No. 09
Politics and Pop: Brian T. Edwards on the making and censoring of art in Cairo; Antoine Wilson at Valhalla; Steve Powers's love letters; All the Best Stories Are True: a manifesto by David Shields; new fiction from T. C. Boyle, Danielle Evans, and Richard Powers; and poems by Derek Walcott, Idra Novey, Mary Jo Bang, and others.
If You See Something
The Failure Bubble: It’s 1998 All Over Again
No. 09 • Benjamin Anastas
I hadn’t planned on publishing a novel about the consolations of failure just as the dot-com bubble was inflating and the startup money was beginning to scrub the city stupid block by block.If You See Something
More Geese Than Swans: At Play in the Fields of Cinnabar
No. 09 • Gary Amdahl
The American Legion’s club 432 holds a book sale every summer in the Veteran’s Memorial Hall in Cambria.Fiction
Of Strange Lands and People
No. 09 • Richard Powers
A man rides backward in a packed subway car.Fiction
Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go
No. 09 • Danielle Evans
Georgie knew before he left that Lanae would be fucking Kenny by the time he got back to Virginia.Art
Love Letter
No. 09 • Steve Powers
Love Letter is being painted from Forty-fifth Street to Sixty-third Street on the rooftops and walls of Market Street in West Philadelphia—fifty murals, created by Stephen Powers, who has done similar projects in Dublin and Belfast.Poetry
Two Poems
No. 09 • Derek Walcott
May my enemy be assuaged by these waves / because they are beautiful even to his evilPoetry
Untitled
No. 09 • Joshua Beckman
Through God’s grace / the little drops came down, and the spectacle / of human science blabbered on, just waiting / for something to witness up close.Poetry
Haunt
No. 09 • Maureen N. McLane
There are too many cedars here / hiding the sun hovering / over the deadPoetry
Windshield Wipers
No. 09 • Aleš Šteger
Both of them hide something, / That is why they move in such harmony.Poetry
A Equals All of a Sudden
No. 09 • Mary Jo Bang
At work one night / A truck driver had a truck / All of a sudden.Poetry
Two Poems
No. 09 • Ron Padgett
dancing in the dark / just two double-spaced antelopes / falling into the idea that art / is somewhere out there in the woodsPoetry
In the Barracks: A Found Poem
No. 09 • Wayne Miller
They had been in the country only for a few days when the hills began pricking into the barracks (which once had been university classrooms) with sniper fire.Poetry
The Ex-Cárcel of Valparaíso
No. 09 • Idra Novey
And so it was agreed / the empty prison would be reopened / for festivalsPoetry
Lullaby on the Marsh
No. 09 • Sally Keith
Slack at the end of the lasso’s loop / before the wrist is snapped / Shape of the wave underneath the wave / before the crescent topples overPoetry
California Poem
No. 09 • Joel Craig
What is needed is a recognizable molecule that carries the unstable / promise to the brain.Poetry
A Bird Loose in the House
No. 09 • Eric Pankey
The frame—a grid—contrives a theater, / The specter of narrative: / A shadow play / Alive on a curtain alive with wind.Poetry
The Last Word is Emma’s
No. 09 • Robb St. Lawrence
The moment the anglers / pulled their net ashore / it broke, and when we / called you up, the line / was engaged.Poetry
Two Poems
No. 09 • Loren Goodman
I am moved by morning / As the egg is moved / By skillet’s heatFiction
Anacapa
No. 09 • T.C. Boyle
The boat left at eight a.m., and that wouldn’t have presented a problem, or not especially, if Damian hadn’t been in town.Focus
Cairo 2010: After Kefaya—Brian T. Edwards Introduces the Next Generation
No. 09
You are stuck in traffic in downtown Cairo.Focus
Looks Like It’s Falling Apart: An Introduction
No. 09 • Omar Taher
I am the son of the generation who got the shock of multimedia in my face after university.Focus
Beyond Paradise
No. 09 • Mansoura Ez-Eldin
Selma sat on the balcony of her father’s house reading Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera.Focus
Bordering the Marvelous
No. 09 • Mohamed Al-Fakhrany
Hilal had two memories of his childhood he could never forget.Focus
Ahmed Alaidy in Conversation with Ibrahim El Batout
No. 09 • Ibrahim El Batout
Ibrahim El Batout has been shot twice.Focus
In the Absolute
No. 09 • Khalid Kassab
Oh dark day…What are all these entangled relationships I find myself in, which each day get more entangled than the day before…Focus
The Parkour War
No. 09 • Ahmed Alaidy
Morning... Like any filthy morning, people feeding off of other people...Focus
Young Lover, New Lover
No. 09 • Muhammad Aladdin
When she’d been there alone with the cat and it had bit her playfully, a shudder had run through her body.Feature
All the Best Stories Are True
No. 09 • David Shields
These are the facts, my friend, and I must have faith in them.Order A Public Space
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