No. 25
An issue exploring iconoclasts, tensions, contrasts, antagonisms, and culture clashes that motivate art and inform conflict.
No. 25 • Le Corbusier
I therefore give you back your freedom as of September 1, 1959.No. 25 • Mark Hage
He was their fascination, danger, and distraction, a foretold scapegoat, a matter of time.No. 25 • Gordon Lish
You can trust it a little, but only, as admitted, a little.No. 25 • Amy Leach
They say difficulty is an invitation; does that mean the more the difficulty, the more the invitation? Is impossibility the deepest invitation of all?No. 25 • Alexander Kan
The first thing he wanted to do was to leave, no, it wasn’t—why are you lying to yourself, Costumier?No. 25 • Jenny Holzer
Rejoice! Our times are intolerable. Take courage, for the worst is a harbinger of the best.No. 25 • Yiyun Li
Writing, as long as it is one’s private freedom, will always be disloyalty.No. 25 • James Alan McPherson
We are in obscene danger of becoming mass men (all right mass “people”) whowill attempt to teardown anyone who is beyond us.No. 25
How do two artists live together… and maintain our sanity and continue to work?No. 25 • Mercè Rodoreda
The streets were always so full of people running around all over the place, this way and that, shouting out "Free-dom! Free-dom!"No. 25 • Quim Monzó
What was the point of so much effort, single-minded devotion, celibacy and sacrifice?No. 25 • Jenn Díaz
She says I’m always doing bad things, and maybe she’s right, but if I don’t do them I get bored.No. 25 • Kayla Blatchley
There were too many of them in the small house, and the rain was constant that last day.No. 25 • Kiki Delancey
During this time I was enjoying the passage of days and waiting to see if there would be any money.No. 25 • Catherine Pierce
O you gorgeous torture, you slow-mo sadist, / you taught me all I knew about breathlessness.No. 25 • Lisa Olstein
How many men fit into this ditch / beside me? What color before were / my robes?No. 25 • Matvei Yankelevich
Winter—might pray to green trees / to see the star that brings a season in...No. 25 • Anna Rabinowitz
I'll be a sleuth rummaging through missing clues.No. 25 • Ari Banias
Someone with a clipboard / outside the market / asking for signaturesNo. 25 • Claire Sylvester Smith
I can sometimes tell, / if you put two chemicals together, / what kind of third chemical you might get...No. 25 • P. Scott Cunningham
Do you realize the wealth of stones / God, in His infinite wisdom, has given to this township?No. 25 • James Allen Hall
Because I have no language / for fire, I say longing.No. 25 • Robert Sullivan
Even more than the streets, the harbor is liminal by definition: the tides only change.No. 25 • Denise Scott Brown
The workers of the world (except at lunch hour and on the weekend and except parents and those who care for children) don’t sit in parks.No. 25 • Emmet Elliott
The tipi, for instance, understands plains life far differently than the barn.No. 25 • Jordana Maisie
Surface is not an independent element. It has thickness, and this thickness is both physical and metaphorical.No. 25 • Sasha Saben Callaghan
Asking questions can lead to trouble. Asking questions can be a very bad idea.No. 25 • Kristen Gleason
He saw the ice growing up from the dirt, the browning of the grass. The ascendance of the callous season.No. 25 • Gothataone Moeng
We talked of grabbing the city, as if by its neck, and having it right here, right in the palms of our hands.No. 25 • Jamil Kochai
All that mattered then for a musafir from America was how he was going to go about killing another hot summer day.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.