There it was on the globe, a dashed line of darker blue on the lighter blue Atlantic. Words in faint italic script: Tropic of Cancer. The adults told her to stop asking what it was, as if the dull reply they gave would satisfy: “A latitude, in this case twenty-three degrees.” She pictured daisy chains […]
Victory
for Tory Dent • Something spreading underground won’t speak to us under skin won’t declare itself not all life-forms want dialogue with the machine-gods in their drama hogging down the deep bush clear-cutting refugees from ancient or transient villages into our opportunistic fervor to search […]
Vendanges
A tall building in the fifteenth arrondissement faded away slowly and then completely vanished. Toward November the weather grew very bitter. No one knew why or even noticed. I forgot to tell you your hat looked perky. A new way of falling asleep has been discovered. Senior citizens snoop around to impose that sleep. You […]
Notes of a Cowry Girl
1. I am a cowry girl, a marine biologist to be exact. In 1930, Queensland, the shells were found. White, so pale, no pattern, one shell. White but markings. One shell. Overlaid by three shells. Normal. One shell. Other shells were unspotted. Color photographs were taken by Mr. Goadby. They showed no difference. All were […]
Recit: Previously Unpublished Works by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Lawrence Rinder Most people who know of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha know only her remarkable book, DICTEE, published in 1982 by Tanam Press. This marvelously unique work—which combines poetry, calligraphy and other manuscripts, found texts, diagrams, and photographs— has become a staple of many university literature and postcolonial studies courses. It is one of those […]
Defensive Driving
1. at night high beams scan the unseeable distance an untitled landscape black is not a shade but rather an impression oil on canvas 2. scratch and sniff lawns on southern streets where one sips lemonade or iced tea before hosing down weeds in the way of light. still life with 3. jars marked and […]
Jo Seraph F(iend)eign
( laf ladee lavenda unda courts moon tin stars beet out pewta peel yo bananas half mercy den confess dont fret de haters stockins gat runs n em demon wit voice operetta is dat mammy n yo trane ? jemima loungin n yo tea air uh ? dame pare yo seek wins re veil some […]
Three Poems
From Jersey City (Dub Version) The island of. “The island of Manhattan, will be lost, to the rest of. continent by the. leanest system of subaqueous. tunnels in the mind. the methodology of travel. will be revolution, for then the ferryboat will cease. to be the only means of discussion. between New York and Jersey […]
Construction of a Black Poetic Self in Four Narratives
1. a narrative Between memory, muscle and fat is a poetics out of a black, pleather satchel full of photos. A few shots are of my father, teaching tennis to a group of men in Guam, most of them white. Everyone is wearing white. And there is Leland Doane, who is all chest hair and […]
“Pourmoreformore Pomofunk Dunk, Dun Paramour” Or Duriel E Harris’ Bootybone Scattergram Scatty Pas De Quarte In One Act
Originally published in the Fall/Winter 2001 issue of Fence, as part of The Black Took Collective’s Call for Dissonance.
