No. 19
A portrait of Ernst Weiss by his friends, enemies, and critics, including Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig and the author himself; Yiyun Li on time; Goli Taraghi in Tehran; Robert Sullivan on the invisible ecology of cities; Jorie Graham and Rosanna Warren translate Patrizia Cavalli; fiction by Tom Drury and Sandro Veronesi; poetry by Kimiko Hahn and Robert Fernandez; and introducing J. Scott Smith.
Feature
Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
No. 19 • Yiyun Li
My first encounter with before and after was in one of the fashion magazines my friends told me to subscribe to when I came to America.Fiction
A Phone Call from Heaven
No. 19 • Sandro Veronesi
He had lost his ticket, found it at the last minute, but then forgotten it at the hotel and had to turn around to pick it up, missing his plane by the time he made it back to the airport.Poetry
I’ll Bury Your Body in a Shallow Pit of Sand
No. 19 • Julie Kantor
I don’t think about things as / deeply as youPoetry
Two Poems
No. 19 • Patrizia Cavalli
Something that the object never can take in, / an empty bucket that won’t carry me.Poetry
The Department of the Interior
No. 19 • Eric Kocher
I’m not even sure I believe / in boundariesPoetry
Tongue Out (Beginning with a Line by the Painter Francis Bacon)
No. 19 • Robert Fernandez
I like the dog; it looks / As if it’s just lying therePoetry
Venus Transit
No. 19 • Lily Brown
I heard the voice of reason / swerve bone-ward as it mouthed / the high hills of Art.Poetry
Annual
No. 19 • Hilary Vaughn Dobel
When we say we don’t recall or can’t explain, we don’t / mean to be evasive.Focus
Between the Golem’s Teeth: A Portrait of Ernst Weiss
No. 19 • Joel Rotenberg
Not all writers feel fiction is the place to directly take stock of their social surroundings, no matter how out of hand things may be getting.Art
Cocoon
No. 19 • Kate Browne
“In many instances, awareness of place is brief and unselfconscious, a fleeting moment (a flash of recognition, a trace of memory) that is swiftly replaced by awareness of something else.... But now and again, and sometimes without apparent cause, awareness is seized—arrested—and the place on which it settles becomes an object of spontaneous reflection and resonating sentiment.” —Keith BassoFiction
Crystalline
No. 19 • Joseph O’Malley
Hannah and Addy were at it again, and as usual James was right in the middle.Fiction
The Pear Tree
No. 19 • Goli Taraghi
What a blessing to be here, in the garden of my childhood.Feature
Street Life: The Invisible Ecology of Cities
No. 19 • Robert Sullivan
Like life, a city requires imagination.Order A Public Space
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.