Poetry & Fiction

The Lion and Me

FICTION BY JANE POTTHAST

This short fictional work was originally written for a course on ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is a Greek term for a literary description of a work of art. Whether in poetry, fiction, or criticism, vividly describing a particular painting or statue can serve as poignant subject matter for a writer or as a device to emphasize the writer’s own themes. In the following text, I utilize a historical, fictive voice to meditate on Yale Gallery’s Lion Relief from the Processional Way (562 B.C.). I imagine the relief from the perspective of someone who might have been present at the Babylonian Ishtar Gate, a wonder of the ancient world originally lined with fierce, gold lions.

Trainracing

POEM BY JAKE GZ

Channeling Hemingway One Autumn Night

CREATIVE PROJECT CURATED BY KAMI L. RICE

One fall night last year, we created a project for ourselves. The American students were studying abroad in Paris, and I was a mentor in their program. Two artists and three writers, we assigned ourselves homework. We’d spend an evening all together at one of Ernest Hemingway’s famous haunts. The writers had to choose someone, or someones, from among the clientele as their inspiration for a short story. The artists’ drawings would be similarly inspired by someone who was there that night. We’d package the works together and discover what we’d jointly created
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Sonatina: A Poem in Three Parts

POEM & PHOTOS BY EJ BOWMAN

from A Journal of the Year of the Tiger

POEM BY DANIEL GLEASON

We take off our shoes before entering our host’s house

Yalda: An Afghan Winter Story

MIXED-MEDIA VIDEO BY “TILL WE HAVE FACES
INTRODUCTORY TEXT BY HEATHER M. SURLS

Setara, a 17-year-old from Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, remembers falling asleep at her grandmother’s house as a girl. Grandma Gul, or Grandma Flower, would sit beside her with a cup of chai and rock-sugar candies and tell her stories. One of these was the story of Yalda, a traditional Afghan tale about a village girl who meets a feared “witch” on the longest night of the year.

ST AIRS

POEM BY VAGRANT MOON
PHOTO BY JC JOHNSON

Spirited Away—Again

TEXT AND POEM BY GABRIEL NOEL

Spirited Away is a feature animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, one of the most acclaimed directors of contemporary cinema. Released in Japan in 2001, it follows 10-year-old Chihiro, an innocent, headstrong, sensitive girl moving with her parents to a new home in a Japanese town where she knows no one. As they are about to arrive in their tiny car to their new life, the father takes a wrong turn, leading them instead to an abandoned theme park where the world of the spirits still exists in a parallel reality. p>

Meet the Dutch Poet Laureate Tsead Bruinja

INTERVIEW AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY MIRTHE SMEETS

Mirthe Smeets, our poetry-loving Dutch journalist, spoke with Tsead Bruinja. Their conversation in Dutch was originally published by Meander Magazine (“Tsead Bruinja, de dichter die zich nooit vrij voelt, en telkens weer doorgaat”), and we are honored to publish an English version of the interview.