Literature in Translation |
from “The Aeronaut”
“Born into hardship, Gao Likuan had grown tired of people’s sneers and joined the Communists to print their leaflets. His leaflets were better than anyone else’s, his colors more vivid, only growing stronger with time.”
Poetry |
“Another Green World” and “Wild”
“Each room you dwell in / becomes a Louvre of ruthless vanity, / plush dark chamber of alien secrecy.”
Poetry |
“Dream Poem” and “Cinnamon”
“You really murdered that sestina / says the officer questioning an MFA candidate / while leafing through his thesis. / Maybe, says Good Cop, sitting on his desk, / but you could still save it if you’d just / put it in your own words.”
Essay |
from How To Steal A Culture
“Don’t go to her house. Don’t visit her neighborhood. You can’t be around too many black people at once — you should hit just the right note of not racist, slightly ignorant.”
Literature in Translation |
from The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka
“The aphorist Elias Canetti, drawing on his own reading experience, noted: ‘The great aphorists read as though they had all known one another well.’ This was certainly not true of Kafka.”
Literature in Translation |
“Full Throttle,” “Hand,” “We” & “When”
“Even in / the most benevolent / hand, there was still / money, and there is more / than enough of death.”
Poetry |
“Hyperemesis Gravidarum” and “While I Was Out”
“… never saw the contours / of the larval life form waxing in your womb, / a pitiable spineless lone crescent sardine / of a half-written girl …”
Poetry |
from the “Little Soul” series
“Little Soul has no ancestral memory / but knows, thanks to MyHeritage, its DNA / is pure Ashkenazi, a lineage of wanderers / and damp wool, shtetls, ghettos …”
Lyric Prose |
“The Smell of a Peeled Orange from Across the Room”
“… she told me I was a stupid boy and that meant that there would be no other night like this for me and I couldn’t remember my name but her name was Sally …”
Poetry |
“The May Poets” & “Wigilia (Christmas Eve) on East Meadow in Dublin”
“The February poets wished they were flyers. They loved saying ‘Sopwith-Camel.’ / They all agreed that a Zeppelin was more beautiful than the Apollo Belvedere. / They were often shot in the back as they looked up at the sky.”
Interview |
A Conversation with Daniel Olivas & His Story “The Chicano In You”
“Gabino Iglesias was on Twitter talking about his surgery to remove a lump from his neck, and it wasn’t malignant. I then wrote to him to say he had just inspired me to write a new story, and I would dedicate it to him. ‘Nacho’ is about a man who notices he has a lump, has it removed, and puts it in a jar. It eventually grows into his roommate.”
Poetry |
“When Year After Year I Receive an Evite to A Party Where I Know No One, Not Even the Host” and “Abecedarian”
“Could have been the folk masses, the relentless brown plaid, / detention for every day late, that made me start the group against / enlightenment …’
Literature in Translation |
from 13 Lunas 13 / 13 Moons 13
“moment for rest, / for the simple intimation of a dead time / in order to think of you, / to invite you to my table, / to invoke women who were of my blood and inhabit an uncertain memory …”
Lyric Prose |
“Four Interiors,” “Distance Prayer,” “Mala” & “John Donne: A Closet Drama”
“She would scratch my back and shoulders lightly. She would call me Angelique. We were close and we were not. The world was full of things we could not say, so many I barely noticed them.”
Poetry |
“home,” “dreaming language,” “king matjaž visits his village” & “talking with thistles”
“but don’t come too close! / my lines have hooks / that will crudely catch your ears / with spiky words and stalks …”