but the center of a complex web of…
Henry leaned back on his leather recliner holding a cellphone and credit card. He wrote online reviews and rated products according to a system of caterpillars. More caterpillars meant more butterflies, ergo, a better chance of succeeding on the open market. Any day now, he hoped to hear from some investor interested in taking his site viral. He listened to the Home Shopping network. Now an infomercial about a…