Glenn Bertram | The Common

Before we close out another busy year of publishing, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the unique, resonant, and transporting pieces that made 2024 memorable. The Common published over 175 stories, essays, poems, interviews, and features online and in print in 2024. Below, you can browse a list of the ten most-read pieces of 2024 to get a taste of what left an impact on readers.

January 2024 Poetry Feature: Part I, with work by Adrienne Su, Eleanor Stanford, Kwame Opoku-Duku, and William Fargason

“I wrote this poem on Holy Saturday, which historically is the day after Jesus was crucified, and the day before he was resurrected. That Spring, I was barely out of a nervous breakdown in which I had intense suicidal ideation … The moments of quiet during a time like that take on more meaning somehow, reminders I was still alive. And that day, that Saturday, I saw a bee.”

—William Fargason on “Holy Saturday”

By GLENN BERTRAM

In April, Simon went down to Murray Park to eat hamburgers with the Methodists. It was his monthly tradition. The Methodists’ burgers were charred and rubbery, but the Methodists themselves made ideal marks. They were upstanding citizens with steady jobs at regional banks and local power stations. They’d known neither poverty nor wealth. And they weren’t teetotalers like the Baptists, so you could ply them with craft beer and get them yapping about golf and gambling and everything their marriages lacked. They assumed good faith in the people around them. Simon loved the Methodists. Despite his taste, he chose to find them charming: a matter of professional habit. It was Leonard who’d showed him the way. You had to love your marks.

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