Emma Crowe

Instead of Flowers

March 20, 2013 Dispatches

Usually 4 p.m. glares on my windshield as I head to the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn Memorial Park. I am 75 miles per hour on the 134, maybe more. Others fly by me, impatient. The temptation to catch up to them is strong, as always. But I stay below the eighties, as though the seventies are the right glide, on Lenny Kravitz tunes. At the exit, flower vendors on foot wave roses and chrysanthemums. Their nearest competition is the flower shop at the gate, less than a mile away. You’d think they’d sell for bargain. But I buy a bunch or two anyway. It beats walking to the shop, and ringing for someone to come out when you’re ready to pay.

Headstone Stories

March 13, 2013 Dispatches

By JAYNE MORGAN

I grew up in graveyards. We had one at the bottom of our farm drive and on weekdays I would walk through it to catch the bus to school and then back again on the way home. On Saturdays I would be sent on a mission to rake through the piles of recently discarded wreaths to retrieve the plastic ribbons. Anyone receiving a wrapped gift from our family could, if they looked carefully, have spotted the faint marks from the rusted wires and the creases from previously tied bows.

A Painter Brought to Life

March 6, 2013 Dispatches

By TODD PITOCK

In Telč, a town about two hours from Prague in the Czech Highlands, rain beat down like a parade of drums. Zdenka Noskova, the woman I had come to see, arrived at my hotel in the main square to take me to a memorial she had created.
At 37, Zdenka had a demure manner. She wore her auburn hair short, and dressed in a long skirt. She worked in a print shop, though the lasting imprint she’d made had been a walking trail, and later, a memorial she’d created to the memory of a Jewish painter who died in the Holocaust.

Poetry Reading

March 5, 2013 News and Events

Event Date:

Thursday, March 7, 2013 – 3:00pm

Location:

AWP Conference, Boston, MA

Poetry Editor John Hennessy will be reading for Ashland Poetry Press from his new collection, Coney Island Pilgrims, at this year’s AWP Conference in Boston.

Thursday, March 7, 3 PM
Patricia Olson Bookfair Stage, Exhibit Hall A, Plaza Level, BF17

Alaska, Massachusetts

February 27, 2013 Dispatches

By NAILA MOREIRA

Beyond the bridge of Highway 91, beyond the levee and the last line of houses at the outskirts of town, civilization goes to rural scenes. First you pass a patch of low trees; then a small paddock and barn where two horses live; and then you come to the cornfields — wide, flat, golden and stubbly by the riparian woodland of the Connecticut River. I’ve always wanted to come to these fields to see the stars, but the landscape is lonely, and I would be afraid to come alone at night.

A Not-so-Failure in 2 Parts

February 20, 2013 Dispatches

By CRALAN KELDER

excerpt from the ongoing Failures Diary

i go to pick up my kid

at his crèche

that’s a fancy european word

for daycare

The Common and Electra Street Bring Lauren Groff to Abu Dhabi

February 19, 2013 News and Events

Event Date:

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 – 6:30pm

Location:

NYU Abu Dhabi Garden

Electra Street, the NYU Abu Dhabi arts and humanities journal, and The Commoncollaborate this month to bring acclaimed author Lauren Groff (Arcadia) to Abu Dhabi for a reading and fiction master class. If you’re far away from the Middle East, join us in spirit by reading Lauren’s story “Exquisite Corpse” from Issue 01, now available online. For a fascinating take on UAE literary life, delve into “Abu Dhabi Reads Life of Pi” by Deborah Williams.

Celebrating Dispatches

February 16, 2013 News and Events

Event Date:

Friday, March 8, 2013 – 4:30pm

Location:

AWP Conference-Offsite, Boston, MA

Please join The Common for an informal reading featuring contributors to Dispatches, our weekly online column. We’ll be joined by contributors Curtis Bauer, Marie-Helene Bertino, James A. Gill, Stephen Haven, Katherine Hill, Julia Lichtblau, and Brian Simoneau.

Friday, March 8th, 4:30 p.m

The Corner Tavern

421 Marlborough Street

Boston, MA 02115

What Diamonds Can Do

February 13, 2013 Dispatches

By CLAIRE KEYES

Some can write poetry
on glass windows like Sophia Hawthorne
at the Old Manse with her wedding ring.
I’m told this was common in the 19th century.
But, for me, reading it was like finding a note in a bottle
picked up on the beach. I felt a kind of awe.