All posts tagged: Marc Vincenz

The Most-Read Pieces of 2023

As our new year of publishing and programming picks up speed, we at The Common wanted to reflect on the pieces that made last year such a great one! We published over 200 pieces online and in print in 2023. Below, you can browse a list of the six most-read pieces of 2023 to see which stories, essays, and poems left an impact on readers. 

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Two Poems from The Spring of Plagues by Ana Carolina Assis, translated by Heath Wing

bird on a branch

“i wish I could / prevent your death / and bury your body alive / in the puny damp / earth
we tended / so that it kept on living / mandioca corn banana / would not sprout forth / 
but instead / acerola cherry blackberry pitanga hog plum.” 

Read more. 



January 2023 Poetry Feature, with work by Tina Cane, Myronn Hardy, and Marc Vincenz

Purple flowers close up 
“Sheila had IHOP     delivered to her apartment     in El Alto, NY    / on January 6th    
so she could kick back     self-proclaimed terrorist     / that she is     and eat pancakes
     while watching white supremacists / storm the Capital.”

Read more. 



The Story of A Box by Jeffrey Harrison 

box with art on the inside   
“Duchamp gave my grandparents the Boîte-en-valise in the early 1960s. It was one of many handmade boxes Duchamp created containing miniature versions of his paintings and other works. This item… might have been the most intriguing to my siblings and me.”

Read more. 

 



Dispatch from Moscow, Idaho by Afton Montgomery

Moscow Idaho plain    
“The neighbor children are in the Evangelical cult that Vice and The Guardian wrote about last year. They’re not allowed to speak to us, which is a thing no one has ever said aloud but is true, nonetheless. This town is full of true things that no one says aloud.”

Read more. 



Five Poems by Serbian Poet Milena Marković, translated by Steven and Maja Teref

clothes hanging on a line in front of yellow building 
“the girl isn’t wearing warm socks / some men catcall her at the bus station / she pretends not to hear them / the barking dog chases the escaping sun / there used to be a landfill / behind the supermarket / black birds used to have lunch / and even dinner there.” 

Read more. 



Farmworker Poetry Feature, with work by Rodney Gomez

eye of a hurricane

“If I sang I was sinful, I was animal. Stole sips from circumscribed fountains.
I said murciélago, my knuckles drew a ruler. I said San Judas, my arm was viced.
Survived by christening the bruise a train track.”

Read more. 

 


 

Thanks for a great year! We are excited to continue sharing work by writers all over the world with you in 2024. Keep up with the art, prose, and poetry we publish each week by subscribing to our newsletter

The Most-Read Pieces of 2023
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In A Word

By MARC VINCENZ

For your ears, in your exile, in your comfort zone, in which you fly unscathed, unsheathed, into the scarlet reveries, in your scarf and hands where the hum of time seems like a downpour, or the dizzying heights of mountain crags, the sharp flashes of light that become visible in the no-longer-already night. Here in the deep darkening center, in the storm of spring or the silence and its willow tree, in the serenade on the veranda, or the poplar spires, in the furrows and the silt, do you believe the true believer may be risen from the dead? Hold the fire and the ever-transforming, the endless sky or the filthy sewage which spews out under the shadows, which they say settles the soul. You will emerge as you do, in all your manifolds, in the siege and in amongst the vagabonds and the wayfarers, the heavenly debate in the afterworld—all those among us searching for safety. Here we are heathens, the lamb and temples that rise over the hills. Yesterday had us back among you in the proud fight, where the stained glass was the mirror and shattered our pride. Earn your trust, they say. Weren’t we the ones who lifted the dead, who muttered their prayers accordingly, where every motion was a wavering—so estranged we were in the day’s end—the words, the word, the faces were etched in their smiles. Take the last sheaf of paper and hold it up to the window. Take the benevolence of any kindred spirit and let it arise. The book ends somewhere. 

In A Word
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January 2023 Poetry Feature

New poems by our contributors TINA CANE, MYRONN HARDY, and MARC VINCENZ

 

Table of Contents:

            Tina Cane
                        —You Are Now Interacting as Yourself
                        —The Subject Line

            Myronn Hardy
                        —Among Asters

            Marc Vincenz
                        —An Empire in the Ground

 

You Are Now Interacting As Yourself        
By TINA CANE

Sheila had IHOP     delivered to her apartment     in El Alto, NY    
on January 6th     so she could kick back     self-proclaimed terrorist     
that she is     and eat pancakes     while watching white supremacists
storm the Capital on T.V.     a coup

January 2023 Poetry Feature
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April 2016 Poetry Feature

This month we welcome new contributors Sria Chatterjee, Marc Vincenz, and Laurie Rosenblatt, and we’re happy to publish new work by Ned Balbo once more.

April 2016 Poetry Feature
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