This October, we’re celebrating fall with new work from four of our contributors.
Becoming A Rice Pot
She held the rice pot too
close to her bosom each time
she had to take a cup of it.
Once she would take as
much, she would keep back
a fistful. She never wanted
the rice pot to be empty.
By MARY BERGMAN
Nantucket, MA
We became homeowners in the middle school cafeteria. School had been out about a month, the halls eerily empty, except for the huge skeleton of a humpback whale suspended 20 or so feet high above. It washed up on shore some years back, it’s bones bleached by the sun and sand. I washed ashore, too.
On Nantucket Island, the median home price is 1.2 million dollars. That’s what they say, officially. Most of the homes around the million-dollar mark have kitchens from the 1950s, and bathrooms from the 1970s. The new owners usually tear them down, or turn them into bunk-style housing for restaurant staff. None of us in the cafeteria ever dreamed we’d own anything, let alone a house, let alone here. I balanced on an itsy-bitsy red chair, nabbed out of a nearby classroom, something fit for a first grader. My knees were in my chest when they called my number.
Join the staff and interns of The Common for our launch of Issue 14! Come to hear readings from our new issue and enjoy wine and cheese in the Mead Art Museum’s beautiful Rotherwas Room.
Free and open to the public – students, parents, and local lit lovers all welcome!
Maths 1 lesson, seated between girls — a school prefect and a sports champ. He liked both of them, but didn’t think they liked him much. In fact, he was pretty sure they thought he was a bit of a joke — not a real male and nothing to admire but okay at his schoolwork but so what. Those days his brother kept chooks that were being treated for stickfast fleas.
By SARAH CARSON
New Orleans, LA
I am already six hurricanes deep when Beth lets me into her bathroom stall at the Bourbon Street restaurant where we’ve stopped for after-dinner lemon tart and port wine. She is crying, and I am not. I am rum-laden, as always, and she is not, obviously, and I do not think of how ironic my middle school guidance counselor would find this, that there would someday be someone in the world who would open a bathroom stall for me instead of the other way around.
The Common brings you a special two-part series to celebrate the Pioneer Valley Poetry Productions Festival of Major American Poets, which was held at Amherst College’s Fayerweather Hall on October 13 and 14.
Part Two – featuring poems by Michael Heller and Cole Swensen.
The Common brings you a special two-part series to celebrate the Pioneer Valley Poetry Productions Festival of Major American Poets, which was held at Amherst College’s Fayerweather Hall on October 13 and 14.
Join Issue 14 contributors Josephine Rowe, Mik Awake, and Maria Terrone to celebrate the launch of The Common‘s fall issue. RSVP to our Facebook event here!
Thursday, November 2
7pm
WORD Brooklyn
126 Franklin Street
Love reading The Common and in the Boston area this October? Come meet some of the faces behind the magazine! We’ll be attending the 2017 Boston Book Festival on October 28th, from 11am to 5pm in Copley Square, tabling with The Massachusetts Review. We’re in booth 23, which will be located along Boylston Street, up by Trinity Church. We have tasty treats to give out to those who stop by our booth, while supplies last, and discounted issues for sale. For more information on the festival schedule, special events, and visiting authors, click here.
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Celebrating 15 Years