Josey picks me up at work in a car we bought
together, car she dug out of frozen slush for hours.
She picks me up and gives me roses. Valentine’s Day.
This month The Common offers a selection of poems from the anthology Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, forthcoming in November from Olive Branch Press, an imprint of Interlink Publishing Group.
A POETRY ANTHOLOGY THAT ILLUMINATES EXILE AND DISPLACEMENT
Making Mirrors began on two continents, envisioned by Palestinian poet and aid worker, Jehan Bseiso, and Becky Thompson, a US-based poet changed by months of greeting refugees after their perilous journey across the Aegean Sea.
This anthology uses mirrors to reflect imagistic connections that allow us to see ourselves in each other, those on rafts and those standing on the shore, those waiting/writing in detention and those writing from places of relative safety, those who lift their children to the sky and those whose bodies are at the bottom of the sea.
Snigdha Poonam at a 14th-century stepwell behind her 18-story newspaper office in the heart of Delhi. Photo by Ravi Choudhary.
Your name: Snigdha Poonam
Current city: Delhi
How long have you lived here: Nine years
Three words to describe the climate: hot, cold, extreme.
Best time of year to visit: October-March
Couchville Cedar Glade State Natural Area, Davidson County, Tennessee
My mom has moved to a “senior community” a long drive from my house, but a short drive to my favorite cedar glade. Last night, I slept on the sofa so I could start a hike before dawn. Her new key takes some fiddling, but I sneak outside to meet black sky.
A Dodge pickup tails me hard on new asphalt for new subdivisions (so many) and old pasture (not so many), but when he turns toward the Interstate, I turn away. Pink begins to glow through my open window.
LOOKING FOR MY CITIZENSHIP
After Adál
When I am unsure of who I am
I pick up my dominos
and search out el reverendo
Pedro Pietri
so we can pray for clarity.
THE COMMON #16 FEATURES PORTFOLIO OF PUERTO RICAN WRITERS
The Fall Issue Recognizes the Vibrancy and Resilience of Puerto Rican Writers and Artists in the Aftermath of Hurricane María
Amherst, Mass.—October 15, 2018
September 2018 marked one year after Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico, striking an island already in the thick of political and economic instability and causing an estimated 4,645 deaths. In the storm’s aftermath, many wondered: “What is the role of art in times of tragedy? What should writers and artists do with their talents?” THE COMMON’s Issue 16 features a special portfolio of Puerto Rican writers and artists that recognizes the vibrancy of literary and visual arts both on the island and in the diaspora.
Issue 16’s portfolio De Puerto Rico: Un año después de la tormenta / From Puerto Rico: One year after the storm celebrates the resilience and talents of Puerto Rican writers working in a variety of genres. In March 2018, Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Acker spent a week in San Juan interviewing and collaborating with writers, artists, and performers. “Hurricane Maria was not merely a setback or temporary disaster,” she writes in an essay published in LitHub in September. “The threat was existential. Would the island ever recover enough to support full lives and future generations?” These finely curated pieces explore this and many other questions related to the storm and its aftermath.
Issue 16 Contributor María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado
In “4,645+,” María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado asks, “What are the Puerto Rican Spanish words for aftermath? / Disaster capitalism? Intentional erasure of a modern colony?” In “Native Shore,” poet Mara Pastor drives home the unwelcome post-Maria reality: “They were counting on the debt, / but not on heavy metals in the water, / cadmium in the ash they breathe. / Nothing prepared for the poverty of the house, / for a piece of the pool collapsing…”
Mara Pastor’s poems appear in both Spanish and English, celebrating the beauty of her verse in two languages. In addition to these poems, two essays appear bilingually, and the issue features a number of works translated into English for the first time.
While the portfolio explores the harsh details of post-hurricane life in Puerto Rico, it also showcases the strength and beauty of the island. In renowned artist Adál’s photo series Los ahogados / Puerto Ricans Underwater, a woman submerged in a bathtub holds a smiling baby above the water. In another photograph, from his series Los dormidos / The Sleepers, a couple sleeps curled around a can of gasoline, the woman’s head on a pillow of ice. “Santurce, Un Libro Mural / Santurce: A Mural Book” brings to the page a collaboration by writer Francisco Font-Acevedo and artist Rafael Trelles currently installed on the streets of Santurce, the most populous and artsiest barrio of San Juan. Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón tells the story of Bimbo, a shy man who learns to love himself and the sea in “People Who Go to the Beach Alone.” National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Willie Perdomo’s “We Used to Call It Puerto Rican Rain” is an ode to the island’s tropical weather and to its inhabitants.
