Issue 39
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Resolution
by Callie S. Blackstone
Callie S. Blackstone writes both poetry and prose. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart and a Best of the Net. Her debut chapbook sing eternal is available through Bottlecap Press. More information is available at calliesblackstone.com.
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Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski
art by Grzegorz Wróblewski
Translated from the Polish by Peter Burzyński
Marathon
Intelligent cities are made on moons.
If you don’t get there first
Amazon lockers
will conquer it all.
After all, suicide pills
aren’t available yet.
There will be hordes of geezers and maniacs…
It’s just that it’s a terrible disease.
One which hapless doctors
inject you with reminders
to pay your bills.
We’ve been sent here
so that you can reach
a state of cosmic stability. -
Three Poems by Hendri Yulius Wijaya
photo by Giovanni Apruzzese
Translated from the Bahasa Indonesian by Edward GunawanFrankissstein
Victor Frankenstein goes on an excursion to the Cloud.
His scientist instincts never extinguish.Scavenging mutilated bodies:
Stomachs of the washboards, arms of gladiators,
Engorged eggplants and sumptuous melons.
A cornucopia. -
Five Haikus by Antonio Guzman Gomez
photo by Giovanni Apruzzese
Translated from the Maya Tseltal by Kiran Bhat
You open your eyes
and wake up the sun so that
a new day can start.
Wik’a asit
ya xojobaj talel k’aal,
ya sakub k’inal.
Abres tus ojos
y se levanta el sol,
despierta el d
Every morning
at the back of a mountain
the sun yawns awake.
Ta jujun sab,
ta yach’ te’tikil,
ya sjach’ ye te k’aale. -
Habors of Pain by Elhassan Ait Elamal
photo by Giovanni Apruzzese
Translated from the Arabic by Essam M. Al-Jassim
The moment his body was laid in the grave, it began constricting, his chest tightening against the suffocating confinement, as though he were being pulled upward into the sky. Comfort eluded him. He resolved to rise from the grave and return home, but the graveyard’s guardians posed a problem—they rarely allowed the dead to leave. When they did, it was only at certain times, and most often that was in the middle of the night.
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Definitely Better Now: An interview with Ava Robinson (MFA ’22) on her debut novel
Interview by LIT Books Editor Jonathan Kesh
Ava Robinson’s Definitely Better Now is a romantic comedy, or at least it is in part. How else you might classify it is trickier, which is part of its appeal.
The book begins with Emma, the narrator, uneasily but earnestly celebrating a full year of sobriety after a difficult break from alcoholism, which runs in her family and was never quite shaken by her father. Per the rules of her New York Alcoholics Anonymous chapter, she’s held off dating to focus on keeping her own head above water,
