Where I live, abandoned buildings lean precariously towards roads carved by oxen the first time they sloughed this forest to the ground. The only road to my home is held in place by roots of…
Posts tagged Nonfiction
I Hide When the FedEx Man Parks Outside my Apartment
I do not want him to see me sitting in my recliner by the window. Only I am aware of this secret—that I ordered furniture online because it would be too heavy for me to…
Duck Blood Soup
The jar looks to be full of swamp water. Its contents swirl and leave grit on the glass when you turn it over in your hands. “Duck blood soup,” explains your mother. “Czernina.” It always…
Call for Submissions: Shadow Play and Light Work
There is a term in visual art called chiaroscuro, which, in Italian, can translate to a compound phrase: lightdark. In this year’s series for Portland Review, two of the oldest artistic tropes— shadow and light—meet…
Fifth Position: Unlocking Space
In the spring of 1983, Russian choreographer George Balanchine, at the age of seventy-nine, lay dying of a rare neurological disorder in Roosevelt Hospital. According to his biography by Bernard Taper, dancers from the New…