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Friday Reads: October 2019

October 18, 2019 Reviews

Issue 18 is almost here! Pre-order your copy today to enjoy brand-new fiction, poetry, essays, and artwork arriving on October 28th. If waiting by the mailbox isn’t your thing, countdown to the magazine’s arrival with book recommendations from some of our Issue 18 contributors.

Recommendations: Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard by Cynthia L. Haven; Loves You: Poems by Sarah Gambito; A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa; The Farm by Joanne Ramos; and Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors.

Mario Santiago Papasquiaro: Two Poems in Translation

October 16, 2019 Poetry, Translation

Poems by MARIO SANTIAGO PAPASQUIARO

Translated from the Spanish by COLE HEINOWITZ

Poems appear in both Spanish and English.

Translator’s Note

A, E, I, O, U. The rhythmic concatenation of these five vowels is the tachycardic pulse of Mario’s poetry, and it cannot be imitated in English. Feeling for correlative patterns in the jangle of our consonant-frontal idiom is something like transcribing the pitch values of a Max Roach drum solo for honkeytonk piano. I do what I can with alliteration but even the relatively long decay of the M or the out-hissing S does not match the multi-textured overtones of a hard O spilling through the rails of its word-cage when struck, trailing a foam of soft E’s across the rubble.

Cadenza

October 15, 2019 Essays

by ISABEL MEYERS

In his thirty years of work in publishing, my grandfather never once revealed to his colleagues he was gay. Doing so could have cost him his job as a children’s book editor at a prestigious house, or at the very least, his reputation as an honest, hard-working family man. It took me only ten minutes, in a phone interview with the same publishing house, to accidentally out him.

A conversation with Joseph O’Neill, hosted by Jennifer Acker

October 14, 2019 News and Events

Wednesday, November 13, 4:30pm
The Center for Humanistic Inquiry
Frost Library
Amherst College
Free and open to the public

Join The Common and the Amherst College Creative Writing Center for a reading and Q&A with author Joseph O’Neill, hosted by TC Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker. This event is part of the Amherst College Creative Writing Fall Reading Series, which includes several readings around the town of Amherst.

Four Minutes At Rodney’s

October 9, 2019 Dispatches

By GRACE SEGRAN

I tucked my hands into the pockets of my cardigan and pulled it around me in a hug as I set out for my walk. The sun was low in the west, the air nippy. I wandered into Central Square just as the City Hall clock above me struck seven. Crossing the street, past the noisy tavern on the left of the sidewalk, and people enjoying conversations and dinner al fresco on the right, I arrived at Rodney’s. The bookstore is an institution in Cambridge, MA. It sells used and rare books with a fast-changing inventory. I made a beeline for the New to Rodney’s table in the center of the store.

Review: Rewriting the Body

October 2, 2019 Reviews

Review by MEG KEARNEY

Book by WYATT TOWNLEY (SFASU Press 2019)

What does it mean to “rewrite the body?” To dive deeply and lose ourselves in Wyatt Townley’s fourth book of poems, we must think of “body” as physical human frame; body as door, as house; body as a lifetime’s work, needing to be revised, re-visioned, reclaimed. Rewriting is a daily task, a practice, and the body—the poem/house—source of both refuge and danger, of “both / basement and / torna- / do/,” is also a source of connection with the world.

I Am the Fire Starter: an Interview with Haidar Haidar

September 30, 2019 Interviews, Translation

HISHAM BUSTANI interviews HAIDAR HAIDAR

Translated by RAED RAFEI

Nothing parallels the effect left by the nightmarish atmospheres in the writings of Haidar Haidar. His novels and stories drill deep into our illusory serenity: a serenity we often use to trick ourselves into continuing our lives even when surrounded by death, destruction and injustice. Despite changing times, Haidar has not been defeated by censorship—either imposed by others or himself. He has kept a fierce, critical distance from all sides: the dictatorship of the ruling regime in his country of Syria; the dictatorship of public taste and “conventions”; the oppression of dogmatic ideology and the ruling party; the tyranny of power derived from religion. The literary “School of Haidar Haidar” is not dystopian but one that considers our reality to be far more miserable than any dystopia. Art is realized through the transformation of this reality from inside out, and by directly confronting decay with creative and avant-garde writing forms.

Haidar Haidar was born in the village of Hussein al-Baher on the Syrian coast. He taught Arabic in Annaba, Algeria, then settled in Beirut where he worked in publishing. At the start of the Lebanese civil war he joined the Palestinian resistance movement—when the resistance left Beirut in 1982, he moved to Cyprus to work as a Culture Editor of Al Mawqef al-Arabi (The Arab Stance) and Sawt al Bilad (The Voice of the Homeland). In 1985, Haidar Haidar returned to his hometown, and has remained there since. He has written seventeen books of fiction, short fiction, essay, and biography. His short story “The Silence of Fire” appears in Issue 17 of The Common.

Hisham Bustani, Arabic Fiction Editor of The Common, spoke with Haidar this year about nightmare visions, Palestinian resistance, the migrations that have carried Haidar “through deserts, cities and seas” back to childhood, and “boldness… always boldness.” This interview is translated from the Arabic by Raed Rafei.

September 2019 Poetry Feature: From CROWN DECLINE

September 27, 2019 Poetry

By JOHN KINSELLA and DON SHARE

This month we present selections from CROWN DECLINE, by TC contributors John Kinsella and Don Share.

Table of Contents:

Crown Decline, #55-62 (DS and JK)
I Had That Dream Already (DS)
And Counting (JK)
Authors’ Statement

From CROWN DECLINE (Odd numbers by Kinsella; even numbers by Share)

55.

In a state of loss
I try to ‘Kick Out the Jams’
But am left sore-toed.
Which doesn’t mean I’ve lost faith —
To the contrary. Come on!

Ask a Local: Aimée Baker, Plattsburgh, New York

September 26, 2019 Interviews

With AIMÉE BAKER

Your name: Aimée Baker

Current city or town: Plattsburgh, NY

How long have you lived here: Technically in Plattsburgh itself, 1 year. In the surrounding area, 30 years.

Three words to describe the climate: Bitterly cold, snowy

Best time of year to visit? Unless you can handle extreme cold, winter and second winter (also known as spring) may not be the best choice. We often get down to -20 to -30 wind chills here. The best time to come is during the fall when the hills and mountains turn red and gold with the changing leaves.

A Secret Story

September 25, 2019 Dispatches

By ELLIE BOZMAROVA

Sofia, Bulgaria

“There’s something doctors won’t acknowledge and won’t treat,” my grandmother says during our afternoon coffee. I’m visiting for the summer. These few months are the longest I’ve been in Bulgaria since my parents and I left for California in the early 90s. My grandmother and I drink our coffee in the living room, where we take our meals as well, facing a wall of cheaply made wooden cabinets, an Eastern European décor trend from the Cold War years. One cupboard has a glass door through which I can see a photograph of my mother from when she was a teenager.