Poet Willie Perdomo, Issue 16 Contributor
“I believe the creative process of this issue of The Common is in itself a reflection of the kind of conversations we should be having between the people of the United States and the people of Puerto Rico,” reflects Issue 16 contributor Ana Teresa Toro, whose essay “To Abandon Paradise” opens the portfolio. “We share the same passport but have very different experiences. To be part of this portfolio represents to me the chance not only to show our view of the world, and to tell our stories, but also to connect with readers who will expand our perspective with their own experiences.”
Issue 16 Contributor Ana Teresa Toro
Also included in Issue 16 are THE COMMON’s characteristically diverse, place-centric short stories, essays, and poems, including work by: David Lehman, series editor for The Best American Poetry and Rhode Island Poet Laureate Tina Cane; as well as up-and-coming poets like Kristina Faust, winner of the 2018 DISQUIET Literary Prize for poetry. Mindy Misener’s debut story “Baby Was Not Fine” recounts a summer job, an act of violence, and the haunting actions we can’t take back. PEN/Robert J. Dau Debut Short Story Prize-winner Ben Shattuck’s story “The History of Sound” ruminates on the connections that grow from a shared love of music. In “Land Not Theirs,” Madison Davis reflects on her experiences growing up in, and growing out of, Black churches. Lisa Chen, winner of a 2018 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, explores Susan Sontag’s “Project for a Trip to China” and ruminates on the death of Chen’s estranged father.
Issue 16 Launch Events
Featuring Puerto Rican writers and translators Ana Teresa Toro, Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón, María José Giménez, and María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado. Filmmaker Michelle Falcón will screen her documentary film PROMESA, which tells the stories of people affected by Puerto Rico’s economic crisis.
Free and open to the public. Dinner provided.
238 Cabot Street, Holyoke MA
Tuesday, November 6
Issue 16 Launch
Powerhouse, Amherst College
Reading and Conversation 7 pm, Reception 8:30 pm
Brief readings by and conversation with Puerto Rican writers and translators Ana Teresa Toro, Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón, María José Giménez, Willie Perdomo, and María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado, moderated by The Common Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker. Followed by a wine reception at 8:30.
Free and open to the public.
The Common is co-sponsoring the events below with the Hampshire College Art Gallery:
AgitArte is an organization of working class artists and cultural organizers that creates projects and practices of cultural solidarity with grassroots struggles against oppression, and proposes alternatives for transforming our world.
October 20-24
Four members of AgitArte—Jorge Díaz Ortiz, Dey Hernández, Sugeily Rodríguez Lebrón, and Agustín Muñoz Ríos—will give a series of campus and community presentations, including Solidaridad y sobrevivencia para nuestra liberación / Solidarity and Survival for Our Liberation, a recent cantastoria created in the aftermath of Hurricane María, and End the Debt! Decolonize! Liberate! Scroll Project, a collaboratively produced, collectively experienced art object that visually unfurls a history of colonialism and resistance in Puerto Rico.
AgitArte’s residency takes place in conjunction with the installation The Museum of the Old Colony by artist Pablo Delano, on view in the Hampshire College Art Gallery until November 11.
Saturday, October 20, 2018
Presentation (5-7 pm) followed by a community celebration
Wisteriahurst Museum, 238 Cabot Street, Holyoke, MA
Wednesday October 24, 2018
Presentation (6-7.30 pm) and reception
Hampshire College Art Gallery
About The Common
An award-winning print and digital literary journal published biannually, The Common includes short stories, essays, poems, and images that embody a strong sense of place. The Common Online publishes original content weekly, including book reviews, interviews, personal essays, short dispatches, poetry, contributor recordings, and multimedia features. Based at Amherst College, the magazine is a joint venture between the College and The Common Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The Common also runs the Literary Publishing Internship at Amherst College, mentoring students in all aspects of literary publishing, and regularly hosts public programming.
Curated by SARAH WHELAN
October Friday Reads has arrived, which means Issue 16 is not far behind! This month, check out reading suggestions from a selection of contributors from this month’s upcoming issue. Then, be sure to preorder to get Issue 16 in your mailbox.
Recommendations: Shameless Woman by Magdalena Gómez, Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman, The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud, A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems by Marilyn Chin, and This Little Art by Kate Briggs.
In that year of a shot to the head where were you the first time you broke night?
When you break night, you learn that one puff, under the right circumstance, can give you the right perspective.
You learn to pick up stories that fall & slip on the right side of knowing.
We thought it was just going to be a tour of the defunct coal mine’s aboveground facility, which was already troubling enough. The winding wheels and framework for the conveyor system at the “pit head” were like the superstructure of an abandoned carnival, like the one I’d read about near Chernobyl.
By LEATH TONINO
Colorado Springs, Colorado
His business card is cut from the corner of an old photo. One side is the chopped image of a carpeted floor, a screen door, a chubby toddler’s left arm and hand. I flip the card over.
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Celebrating 15 Years