Issue 150
Summer & Fall 2016
-
We are pleased to present TriQuarterly’s 150th issue. Throughout these pieces, imagery and movement explore the human condition and its relationship to the physical world. The issue opens with Ander Monson’s video essay, “Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies,” in which he juxtaposes human extinction and technology, joining sounds, images, and words to encapsulate the natural and digital existence. Blair Braverman offers a contrast between grayscale images and layered language in “Two Poems About X, 2009 and 2014.” And Heather Hall creates an echo between the visual and the verbal in her dreamlike “Shark.”
The poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction here also offer imagery that moves between human consciousness and the world that surrounds it. Whether it is experienced hardship and loss in Keveh Akbar’s poem “Unburnable the Cold is Flooding Our Lives,” the discovery of perspective in Marc Nieson’s “Orientation,” or the memory of carefree young love in Bonnie Nadzam’s “The Silver Motorcycle,” the movement of mind, body, and soul come together within the confines of space and time.
This issue could not have come together if not for the talent and dedication of our contributors and staff. My gratitude to everyone who had a hand in this issue.
We present the 150th issue to you. Enjoy.
Cheers,
Noelle Havens
Managing Editor: Noelle Havens
Assistant Managing Editor: Carrie Muehle
Faculty Advisor: Susan Harris
Director of Planning: Reginald Gibbons
Film Editor: Kristen Radtke
Fiction Editors: Carrie Muehle, Mark Rentfro, Stephanie Tran
Nonfiction Editor: Martha Holloway
Poetry Editor: Dane Hamann
Social Media Editor: Ankur Thakkar
Copy Editor: Lys Ann Weiss
Media Architect: Harlan Wallach
Technical Advisors: Alex Miner, Rodolfo Vieira, Nick Gertonson
Staff: Ahsan Awan, Emily Barton, Jen Companik, Aaron DeLee, Jesse Eagle, Jeshua Enriquez, Dan Fliegel, Andrea Garcia, Ish Harris-Wolff, Katie Hartsock, Alex Higley, Barbara Tsai Jones, Katharine Kruse, Jen Lawrence, Adam Lizakowski, Robin Morrissey, Marina Mularz, Lydia Pudzianowski, Nate Renie, Paula Root, Caitlin Sellnow, Michi Smith, Megan Sullivan, Myra Thompson, Ted Wesenberg
Image from Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
What's Wrong With You is What's Wrong With Me
My brother Johnny and I have been driving three days, left San Diego on a whim in this kind-of stolen car. The BMW belongs to Ryan, Johnny’s boyfriend, this older, very tanned, very rich guy Johnny’s been living with for ten months.
Six Micro Stories
Sisyphus Writes in His Diary
Never mind me, I was sentenced to this. It’s the boulder I don’t understand.
The Silver Motorcycle
My grandmother was very old. Her hair was white as bone, and her bones were thin as stems of feathers. She sat in her rocking chair with the bright green window open behind her, and the dim, dusty room of varnished wood and books and photographs before her.
Most Holy Ghost
Down in the tail of the parish, where the bayou emptied all its secrets, I grew certain my grandfather lurked, waiting for me to find him. Since I’d only met him once before he disappeared, the odds were long that I’d ever catch his scent or follow his trail. Yet by thirteen, I was hell-bent to try.
Boatyard
I’d started swabbing decks for Ken Jacobs at the beginning of the summer. I’d moved on to teak work by June, but that was really just a fancy kind of cleaning. Eventually I was allowed to take on the general work of the boatyard and was making eleven dollars an hour for it, which was two more than what I’d started at.
La Recoleta
I. Where You Belong
My aunts had made me empanadas for the plane trip, wrapped in waxed paper and nestled into my bag along with what my mother had called the family teeth: tiny white stones gathered as she walked on beaches in Brazil and Uruguay with my father.
Putting on a Play in Wartime Sarajevo
This excerpt is taken from the award-winning novel Elijah’s Chair by Igor Štiks (Fraktura, 2006). Already translated into fourteen languages, it will appear in an English translation by Ellen Elias-Bursać in 2017, published by Amazon Crossing.