Here's What Resonated with You in 2019
While we don't believe in best of lists, we went through our content over the past year and saw what resonated most with you, our readers, across our different genres and sections. Here's what you loved:
Photography: Joanna Valente - “The #SURVIVOR Photo Series Explores What It Looks Like to Survive Trauma”
Fiction: Alex Z. Salinas - “The Savage Screwball”
“Mom stayed quiet for a few seconds.
“I know, mijo,” she said softly. “I know. But me and Lance—”
I hung up on her. It wasn’t that Lance was white—he was—or that he’d become Mom’s boyfriend six months after Dad’s heart attack. It was his predilection to butt into our family affairs, give his two-and-a-half cents when we were good on the money. Lance wasn’t a bad guy, I don’t think, but that didn’t mean I didn’t think him a snake slithering on my property. White people, like snakes, have no propriety when it comes to death and property.
I pictured myself stomping on a snake’s head then sipped my black coffee. It was now lukewarm. It had lost its desired effect—to burn my tongue.
I went back to my book. I read a sentence six times over. I couldn’t comprehend it for the life of me. Bolaño wasn’t Balzac, but I might as well have been blind.
I put the book down again and closed my eyes. I focused in on the song playing in the back. “Maria Maria” by Carlos Santana. I started bobbing my head and was immediately brought back to middle school football, being on bus rides with the boys. Falling asleep, drooling.”
#MeToo Series: Vivien Yap - “Muscle Memory”
“When he reaches out,
I think of science,
I think of you.
Intimacy / Power / Relief
For when a human flexes his arm,
he hardens,
for someone else to yield.”
Chapbook: Haunted: Tarot Poems
Music: You Need This Queer Playlist in Your Life
Poet of the Month series - Kate Leah Hewett: October 2019 Poet of the Month
“we keep going
because we have places to be today
and errands don’t stop for seeping regret”
Essay: Stephanie Valente - “Guide to Writing Poetry Spells”
“Poems are magic. Reading a good, no great, poem is a certain time of magic. The words wrap and weave around you all on their own. It's infatuating, syrupy, and even intoxicating. It's a bit of glamour for our spirit. It's as if you are enchanted by just mere words.
In fact, poems are so powerful that they transcend ordinary life into something a little bit more. Poems are art. Poems are truth. Poems are fantasies. Poems are wishes. Poems are daydreams. Poems are manifestations. Poems are mantras. Poems are healing. Poems are spells.
So, why not write your own spell? A spell that sounds like, acts like, and there fore becomes a poem?
Weave magic in your everyday life with a personal poem. Cast a spell with a poem. Cover your poem with intentions and sigils. Shout it from the rooftops. Or, tuck your poem into a tiny piece of paper and keep it underneath your clothes, or maybe, even in a locket. How sublime is that? Totally sublime. And, completely entrenched in your own personal power. That's magic.“
Poetry: Andrew Hahn: A Faggot Learns to Be Christ-Like
“they need all of me
all at once bc my body is the temple & the light
my pussy is their prayer
my body my heart my church doors throb from man’s desire
i told them not to worry about hurting me
a good boy sacrifices his body”
Interview: Maryan Nagy Captan
“For the past few years, I’ve been enamored with the work of Julie Speed, an oil painter and collage artist based in Marfa, TX. My current favorite piece is titled “Eyes to See.” How does it describe me? I like to think that I am both figures in this painting. As a writer and performance poet, I get self conscious about overwriting or being too insistent in the work. As a reader and citizen of the world, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the amount of information and insight that we’re expected to consume regularly. It can be suffocating.
However, behind all the chaos of humanity is a bird and a tree and an open window. I think this aspect speaks strongly to my desire to always find a sliver of hope in everything: an escape, a reminder, a moment of joy.”
Writing Prompts: Use Fantasies and Dreams
Review: Angelo Colavita - “Called into Question: A Review of Samantha Giles’ ‘Total Recall’”
“I moved through this book carefully, light-footed, as though convinced that any sudden movement would wake a sleeping monster, and as I did so I realized the genius behind Giles’ writing: she writes as though she does not have to convince us of anything. Instead, through her prose and deliberate, gradual revelations (and sometimes redactions) of information, she creates within the reader the same self-doubt the narrator experiences. We are convinced of the narrative’s actuality by mode of our own empathy. We experience the same silencing fear running astride a craving for justice. We are at once the helpless victim, the horrified voyeur, and, what’s more unsettling, the violator.
To lose yourself in this book is to bear witness, firsthand, to the victim’s struggle with truth and with self. When what the mind is capable of recalling is called into question by even the speaker herself, we feel violated. This is not a game the author plays, but a necessary deception. After all, our memory, as a function of the mind, defines our identity, composes our history. What are we at all if not products of our minds?”
Art: Kerry Rawlinson
Wellness: Joanna C. Valente - “8 Things That Might Make You Happier & Get You Off the Internet”
“Schedule phone dates with friends
In an effort to get away from the internet, I try to talk on the phone more with friends. Because of schedules and location, it’s not always possible to hang out in person, but phones (especially video chatting) can be a great way to connect with someone and be present, even if just for five minutes.
Making ourselves available and mindful is how we can stay in touch and maintain our relationships. We don’t need epic catch ups; rather, I try to think of it this way: If I can’t find a few minutes for someone, what am I doing that’s so important? Why not?”
