News & Events | Page 257 | The Common | A Modern Sense of Place: Stories, Poems, Essays & Images

Alternate Charles Ramsey

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry

In an alternate universe where Charles Ramsey never gets five minutes of fame because he mentions slavery instead of McDonalds. Charles Ramsey did five years for beating on his wife and read Battle Cry of Freedom, Destruction of Black Civilization, some bell hooks, some Sonia Sanchez, some Fred Douglass, this book list he got from a feminist woman who came in to speak to the fellas about domestic violence and the ramifications of abuse and got serious counseling while confined.

Models & Marie Antoinette: Two Escapes

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry

By MARIA TERRONE

Even tight, feared spaces can expand, morphing from the past
into the fuzz of nostalgia, which I’ll try to avoid here,
e.g., #1, me at 16, looking for the “model studio” listed
in the Manhattan Yellow Pages. Toting a portfolio, I climb
the stairs of a West 40s walkup worn as another century.
“Models?” “No, that’s Cheekie, 2 flights up,”
one red talon points to heaven and off I go.

When You Know a Hard Sky

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry

By RON WELBURN

for Don Cheney

When you know a hard sky the surface of a stone sea,

the texture of popcorn foil.

When its belly sonograms across the eyes and face,

the tissues of heaven static above fields and asphalt.

Seeing in the Dark

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry

By RON WELBURN

for Francis Martin (Nauset/Nipmuc)

Blind at night in the forest,

you are right about fear and

what it does to you there,

how fluids and adrenaline fix the eyes

on what the mind cannot accept.

The Zoo

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By MARIA STEPANOVA

For every beast of the forest is mine,

and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

Ps. 50:10

. . . And the vixen ascends, staggering,

On all her cinnamon-colored fours.

And the bear shifts his vision forward,

As if it’s a hop-fingered hand.

thread your fingers through whole hinges

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By ANNA GLAZOVA

thread your fingers through whole hinges

if the opening is blocked if there is no new

no old moon in the window.

the superior sun will never move

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By ANNA GLAZOVA

the superior sun will never move

chained into itself by the moving heft.

for us the sun moves and pulls

the heft behind

The Act of Darkness

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By POLINA BARSKOVA

The dark-winged prostitutes at the bus station in Boston

Look like pleasure boats or better sharp-breasted bathing beauties

At full sail on the waters of Saint-Malo

But this analogy like cheap shorts is too tight

And chafes your thighs

After the USSR (Three Russian Poets)

November 1, 2013 Issue 06, Issue 06 Poetry, Poetry

By CATHERINE CIEPIELA

Polina Barskova, Anna Glazova, and Maria Stepanova belong to the last generation of Russian poets formed by the Soviet experience. Born in the 1970s, they are old enough to have visceral memories of Soviet life but young enough to move adeptly with the new influences, new media, and new choices introduced in the post-Soviet era. Educated in Soviet, European, and U.S. universities, they share a cerebral firepower they exercise in their chosen professions—Barskova and Glazova as scholars, teachers, and translators, Stepanova as an influential online journalist. Together they represent a contemporary Russian culture that extends beyond national borders: Barskova has immigrated to the U.S., Glazova is based in Germany, and Stepanova is a lifelong Muscovite.

Big Not-So-Bad Wolves

November 1, 2013 Essays, Issue 06, Issue 06 Essays

By LEIGH NEWMAN

I grew up in Alaska, where one thing after another was constantly threatening my young life. Floatplanes stalled. Grizzlies ate our camping  supplies. A moose wandering through our backyard got angrier than expected when a kid from school threw a rock at its knees. I wouldn’t say I was cavalier or brave about these experiences, but I didn’t need much time to recover from them. I was a child. My conclusion was almost always the same: I was still alive, and so was the rest of my family. We could all eat a granola bar and keep on fishing.