Dispatch | The Common

Dispatch from Marutha Nilam

February 19, 2025 Dispatches

Poems by SUKIRTHARANI, ILAMPIRAI, and SAKTHI ARULANANDHAM

Translated from the Tamil by THILA VARGHESE

Table of Contents:

Sukirtharani, “For the sake of living”
Ilampirai, “Loot”
Sakthi Arulanandham, “Land Grabbing Bird”

Black and white image of a bird with a long neck

Drawing by Sakthi Arulanandham for her poem “Land Grabbing Bird.”

Marutha Nilam (The agricultural and plains region)

For the sake of living
By Sukirtharani

In the courtyard filled with
bubbling water flowing from
the palm-leaf thatched roof
during monsoons,
grew a golden shower tree.
On that tree, yellow flowers
bloomed in clusters.
There was a nest on the tree
where sparrows with short beaks
would be chirping incessantly.
Sitting under the shade of the tree,
I would be studying passers-by.

Dispatch from Camelback Mountain

February 5, 2025 Dispatches

By CHRISTOPHER AYALA

Phoenix, AZ

Camelback’s faces wither in the sun. I used to hate Arizona and coming here and then I moved here and hated it and left and now all I think about is a good summer day and the lazy way a person can be themselves sifting through the desert, eating pizza, all that kind of stuff anyone does anywhere else, except then this mountain Camelback is available to burn off all those cheese calories. And that’s not the same everywhere. There is a part of me who everyday thinks of being back in Arizona walking around blistering days, laughing how when I had them to myself, I had thought this was the end of the line, that there had never been a worse place on earth. That’s mid-thirties type clarity.

In fall, the persimmon trees light their lanterns

January 22, 2025 Dispatches

By CHRISTY TENDING

Beppu-shi, Oita Prefecture, Japan

From beyond the waves, looking back at the shore, civilization betrays itself. The aging amusement park—its sign hasn’t been illuminated in years and the ferris wheel creaks under the weight of a glance—still perches on the hill. There are hotels, a communications tower, a shopping mall: each bows its head to the context of an environment that cannot wait to overtake it. The wooden faces of homes have settled themselves in intimate relationship: in or among the bamboo, against the mountain, above the valley, over the sea.

Water Shrine

January 8, 2025 Dispatches

By ANGELA SUCICH

Shrine surrounded by dozens of water bottles

Photo courtesy of Viviana Gaeta.

Córdoba Province, Argentina

We drive past a great mound of plastic bottles,
the shimmering of a lake siloed into a thousand
tiny two-liters.

The Laws of Time and Physics

December 11, 2024 Dispatches

By JESSICA PETROW-COHEN

Rome, Italy

I am tangled up in time. My body is the fine silver of my necklace, tying knots through curls of hair. I am the feeling of trying to untangle its spindled chain with too thick fingers, tips all pink, reaching for a dexterity they just don’t have. I’m caught up like that. Strangled.

Three Poems from Arkansas

November 27, 2024 Dispatches

By SANDY LONGHORN

Landscape of Daisy State Park with water & a rocky and green shore

Photos courtesy of author

Arkansas State Parks

Dispatch from Moscow

November 13, 2024 Dispatches

By AFTON MONTGOMERY

Photos courtesy of author.

Moscow, ID

One day, across the street from the gay coffee shop, a toddler in a blue t-shirt cocked a pistol at me. Silver glinted in October sun. He clicked the trigger, Dad and Mom looking on. Got her is what the kid said to Dad, a man closer to seven feet tall than six.

Only when I passed them in the crosswalk did I see the orange plastic that covered the gun’s tip: a toy. Dad ruffled the boy’s hair. I buried myself in my cell phone.

Dispatches from Ellesmere

October 30, 2024 Dispatches

By BRANDON KILBOURNE

A rocky landscape with yellow tents in the distance.

Photos courtesy of the author.

Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada

Ellesmere Elegy

This land dreams up marvels:

a meteorite shower of clumpy
snow streaking under midnight’s sun.

This land embodies ruses:

broad valley floors and nondescript
slopes distorting scale and distance.

Forbes and Martha

October 2, 2024 Dispatches

By SARAH CARSON

Genessee County, Michigan

On the night hike through what Wikipedia calls the picturesque 383-acres of the For-Mar Nature Preserve and Arboretum, a man in ISO rated cold-weather cargo pants plays barred owl calls from YouTube, then recruits a kid with a headlamp to hold a Bluetooth speaker to a dogwood tree. I imagine the owls shake their heads in their hollow, that somewhere else in the dark of fallen branches, salamanders yawn, a doe wishes her fawn would settle.