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December 2020

Cathie Bleck

The oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world.

Tara Betts
Noor Hindi
Leila Chatti
Jordan Keller-Martinez
Talvikki Ansel

See Table of Contents

From this Issue

- poem
  
  The Long Labors
  
  By Jane Wong
  
  My grandmother said it was going to be long—as long as you can hold your lineage—depending on how long you can hold your tongue—as long as your tongue can wrap around the pit—of some stolen stone fruit—as long as you...
  
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- poem
  
  Breaking [News]
  
  By Noor Hindi
  
  We’ll wake up, Sunday morning, and read the paper. Read each other. Become
  
  consumers
  
  of each other’s stories, a desperate reaching
  
  for another body’s warmth—its words buoying us through a world. We carry
  
  graveyards on our backs and I’m holding a lightning bug
  
  hostage in...
  
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- poem
  
  The summer I lived as a wolf
  
  By Pippa Little
  
  I knew the names of stones at the river mouth,
  crossed giving thanks to their uneasy spirits.
  
  I heard killings in the shadows, knew to turn keen and quick,
  travel in the presence of thunder, leave no scent or spoor behind.
  
  Preferring the high...
  
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Table of Contents

Poems

Jane Wong
- The Long Labors
Noor Hindi
- Breaking [News]
- Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying
Pippa Little
- The summer I lived as a wolf
Marcus Wicker
- Dear Mothership,
- Toilet Paper Invective with Self-Flagellation
Ashley M. Jones
- Hymn of Our Jesus & the Holy Tow Truck
- Friendly Skies, or, Black Woman Speaks Herself into God
T.J. Clark
- Afterwards
Talvikki Ansel
- Hornets’ Nest in Four Seasons
Anna Leahy
- World of Glass
Luther Hughes
Darius Simpson
- Perhaps We Are Our Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams
jayy dodd
- Orifice Jones
Leila Chatti
- Echo (All She Lost She Lost)
Lance Larsen
- Quail Egg
A.D. Lauren-Abunassar
Imani Cezanne
- I want to punch all the white people in Oakland
Maggie Millner
- From “Couplets”
Austin Smith
- The Leaves
Ange Mlinko
William Fuller
- Never Said
Brayan Salinas
Philip Gross
- A woodpecker’s
Alec Finlay
- Let me remind you (the dream poem)
John Lennox
- Loose Gowns for Mackerel
Isabella Borgeson
Jon Davis
- Orality
Kemi Alabi
- A Financial Planner Asks About My Goals, or Golden Shovel with Cardi B’s “Money”
Cyrée Jarelle Johnson
- magenta
- doppelgänger
Jordan Keller-Martinez
- Altivolant
- Passerines

Visual

Damon Locks
- “Carving Out Rights from Inside the Prison Industrial Complex”
Meredith Stern
- Foreword
Carlos J. Ayala
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5
Tara Betts
- Think, Think
Aryules Bivens
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 6
Juan Luna
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 7
Salvador Herrera
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 9
Tongo Eisen-Martin
- Pennies for the Opera
Juan Luna
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14
C. McLaurin
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18

Comment

Alan Gilbert
- Refuse to Settle
John Wilkinson
- Not to Be Resolved: William Fuller’s “Daybreak”
André Naffis-Sahely
- The Mind, like the Night, Has a Thousand Eyes

Contributors