Issue 164
Summer & Fall 2023
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EDITOR’S NOTE
I’ve been thinking about nuclear semiotics recently.
In college, I attended a heavily-promoted John D’Agata reading, in support of his newly released About a Mountain. D’Agata spoke about Yucca Mountain, a nuclear waste repository some eighty miles outside Las Vegas. Scientists and linguists were tasked with creating a warning sign that would last as long as the nuclear waste remains radioactive, 10,000 years in the future, when it is unlikely any contemporary languages will exist. I recall the solution was to create basalt pillars, etched with Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” face, arranged in such a way that when the wind blew, it would create a D minor chord, creating an air of melancholy. These sounds and symbols worked together to provoke trepidation at an instinctual level. As a young English major with an anxiety disorder, this image made an impression on me. While fact-checking this memory, I found I synthesized multiple solutions. I misremembered information from thirteen years ago, which is nowhere close to the 10,000 needed to communicate in this example. It has left me with a question: How do we leave something for the future?
This is my last issue as managing editor of TriQuarterly. Not to mix metaphors, but I am ready to pass the torch to Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya. I’ve tried to keep up the momentum set by my managing editor predecessors Aram Mrjoian and Carrie Muehle. I am proud to work with a team dedicated to publishing writing that converses with readers. We strived to create issues that recall the past, but speak to our future.
The stories in Issue 164 are ethereal, haunting, and cautioning. A young couple searches for a symbol confirming their impending marriage in Ben Loory’s “The White Bird of the Forest,” while a dead woman possesses her ex-husband in “After I Become a Ghost” by Jessie Ren Marshall. Mary Hawley’s translations of Juan Carlos Mestre’s poems read like nuanced liturgies, while Ryley O'Byrne’s video essay titled “Liturgies” forces the viewer to kneel at the altar of technology. Poet Kathleen Radigan reminds us, “rat will outlast us” in the end.
We feature a suite of prose poems in this issue by Richard Siken, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Vikram Masson, and Corey Zeller, pieces that shed form entirely. They are balanced by Sayuri Ayers’s essay on the movements of the lyric essay, harkening back to some of my favorite archival issues on craft and form like Issue 19: For Edward Dahlberg and Issue 38: In the wake of the Wake, all pushing for the acceleration of language.
In my first editor’s letter I wrote, “We can never live up to this journal’s history, but rather, are contributing to this journal’s future.” This editorial team has done just that. Whether it’s long-term nuclear waste warning messages or an easily accessible archive, there is no guarantee our message will endure, but thanks to these writers and this staff, I am fortunate to be a part of this now.
— Joshua Bohnsack
Managing Editor, TriQuarterly
MASTHEAD
Managing Editor: Joshua Bohnsack
Assistant Managing Editor: Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
Faculty Advisor: Susan Harris
Director of Planning: Reginald Gibbons
Northwestern Assistant Director in Creative Writing: Colin Thomas Pope
Social Media Editor: Emily Mirengoff
Film Editor: Sarah Minor
Fiction Editors: Patrick Bernhard, Jennifer Companik, Laura Joyce-Hubbard, Emily Mirengoff, Mariah Rigg
Nonfiction Editor: Starr Davis
Poetry Editor: Daniel Fliegel
Copy Editor: Lys Ann Weiss
Technology Director: Ken Panko
Technical Advisors: Rodolfo Vieira, Natalie Roman, Vince LaGrassa, Orzu Tursunova
Staff: Ally Ang, Amanda Dee, Amanda Vitale, Ashton Carlile, Becky Payne, Christopher Lombardom Corey Miller, Dane Hamann, Ellen Hainen, Emma Fuchs, Erika Carey, George Abraham, Gillian Barth, Holly Stovall, Ivis Whitright, Jackson McGrath, Jameka Williams, Jeremy Wilson, Jonathan Jones, Katana Smith, Kathryn O'Day, Liz Howey, Lydia Abedeen, Marcella Mencotti, Marissa Higgins, May Dugas, Megan Sullivan, Michaela Ritz, Michele Popadich, Morgan Eklund, Nimra Chohan, Puck Orabel, Rebecca van Laer, Salwa Halloway, Surya Milner, Susan Lerner, Suzanne Scanlon
Image from The Seafarer
first-year immigration expenses
i. apartment
fall. we arrive. nanay heaves
herself to the kitchen & becomes
nocturnal at the apartment we rent
by the railroad. she whoops & slaps
Twenty Questions
I’m here auditioning for the role of Tony, a man/boy who met
what they call in melodrama an untimely death.
Please note my resemblance to the dead emblem
you’ve always idolized and yearned for.
To Do List
First, the pillows and pillowcases
tossed in the dryer with a washrag
soaked in vinegar. Then baseboards,
Ambulance Song
This is how the body goes: the gurney
sliding in the ambulance like a drawer.
The flashing red on our faces like heartbeats.
At the Punjab Dhaba, Hampshire Street, Boston
When F. tells her, the querying cashier from India
about Kashmir, her cheekbones
lilt with recognition. My grandfather drove tourists
Shirts and Trousers
The day my father died, his favorite flannel shirt
held my mother’s hand, listened to her waterfall
of memories. His trousers tidied the bedroom
and the rest of the house. My father’s shoes were
After I Become a Ghost
After I become a ghost, I decide to haunt my ex-husband. This is not as vindictive as it sounds. I bear him no ill will. I merely wonder what it feels like to be him. You see, my husband is a man, and I had been a woman. I am curious to try on a suit of flesh with new bits and bobs in it.
The White Bird of the Forest
A boy and a girl meet and fall in love, and one day they decide it’s time for them to go for a walk in the woods. They’re hoping to see the white bird of the forest.
A Girl with Two Heads
All morning, she writes notes to her other self: trigonometry test tomorrow, no Quiz Bowl practice today (Mrs. Lionelli out sick), Mari wants to hang out later, please steer clear of Jessica (she’s being a jerk today!!!!) and Ronaldo (he pulled my ponytail), no need to wear your hair up, apologies in advance for the indigestion (fridge was empty so had to buy rectangle pizza at lunch and already regret it).
For I Hungered, And Ye Gave Me
The following interview excerpts were recorded and collected by the Arkansas State Highway Patrol (Troop 5, Washington Co. Barracks), in April 1979.
The Cleanse
That was the winter we discovered how filthy we all were. Defiled by toxins and microscopic debris from our food, air, clothing, shampoo, and perfume. It lurked in our eyeshadow, sectional sofas, and wall paint. Infused our dish soap and radiated from our iPhones.
Sing, Circle, Leap: Tracing the Movements of the American Lyric Essay
My journey into the expanse of the lyric essay began when I opened Maggie Nelson’s Bluets. At that time, I had been writing poetry for over ten years, exploring motherhood, mental health, and my Asian American heritage. I saw my work as lyric poetry that drew from the bloodlines of my first love, Sharon Olds, and her transformative poem, “Monarchs.”
Introduction to Video Essays
“The women are brined / the dirt on their wounds, sand” writes Kamari Bright in the opening scene of “Royaltee,” where three figures stand dressed in stark white. Set against a forest and a seascape, this spare video inverts the appropriation of the tall tee, a form popularized by hip hop artists who inspired the layered fashion trends of the late 90s.
