Issue 158

Summer & Fall 2020

  • It would be an unforgivable convenience to begin this editor’s note with a reference to our “unprecedented times.” I have seen these words over the past weeks in emails, tweets, and on the news, but as much as this simple phrase can be well-intentioned, it is also undeniably harmful and lacking awareness. This country’s legacy of anti-Black racism, police brutality, white supremacy, and plunder dates back centuries. It is not unprecedented at all.

    TriQuarterly was founded in 1958. We are a literary journal that has published continuously for 62 years. We have always prided ourselves on being “an international journal of writing, art, and cultural inquiry,” but we also recognize that we are part of a publishing industry that lacks racial equity. As managing editor, I worry I personally have neither done enough to challenge the patriarchal, white supremacist tradition in American letters nor given enough critical examination to the lack of diversity in our masthead and editorial practices. We know we must be actively antiracist and are taking action to develop more comprehensive antiracist policies. It is my responsibility to make sure that these actions are implemented.

    For the first time since transitioning online, TriQuarterly is hiring genre editors not affiliated with Northwestern’s creative writing programs. I believe this is critical to TriQuarterly’s future, because the magazine can now draw from a far larger candidate pool. We are also in the process of planning TriQuarterly’s 160th issue, slated for summer 2021, which will exclusively feature Black artists, with work selected by Black guest editors. These are important first steps in striving to uphold TriQuarterly’s mission.

    I am very proud of the video essays, poetry, and prose featured in our 158th issue. Throughout TriQuarterly’s history, the editors have always prioritized diversity in the artists we publish, and this issue includes a wide range of voices. Every poem, story, and essay was selected from the thousands of submissions we receive in each genre every year. The artists in this issue showcase writing that intrigues, excites, overjoys, and challenges our staff.

    And yet, I know we must continue working toward equity. It is my goal during my remaining time with the journal to ensure not only now, but also in the future, that we are worthy of every poet, writer, and visual artist who sends their work to TriQuarterly, that we are a venue where artists feel supported, respected, and proud to publish.

    Sincerely,

    Aram Mrjoian


    Managing Editor: Aram Mrjoian
    Assistant Managing Editor: Joshua Bohnsack
    Faculty Advisor: Susan Harris
    Director of Planning: Reginald Gibbons
    Film Editor: Sarah Minor
    Fiction Editors: Joshua Bohnsack, Jennifer Companik, Carrie Muehle, Nathan Renie, Erin Branning Keogh
    Nonfiction Editor: Molly Sprayregen
    Poetry Editor: Daniel Fliegel
    Social Media Editor: Josh Bohnsack
    Copy Editor: Lys Ann Weiss
    Media Architect: Harlan Wallach
    Technical Advisors: Alex Miner, Rodolfo Vieira, Nick Gertonson

    Staff: Adam Lizakowski, Andrea Garcia, Anne-Marie Akin, Audrey Fierberg, Bonnie Etherington, Dane Hamann, Devin O'Shea, Elijah Patten, Ellen Hainen, Erica Hughes, Erika Carey, Freda Love Smith, Hillary Pelan, Jayme Collins, Jen Lawrence, Jen Companik, Jenn Hipps, Jeremiah Barker, Jonathan Jones, Joshua Bohnsack, KB Zemanick, Laura Humble, Laura Joyce-Hubbard, Madina Jenks, Marcella Mencotti, Megan Sullivan, Michele Popadich, Miranda Garbaciak, ML Chan, Myra Thompson, Natalia Nebel, Natalie Rose Richardson, Nathan Renie, Pascale Bishop, Patrick Bernhard, Rishee Batra, Salwa Halloway, Serena Simpson, Tara Stringfellow

Image from House: A Sonnet: A Palinode

Poetry Jane Zwart Poetry Jane Zwart

The Exclusion Zone

I am sure you have noticed it, too. People die

and the bereft go into strange quarantine. It is

not, of course, their grief we mean to contain,

sparing the frail and the hale alike. Even we

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Poetry Samantha Tetangco Poetry Samantha Tetangco

Study in White¹

He said it was like floating in color
then stepped into the purple air,

and we followed, you and I,
our shoes wrapped in paper booties, our minds

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Poetry Samantha Tetangco Poetry Samantha Tetangco

Study in Black²

This time, the man said it was a subtle piece, and together we stepped
into the black box, our hands groping handrails, darkness so thick it
seemed to swallow us whole. And what is human instinct, really, if not
the deep-rooted panic that sets in when we lose our understanding of

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Poetry John Sibley Williams Poetry John Sibley Williams

Our Daily Breads

As if she waded through brown rivers [ ] clawed
mountains down to valleys expecting something [ ]

potable, a rivulet of mother tears or lake [ ] of children’s,
as if she abandoned wide-open cage [ ] for cage, swollen

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Poetry John Sibley Williams Poetry John Sibley Williams

The Whole I'm Told We Return To

eventually, // unyoked from wire & // weed, muted to a noun that no

longer // wilds violently // against its box, like horses sleeping

through a barn fire, // like a fire that blackens not // a single rafter or

the dreams of // horses sleeping inside, the words we boys // hurt

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Poetry David Dodd Lee Poetry David Dodd Lee

Service

Working overtime for extra pay at least at the Grubhub

which was better than working at Jewel in the 80s punching

out and then working overtime for no pay he didn’t

explain why he never reported it he described being set

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Poetry Shangyang Fang Poetry Shangyang Fang

Calligraphy

I remember each furrow of your hand : even as I recite each line of your book.
On the flyleaf, my grandfather's signature is well rendered with a fountain pen. A gesture of holding.

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Poetry Doug Ramspeck Poetry Doug Ramspeck

Feral Trains

grandmother dreams of a pupil of light something

small enough to prophesize loss dreams of pockmarks

on the surface of a pond in a faint rain & since her body

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Poetry Luiza Flynn-Goodlett Poetry Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

Out of the Woods

I trip up the slope behind

the swing set. I backflip off

the waterfall. I curl under

a teacher's desk as adults

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Poetry Sebastián Hasani Páramo Poetry Sebastián Hasani Páramo

Paths from The First Car

Half-lit by cars, we flick cigarettes

in the parking lot. You point to spokes

& spin them, open the hood, & I see

my father there. Shoulder chipped memory.

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