Books burning 3:39 a.m.
Chapter 6, Don Quixote.
Touch-me-nots
Wilting-in-progress.
Dead-of-Night Blossoms
April 15, 2017
Issue 13, Issue 13 Poetry, Poetry
Poetry
Obituary
April 15, 2017
Issue 13, Issue 13 Poetry, Poetry
In your obituary I concluded, “Muriel lives on in…”
and went on to name myself, my two brothers,
and your eleven grandchildren. I may have been thinking
of Pasternak who said something like our life
in others is our immortality, or I may have just been
looking for a way to make your life continue
even as I announced that it was already finished.
Embraceable
April 15, 2017
Issue 13, Issue 13 Poetry, Poetry, Translation
Translated by ILAN STAVANS
Abrazable
A Piedad Bonnett
Irremplazable tú,
voz tú vacía
de mi vacío en ti
inconsolable.
Mi tú irremediable
tu mí espejo
de tu reflejo
Braintree
March 8, 2017
Podcasts & Audio, Poetry
February 2017 Poetry Feature
February 21, 2017
Poetry
Please welcome back TC contributors Elizabeth Hazen, Jonathan Moody, Daniel Tobin, and Honor Moore (whose poem “Song,” published in the first issue of The Common, was reprinted in Best American Poetry 2012). We’re also delighted to welcome Gerard Coletta, who is making his first appearance in The Common.
January 2017 Poetry Feature
January 1, 2017
Poetry
NEW POETS for the NEW YEAR
Please welcome Holly Burdorff, John Davis Jr., Nicholas Friedman, and Matt Salyer—four poets who are new to our pages, and welcome back TC contributor Tina Cane, the new Poet Laureate of Rhode Island.
December 2016 Poetry Feature
December 30, 2016
Poetry
New poems from our contributors: please welcome newcomers to The Common, Mik Awake and Elizabeth Scanlon, and welcome back L. S. Klatt and Ben Mazer.
November 2016 Poetry Feature
November 10, 2016
Poetry
This month’s feature includes new work by contributors.
11 Warnings: How to Avoid Talking Politics at Parties
November 1, 2016
Issue 12, Issue 12 Poetry, Poetry
By DENISE DUHAMEL & JULIE MARIE WADE
Adult Supervision Recommended
When your partner comes home with you for the first time, try to prepare her. Explain how they still see you as a child: cake and candles, streamers and balloons, bubblegum and colored pencils as parting gifts. Though you’re twenty-three, your father insists, “You won’t be grown up in my book until I’ve walked you down the aisle.” Expect jokes about Clinton’s impeachment and Hillary’s headbands. Anticipate talk of bootstraps—how “some people” have never learned to pull themselves up. On the refrigerator, George and Laura Bush grin inside a heart-shaped magnet. The radio plays Rush Limbaugh all afternoon.
Nativity Scene
November 1, 2016
Issue 12, Issue 12 Poetry, Poetry
By KEVIN O’CONNOR
Strange you came onto me at Children’s Mass,
standing in back, minding my unbelief,
as Thomas doubted physical return.
