Darkness, my sibling,
I have a story to tell you
Last shabbes I was chased by the law into Bed
Stuy streets for passing out pamphlets
decrying America’s uncles.
The two tall boys, brothers, both
with wire-rimmed glasses, with wicker
creels, fly-fishing gear, and vests
with patches of sheepskin shearling
dotted with troutflies, worked their way
downstream in their rubber waders.
The Common brings you a special two-part series as a preview to Tesserae: Poetry Of Community – A Reading & Celebration Of Immigrants & New Americans, coming up on Sunday, April 22 3:30–5pm at The Parlor Room in Northampton, MA; free admission.
Part One – featuring poems by Kirun Kapur, María Luisa Arroyo, and Ocean Vuong.
un/bodying/s
Poetry by TODD HEARON
Music by GREGORY W. BROWN
“I have made
an elegy for myself it
is true”
Geoffrey Hill, i.m., 1932 – 2016
1. The Meeting of the Waters
Sempiternal waters, sing-
ly sing, gush glottal-less & all
onomatopoetical your
triphthong’s liquid pluraling
through rock & ruck & rill
In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 08 contributors Antonio Monda and Ian Bassingthwaighte read and discuss their stories “Am I Speaking to Hyman Roth?” and “Reichelt’s Parachute.”
In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 08 contributors Ishion Hutchinson and Jonathan Gerhardson read and discuss their poems “Trouble on the Road Again,” “Vers de Société,” and “Shy Mother.”
By: ALISON PRINE
The opposite of losing you
was watching you across the purple light
of the dance floor in the local gay bar
while the salt trucks dragged through the streets.
By MATT SALYER
Check me on fleek like the night
kitchen mothers, pucker and hum some; come,
I like to liquor louche; let’s watch the flock
of spring-heeled bound as borough cabs
exhaust their carbon phantoms like a gauche
of fuck. Do you unzoo, unrouge
to rat as white, what roughshod? Do.
I want the carnal as straight metacognition,
In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 09 contributors Masha Hamilton and Lori Ostlund read and discuss their stories “God’s Fingernail” and “Leaving Walter.”
At The Common we’re welcoming spring with new poetry by our contributors. (Be sure to listen to the audio link to Megan Fernandes’ “White People Always Want to Tell Me…,” read by the author.)
Don’t miss an issue! Subscribe to The Common.