No. 14
"It had a great feeling of unreality": the designer Eva Zeisel's Soviet prison memoir; Teju Cole's epigraphs of the eye; John Haskell on joy; Therese Stanton on Walt Whitman; stories by Dorthe Nors, Peter Orner, Justin Tussing, and Jesmyn Ward; poems by Roberto Bolaño, Julie Carr, Billy Collins, and others.
No. 14 • Teju Cole
When I began to think about what to think about the tenth anniversary of the attacks, I went out walking.No. 14 • Dorthe Nors
She had once been advised to listen well to what a man said just when he began to sense a woman was showing interest in him.No. 14 • Justin Tussing
The boy’s birth had been unreasonable, in all the ordinary ways.No. 14 • H. L. Hix
It just started one day, that eerie screaming, / my inconsolability given voice, / given back as if from some bird or from trees.No. 14 • Billy Collins
Whatever it was that just flew out of my head / did not leave a trace, / not a contrail in the sky, / not a footprint in the new snow.No. 14 • Brian Henry
There, where stones populate / the underneath, splay / rain as it blends & stopsNo. 14 • Kimiko Hahn
Orangey orange glow inside a silver bowl and atop a silver neck.No. 14 • Colette Inez
Born to the summer, guest of Castor and Pollux, / horseman and boxer.No. 14 • Caroline Knox
A saltwater event, with its airs of tarred line and other fibers: / a storm, a sky of black nonchalanceNo. 14 • Roberto Bolaño
I dreamt I was out walking on the boardwalk in New York and in the distance I could see the figure of Manuel Puig.No. 14 • Peter Orner
It is not our destiny here to get comfort from old familiar places.No. 14 • John Haskell
I was in the center of Leipzig, coming out of a bookstore, and across the street from the bookstore a building was being demolished.Get A Public Space as you like it: the print magazine, the digital version, or a print and digital bundle. The best value? Subscribe to A Public Space and receive three new issues of the magazine as well as exclusive access to the online archive.