In the prose poem “To Pain,” the poet addresses her pain directly and forces it to the surface, giving it an immediate presence. Employing the same rhetorical device—the apostrophe— in “I hear you’ve settled in,” the poet addresses her absent lover, inviting the reader to listen too. “Bosom Story” is a narrative and as reachable.
The poet’s voice in “Money Buys Your Freedom” and “Visible to the Eye” is direct, audacious, empowered. No beating around the bush; the poet points out that money can buy the law and a woman can become someone’s “wind-up doll.” Not so in “Searchlight.” The poet is an “Electra of sorts” and open to “accepting any substitution.”
Poetry can be abstract or concrete, but there is nothing abstract about Hoffman’s poetry. How about surgical intervention as poetic inspiration? Or, the sound of a motorcycle in the dark as a rude awakening? Or “Three Fates at Night” by the side of the car window one midnight . . . and the poet shudders.
As different in mood and voice as they are in thought and theme, these poems reveal the poet’s structural versatility, whether it is explicit narrative in “My Seventh Christmas”; poetic ambiguity in “The Wind Gibbers With Their Voices”; or jazzed- up meter in “Jaco Pastorius,” in honor of the great bass player.
It is Alexandria during Ramadan, a year or so after the Egyptian revolution in 2011 and Mohamed Morsi is president. Political conflict threatens Egypt, but a different kind of trouble looms within a group of expats. Things don’t always glimmer.
Ten middle school students help Jason clean up the mess of his mother’s house. Some scrape cemented egg whites off counters; others pull weeds. A week later, the mother has a clean kitchen and bathroom and a slanted floor to walk upon.
Riding the bus from Granada to Salamanca, Spain, they arrive in pouring rain and run to find shelter. Luckily a taxi pulls up and drives them to the Hostal Plaza Mayor. Jimmy has never met a girl like Vera before. This is his love story.
It has been a year since the giant dragon Greatwing has made contact with eleven-year-old Tadhg. The boy is frantically turning the dragon-shaped pendant over and over—the one Miriam gave him last Halloween—hoping Greatwing will appear like he did the last time. On this stormy night the black tabby cat Dreyfus appears on the windowsill of Tadhg’s bedroom, pawing to be let in. Dreyfus announces that he and Miriam are leaving town and Tadhg must now help the dragons. Of course, Tadhg doesn’t understand the cryptic message, but before he can say anything Dreyfus disappears in a power blackout. The next morning on his way to school he hears thoughts coming from inside his head. Greatwing has arrived to take him on a mission. Tadhg will not make it to school that day and will instead fly with the dragon to land in a patch of heather in the Scottish highlands. The mission: To find Greatwing’s six cousins and be freed from the curse of the Others.
Leaving the convention center, he chastises himself for his “addiction” although he just bought “Dangerous Dosage: Chronicles of Jason Archer,” the VR Experience that landed him on the floor. It was so real. But upon arriving home, he so easily returns to that “world.”
Pariya’s son narrates the times his father turns into an octopus when he feels romantic love. Later, Pariya marries Ammya and things seem normal—except they aren’t. Years later the son learns the truth through a suppressed dream.
On the father’s eightieth birthday, he tells his oldest son he wants to celebrate it in a funeral parlor. There are the usual expatiations and songs and food and drink, but alone in the chapel, the father reveals to the son how his mother really died.
In an inflatable mess tent for refugees, an attendant learns the story of the bearded man who travels from Greece to Macedonia by foot, then to Serbia and eventually to Budapest seeking asylum. Danger arrives and so does white dust.
Falling in love with the yellow house on the hill, she enjoys her own art studio. And visitors: a neighbor with brownies; a young mother with her baby and a fruit basket; Marvin with banana bread; and a young man with a photo and a revelation.
A sixty-five-year-old man holds hostage three children and a twenty-something woman. They have strength in numbers but he threatens and lies. They are now the family he never had. He is husband to the oldest, Dad to the children. His family ties.
You can read Allotrope in one sitting; no, Allotrope compels you to read it in one sitting. The four characters—Yitzhak, Sleeping Bear, Arielle, and Sunny—form a multicultural elasticity that heightens as the story tightens and the mystery deepens. The characters each play a role but their synergy transcends their individual will, and the story unfolds in irony woven into the denouement. Taking from drama the literary device of foreshadowing, Fertik interjects clues and asides along the way in the dialogue and the myth at the story’s core.
After Sirajul Habib, an American youth and follower of Islam, sees displays of Nazi documents in Berlin, he wants to learn more about the Holocaust. In a later trip to Europe, he visits the Auschwitz Concentration Camps in Poland and is overcome by the enormity and scope of Nazi evil at Auschwitz I, the first site of the atrocities; and at Auschwitz II – Birkenau, where prisoners arrived in boxed rail cars.
What is “Arrival Day”? Sookdeo writes about this public holiday in Trinidad and Tobago with a critical eye. Started in 1995 to celebrate 150 years of Indian arrival in Trinidad, the name was later changed to Indian Arrival Day. Does the “Indian” in the name ignore other ethnic groups if the country’s makeup “is reflected by colonization in every part”? The issue is more complex than at first glance.
An official NGO Observer at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, Will describes the exterior of the courthouse where the 911 conspirators are tried for capital crimes. Sitting on a dilapidated “out-of-service airstrip,” the low-slung building looks like a toolshed, but upon entering the building visitors witness “the world’s most sophisticated technology.” This space is not a symbol; it represents the physical implementation of justice. The question is: Can the Guantanamo military commissions offer a narrative “to reaffirm the country’s values and to offer closure”?
Tender and instructive, the narrative and descriptive essay “Married Sleep” offers the reader an inside look—with equanimity—at a wife and husband team who makes it through a daughter’s debilitating illness, a husband’s demanding work schedule, and a wife’s alcoholism and healing.
These are the special tenants of Jones’ home: “A hound of calm character, lazy and laid-back”—this is Jack Jones—and a fierce “ten-pound terrier, black and white, with bulging eyes”—this is Dory. As the dogs age, Jones is cognizant of her own droopy eyelids and graying hair, but as long as she is alive they will add more dogs to their household.
“River Musings” is not only about the reclamation of the Willamette River that flows through Portland and the development of Waterfront Park, Portland’s gathering space. It is also about the Hide Naito family that ran a successful importing business; relocated to Salt Lake City during the Japanese internment; and returned to Portland later to enlarge their business and enrich the city with their philanthropy.
On the staid street in Boston, Vinita manages a manicure business for her cool boss Leo while he’s on a short vacation. But Vinita makes plans, and they have nothing to do with staying where she is.
Aaron J. Heil’s story steps ever so sensitively into the marriage of Justin and Renee, which is complicated by a family wedding, a misunderstanding, and a junk mail offer for on-demand weather.
In the tender love story by Robert Hilles, Scott sees his wife Cheryl holding his six-month-old daughter Denise, reminding him of the dream he had earlier that morning. It was the happiest he had ever been.