Issue 159
Winter & Spring 2021
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The first days of the new year have proven what a naïve oversimplification it was to brand 2020 a bad year. The pandemic rages on, climate crisis still looms, and the continuum of destruction in the United States—one that has existed for centuries—erupted into a violent fascist insurrection. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that at times over the past months putting together a new issue of a literary magazine has felt fruitless and insignificant. I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit it was at times the only work that held me off from complete despair.
As I grow older, my understanding of the political nature and call to action of literature has evolved. I am perhaps less convinced that a singular piece of art can change the world, but also more committed to the belief that if we continue to fight for more equity and inclusivity in American letters, if we strive for systemic changes in academia, creative writing communities, and the publishing industry at large, the arts can have more powerful economic, cultural, and political consequences.
I know these changes can’t happen overnight; nor can they be realized without a coalition of writers, editors, and publishers dedicated to them. As my tenure as managing editor nears its close, I have thought much about TriQuarterly’s future and its role in this effort. My goal is that the journal will continue to grow through critical thinking around our editorial, hiring, and production practices. I am confident in and grateful for the team of editors who will carry TriQuarterly forward after I am gone.
I hope you enjoy the video, poetry, and prose selections in this issue. I hope they collectively offer solace and examination, endurance and outrage, as we push forward into 2021.
Sincerely,
Aram Mrjoian
Managing Editor
Managing Editor: Aram Mrjoian
Assistant Managing Editor: Joshua Bohnsack
Faculty Advisor: Susan Harris
Director of Planning: Reginald Gibbons
Film Editor: Sarah Minor
Fiction Editors: Vanessa Chan, Jennifer Companik, Erin Branning Keogh, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Emily Mirengoff
Nonfiction Editor: Starr Davis
Poetry Editor: Daniel Fliegel
Social Media Editor: Joshua Bohnsack
Copy Editor: Lys Ann Weiss
Media Architect: Harlan Wallach
Technical Advisors: Alex Miner, Rodolfo Vieira, Nick GertonsonStaff: Adam Lizakowski, Andrea Garcia, Audrey Fierberg, Bonnie Etherington, Dane Hamann, Elijah Patten, Ellen Hainen, Erica Hughes, Erika Carey, Freda Love Smith, Grace Musante, Hillary Pelan, Jonathan Jones, Laura Humble, Laura Joyce-Hubbard, Marcella Mencotti, Megan Sullivan, Michele Popadich, Miranda Garbaciak, ML Chan, Myra Thompson, Natalie Rose Richardson, Nimra Chohan, Pascale Bishop, Patrick Bernhard, Rishee Batra, Salwa Halloway, Tara Stringfellow
Image from A Turn
The Slave Ship, originally titled, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon Coming On, 1840
—a painting by the British artist J. M. W. Turner.
God cut a slit in their souls/ Baptists say
is the gateway to hell—
some black hole defiling their rigid
Entering Kansas
Enter the dust devils, the dervish grasses,
prairie schooners creeping in their ruts.
Enter sod busters and ploughshares,
settlers in dugouts raving in the wind,
Dear Millennium, A Vision in the Xeriscape
Outdoors in my sun-blasted xeriscape, a sapling
shivers with memories of green rain, greenery
of jade dishes, of scallion chins afloat in a bowl
of seaweed miso-broth, of uranium milk glass
Creation Story
Before bed, my smallyets ask if I’ll meet them
at the signpost we create in sleep, & when
they wake, they’ll ask do I remember.
Of My Fictions
The immortal dogs of my fictions,
exhausted from centuries of fetch,
are laid out in puddles of sun
How to rebuild me when I fall apart
How to rebuild me when I fall apart
After Roger Reeves
I want a spine lined with cement,
4 poems from the sequence "test—flux"
jughea d potted s hell he ad precious po tted jug pot she rd shard pitch er she ll woven s he l l it was multiple
and my head was a joke my head was a joke? my head became a small vessel and a precious metal was put in there
Poem Without Bodies
I want to make the body into sky.
– Anish Kapoor, on his sculpture Marsyas (2002), Turbine Hall, Tate Modern
Medusa in the Emergency Room
On the fifth day of pills, the limestone
stole my eyes. Beneath its scraggle and rasp
my sight burned senseless. No surprise–
What the Suitcase Bearing my Family Name Might Have Contained When It Arrived at Auschwitz
Wool socks. Diapers. Mittens. Hats. Dresses. The fear of God. Dark rye flour. Clogs made from scraps of lumber and leather. The Torah in Hebrew and Russian. One good wool suit. A child’s necktie.
Ghazal Written for the Lids in Downtown Brooklyn Where I Chose my Name
I grew up poor, no monogrammed bath towels or duffle bags, nowhere to travel but into myself.
My mountain had so many small mountains inside of it, and I had breasts. If I had to give myself
New year poem
Tottenham Hale
If I were to start
again, I’d start
at the end of the long,
unbending street.
After returning to King’s College Chapel
The night-locked dusk clicked shut.
The cool air rose like a stone.
At last, my voices echoed through the high,
miraculous chamber. And the iconography