Bombay / Poona
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A Swimmer in the Tropics
The City in Two Neighborhoods
October 18, 2023
Dispatches
A More Suitable Helen
October 17, 2023
Fiction
Something was crawling underneath Helen’s skin. Or wasn’t? Or was? She leaned in closer to her bathroom mirror and squinted at the S-shaped bump, red and angry around the border, with an edge of self-disgust. It had been there for two days. First, tucked timidly underneath her eyebrow, easily mistaken for an irritated hair follicle, which, no big deal, but now, if her eyes weren’t playing tricks, it had scooted its way smack-dab in the center of her forehead, spotlighted by the offensive bulb overhead. Could it have been something she ate? That rubbery shrimp in the food-court lo mein? Or an unwitting encounter with some poisonous leaf in Punta Cana last week? When she stumbled into that bush after one too many coladas? She thought of texting Bob to see if any curious growths had appeared on his pallid body but decided she’d rather physically suffer than emotionally exhaust herself in a forced flirtatious exchange that would no doubt end with a dinner invitation she’d say yes to, even though the idea repulsed her.
Farmworker Poetry Feature: Rodney Gomez
October 12, 2023
Farmworker, Poetry
Poems by RODNEY GOMEZ
This feature is part of our print and online portfolio of writing from the immigrant farmworker community. Read more online or in Issue 26.
Barrioized Haiku
When it rains the water
raises the dead
street long enough
to let the wheels
find the divots of neglect.
That is why I walked
barefoot to your lintel:
everything built skews
away from us and toward
the gray light of wealth.
Lay It Bare: Joy Baglio Interviews Anders Carlson-Wee
October 9, 2023
Interviews
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ANDERS CARLSON-WEE‘s Disease of Kings showcases a mastery of tone and voice, an uncanny ability to talk to you (reader) like a friend and confidant, while telling you the hardest truths— truths that might actually change your life, truths the world doesn’t necessarily want you to know. These poems are urgent without being demanding, confessional without being sensational, and indirectly lead us to reconsider the nuances of relationships, how our lives are structured, and ultimately the big questions of what matters most. Disease of Kings tells a fierce, uncompromising narrative, yet also manages to be deeply vulnerable and do away with pretense and artifice, embracing a primal need to “Lay It Bare,” as one of the poems is aptly titled.
JOY BAGLIO sat down with Anders to discuss Disease of Kings, touching on his impulse toward narrative, crafting vivid imagery, honing voice, and more.
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![Issue 26 Launch Party in Amherst [VIDEO]](https://www.thecommononline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/INDD-comp.jpg)
Issue 26 Launch Party in Amherst [VIDEO]
October 5, 2023
News, News and Events
This event has passed, but you can watch a recording below! (Closed captions are included; download a transcript here.)
The Common Fall Launch Party
Thursday, November 9, 2023, 6pm
Friendly Reading Room, Frost Library
Amherst College, Amherst, MA
Free and open to the public, wine and food from La Veracruzana provided.
Join us to celebrate the launch of Issue 26, with three contributors to our portfolio of writing from the farmworker community!
We welcome portfolio co-editor Miguel M. Morales, poet Julián David Bañuelos, and prose writer Nora Rodriguez Camagna for brief readings and conversation about place, immigration, writing, farmwork, and family. All three of our guests grew up doing seasonal farmwork with their families. The event will be hosted by the magazine’s managing editor Emily Everett.
Translation: Five Poems by Serbian Poet Milena Marković
October 5, 2023
Poetry, Translation
Poems by MILENA MARKOVIĆ, translated from the Serbian by STEVEN and MAJA TEREF.
Translators’ Note
As translators, we have multiple ways in which we interact as a translator couple. Oftentimes, we will sit side by side and take turns translating and transcribing as we work our way through a text. Sometimes though, one of us may translate a poem and later have the other check it. The poem “little lambs” is an example whereby Maja wrote out her translation in a notebook, which Steven later typed up and checked against the original. In the middle of the poem where “a band of clouds cross above my son,” Maja had followed the line with “while he squatted in the shallows,” yet Steven misread “shallows” as “shadows.”
Bless These Backs
October 4, 2023
Dispatches, Farmworker
This feature is part of our print and online portfolio of writing from the immigrant farmworker community. Read more online or in Issue 26.
Part of a day’s harvest, 1985.
Bradley County, Arkansas
I stood behind the orthopedic specialist and watched the giant monitor where my MRI reports glowed. He traced the contours of my spine, his index finger waving back and forth down the screen. I had gotten his name after a months-long battle with neck and back pain. What started as fire and numbness in my right arm grew into a welter of spasm and neuropathy. This doctor was known as an oracle of back pain. He bragged of being able to guess how people used their bodies just from reading his screens.
The exhaustion of having a nameless, and, therefore, untreatable problem was eroding my spirit. I needed him to find the answer. As he squinted, he rattled off his wins, spotting the bone-wear patterns of golfers, softball players, fiddlers, and software developers. He stopped to identify the small bumps on each vertebra: bone spurs. It felt like he was stalling. Had I stumped him?
Podcast: Jake Lancaster on “Grace’s Folly”
September 29, 2023
Podcast, Podcasts & Audio
Transcript: Jake Lancaster Podcast
Jake Lancaster speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Grace’s Folly,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. Jake talks about writing stories that lean into the offbeat, uncomfortable, and sometimes grotesque parts of his characters and their lives. He also discusses his writing and revision process—carving away at long first drafts until all that’s left is essential—and his work teaching writing at the University of Minnesota.
September 2023 Poetry Feature: Uljana Wolf
September 28, 2023
Poetry, Translation
Poems by ULJANA WOLF, translated by GREG NISSAN.
Six poems from kochanie, today i bought bread, New from World Poetry Books.
shoes danced to shreds
as a fable
1 soldier danced
12 maidens to shreds
Beyond Their Labor: Manuel Muñoz and Helena María Viramontes on Writing the Lives of Farmworkers
September 25, 2023
Farmworker, Interviews
Photos L-R courtesy of Manuel Muñoz and Lindsay France/Cornell University.
Acclaimed writers MANUEL MUÑOZ and HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES met almost three decades ago: Muñoz was obtaining his MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University, and Viramontes was his mentor. Many novels and story collections later, the pair are still close friends. They sat down recently to talk, for the first time, specifically about their roots in farmwork. They discussed the poor working conditions and hardships, but also the ways that farmworkers find love and joy in their families. As writers, they connected over the desire to honor the wholeness and complexity of these lives in their work.
