By AKSINIA MIHAYLOVA
Translated by MARISSA DAVIS
No, I have never seen a sad tree,
but I don’t want to keep reflecting the world
like a chipped mirror,
The night river calms me with its slow dirty movements.
I walk home briskly, in a black baseball cap.
I work at the fringes of the day. I write poetry in bed
and criticism in the bath.
Among my friends here, I have a man
who calls me love names
in four languages. Once, in a moment, I thought I wanted to die
of his pleasure, but that was a wound
speaking. The history of this place
abounds with wounds.
Mobs of vandals have ransacked the villas.
A very rich man on his deathbed
from a corrupt family who loves the arts
was fed a medicine of powdered pearls.
By AKWE AMOSU
New York City
After Kenosha, Wisconsin, 26 August 2020
1. Erasure
I went to the for water,
although I had no thirst, again
unable to find Not sleeping,
roaming restless, hunting
at 2am for on my phone,
no rabbit hole too deep, however
dull, aching tired as though
I had been
Only three days into this,
asked how my was
going, I launched into a tense
that the question even
deserved and saw how hard,
again, I was trying not to the
plain fact that right in front of us,
again, the cop had emptied
his into a human,
now yet shackled
to his hospital bed. That again, a
young had taken down a human
with a military grade yet
away from the scene unhindered.
And that, again, we were being asked
to choke off thoughts, stifle
any sound, stave and belt
the chest to our agitation,
keep breathing because, again,
we
Book by MEG KEARNEY
Review by HOWARD LEVY
There are books of poems that in their creation seem, for the poet, to rise out of a sheaf like an oasis, something unknown, unmapped, to be discovered in all its vivifying magic. Then there are books of poems that the poet always seemed to know the map to, where a central insight or trope allowed the book to unscroll itself in the poet’s tongue and brain and heart.
Ricardo Wilson speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poem, “nigrescence,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Ricardo talks about his new collection Apparent Horizon and Other Stories, winner of the PANK Book Contest in fiction. The collection includes several short poetic fragments scattered amongst stories and novellas, with both historic and contemporary storylines. He discusses his process for writing from historical research, and what it’s like writing creative and critical work at the same time. Ricardo also talks about Outpost, a fully-funded residency in Vermont for creative writers of color from the US and Latin America.
This is the fourth installment of an online series highlighting work by Black authors published in The Common. To read The Common’s statement in support of the nationwide protests against anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and police brutality, click here.
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