May 2011
22 posts
Homage to Harriet Wilson
Katrina Stokes
Excerpt from Our Nig as a Visual Experience
Harriet Wilson provokes the reader immediately with the title of her story, Our Nig. To read Wilson’s story is to confront its title, the racism that owns the title, and digest its implications. The title renders the reader aware of the bias that Wilson writes within; the bias that has shaped her thought, limited her dreams, and...
Account Number 40053019
She ripped out all the pages of her diary. The binding became mangled as she imagined her lover breaking into her apartment and finding the hidden volumes of letters she wrote and never sent.
She knew she only needed one shred to mentally retrieve the secrets she had written. She waited in the line at the bank fingering her shred which she had scrawled her account number on as a disguise. She...
Jamie Krasner, "Smear
SMEAR
I slipped my finger into the small container and glided my tip over the surface of the contents within. The thick goo stuck to my skin. I admired the look of it, glistening a bright orange-red that seemed like a beautiful organic plastic. I was tempted to lick it off, but I kept my tongue inside, repelled by its smell–a mix of ointments and burnt rubber.
“Close.”
I...
Jamie Krasner, "Smear"
SMEAR
I slipped my finger into the small container and glided my tip over the surface of the contents within. The thick goo stuck to my skin. I admired the look of it, glistening a bright orange-red that seemed like a beautiful organic plastic. I was tempted to lick it off, but I kept my tongue inside, repelled by its smell–a mix of ointments and burnt rubber.
“Close.”
I...
Andy Chen, “Proportion”
Esther Hong, "deeper, grown darker"
where the wheat fields grew starker
and where would you have me draw the line?
inching nearer and nearer to you
following the lead, you’d have me
inching nearer and nearer to you
following your lead, i’d have you
under the covers’ underbelly
and when would breaking the rules be fine?
lower, down the faint central line
plucking the strings of your lungs, i’d have...
Esther Hong, mapping out valentines"
dear alaska,
he spoke in french
about fedex, mailing packages
of past colloquialisms
past ways of saying
i’m crazy about you
i told myself to listen
to belle and sebastian
more if only to tell you before
you sent me away
i coded names,
made you a location
letters of your name
defining you as a place
it’s written down
in blankets of milk
alaska, on thursdays when
i was half...
Esther Hong, "in the bathroom, three times over"
i ran through the bushes
came out, legs bloody as mary
mary, mother of god,
mary, lady in the mirror.
mary, in the dark you had me
with three drinks in hand
three times, drinking to your health
three times, washing my hands
three times, calling your name
bloody mary, fate be damned
with the door closed behind me,
my fevered eyes searching
the hollowed tomb, deep and shallow,
the mirrored...