All posts tagged: April 2026

Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands”

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Transcript: Casey Walker

CASEY WALKER speaks to EMILY EVERETT about his story “Islands,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Set at an old lake house rife with unresolved family tensions, the story explores the dynamics between three orphaned brothers, and between the narrator and his pregnant wife. Casey discusses how the piece evolved over more than a decade, and how he always hopes a story will take on a life of its own during the writing process. Also discussed is his forthcoming novel Mexicali, set in the US-Mexico borderlands during the first half of the 20th century.

Portrait of Casey Walker in front of a bookshelf spliced next to the cover page of Issue 30

Podcast: Casey Walker on “Islands”
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April 2026 Poetry Feature #1: New Poems by Our Contributors—Carson Wolfe, Benjamin Paloff, and Jehanne Dubrow

April is poetry month! To kick it off, we have new poems by our contributors, CARSON WOLFE, BENJAMIN PALOFF, and JEHANNE DUBROW!

 

Table of Contents: 

—Jehanne Dubrow, “Encounter” and “Winter Rye”

—Benjamin Paloff, “Of the Art of Conferring”

—Carson Wolfe, “I Rank Places by How Much They Charge for Pringles”

April 2026 Poetry Feature #1: New Poems by Our Contributors—Carson Wolfe, Benjamin Paloff, and Jehanne Dubrow
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The Lost Box

By AIMEE LIU

1

He’s calling my name. About time. He’s been holed up in the bathroom for nearly an hour while my mother and I’ve busied ourselves elsewhere, pretending not to notice. Now as I wedge my way in, I find him seated on the rim of the tub like he’s waiting for an appointment.

Sickness has sallowed his skin and bruised the pouches around his eyes. His pale blue summer pajamas hang from his shrunken frame, and uncombed hair turbines around his head in a wild white corona. Yet my father sits up straight. He still manages to look irresistibly dashing in the way that Ray Milland might have, if he’d lived to ninety-five, had terminal cancer, and been half Chinese.

The Lost Box
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They Could Have

By CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY
Translated by CONSTANTINE CONTOGENIS

Translator’s Note:
In translating Cavafy I was most absorbed and, at times, confused by his irony. People make ironic points—no confusion. But some of Cavafy’s irony does not come to a sharp point. I call this unresolved irony, which adds to but doesn’t settle the semantic and emotional atmosphere. The experience of reacting to the irony in the context of its poem can be frustrating. Instead of crystalizing our understanding, or, as a kind of compass, leading us to the author’s side, the irony works within a poem to help create an experience of widening awareness, giving us a touch of wisdom.

They Could Have
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U N C O N T A I N A B L E

By L. S. KLATT

I leave the house unlocked & walk to the garage jacked to
The White Stripes. My mouth is a guitar; snow is in the sound hole.
Spring. I think it’s spring. The automatic door leaps

in its tracks & is music again. I record on my phone a soundwave
as the GTO convertible wheels out of its tomb, the driveway
chartreuse with maple wings. Tell White I’ll cut some garlic

in his mother’s garden; I’ll wear a rhinestone button-down
studded with garnets. Finger the fretboard with licks
& withdrawals. And toe-tap the pedal

if I don’t screw up again. If I don’t give up listening
to the leafing of lettuces. Won’t be long
before I could care less.

 

[Purchase Issue 31 here.]

L. S. KLATT’s poems have appeared widely: The New Yorker, Harvard Review, The Believer, Image, VOLT, The Southern Review, and Pleiades. He is the author of five collections, including Cloud of Ink, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, and most recently Saint with a Peacock Voice.

U N C O N T A I N A B L E
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The Grave Fox

By DANIEL TOBIN

Like a dog truant among the tended plots
it turns back toward us a considerate eye
as though sensing the disquiet of our being

lost here among all the unfamiliar graves
that would be landmarks proving the right way
if this were the way we’d believed it to be.

The Grave Fox
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