Poetry

  • Summer 2019

    A tall stone temple dominates the shoreline of a wide river, bathed in the colors of sunset
       By Kedarnath Singh
    Temple in Varanasi / Photo by Saurabh Chatterjee / Flickr Spring descends on this city suddenly and when it does a whirl of dust rises from Lehartara or Manduadih and coats the tongue of this...

  • Summer 2019

    A dense tangle of tropical forest where bananas hang from the tree
       By Rina Garcia Chua
    Photo: Courtesy of the Author  As she pleases  after Tropical Storm Ondoy, 2009  If only words dilute sediments at the bottom of my gut; if only a tongue can let this pain hydroplane into a...

  • Summer 2019

    A black and white photograph from above of a tree's rings
       By Márcia Wayna Kambeba
    There was a time, a certain weather where the butterflies danced paused on the grass to rest and hear the song of the wind echo. There was a time, an ardent weather when the sun shone more stron...

  • Summer 2019

    A mixed media painting of a blue and a yellow fish
       By Jane Hirshfield
    The Aquarium, 20" x 24" hand-painted paper collage on wood panel, private collection. © Elizabeth St. Hilaire (paperpaintings.com) Three Pebbles Sixth Extinctio...

  • Summer 2019

    Close up photograph of pollen on a plant
       By Marjorie Evasco
      Farol de Combate  This is how, while darkness  drew my profile with its little finger  I have learned to see past as Montale saw it,  The obscure thoughts of God descending ...

  • Summer 2019

    Spectators stand on a stone overlook that juts on to a wooded lake that sits at the foot of foggy mountains
       By Major Jackson
    Photo: Picker H/Flickr  November in Xichang  There are cities one won’t see again. – Joseph Brodsky   I. Only a bearded smile shows below a conical hat turning men to rice...

  • Summer 2019

    A black and white photo of phone booths, tagged with graffiti and lit up from the inside
       By Renátó Fehér
    Photo: Brian Ainsworth/Flickr Borderland (2) Moored in an estuary of chestnut trees is the main building – a mother ship. The sharp-eyed gaze eventually settles, studying the faç...

  • Summer 2019

    A wildflower sprouts from a mossy forest floor
       By Gemma Gorga
    Photo: M. Maggs/Pixabay La bona educació L’estiu que complia set anys li van regalar un estoig de fusta amb un llapis i una goma.  El llapis, perquè en rosegués la mina fins a tr...

  • Summer 2019

    A blue parakeet looks at the camera from behind the wire of his cage
       By Myronn Hardy
    Photo: Simon Q/Flickr A patch of sunlight on the wall     thin shadows like worn nets or the snagged stockings  of a voracious lover impair that patch. Our shoes tap the marble stairs down-down....

  • Summer 2019

    A darkly lit shot from above looking down into a blooming cabbage
       By Aleksandra Tsibulia
    PHOTO: Scott Webb/Unsplash * Tulips and their capricious labia, their indecent appeal. The absolute shamelessness of the flowers, but also the sinlessness. The lushness of the earth, as before the...

  • Spring 2019

    A panoramic shot of Hong Kong
       By Xi Xi
    PHOTO: Florian Wehde / Unsplash you gave me a black silk chicken hoping I’d eat it and get better you gave me a black silk chicken because I’ve been unwell I cooked up the black silk chicken de...

  • Spring 2019

    A close shot of a name plate embedded in the street
       By Alexander Booth
    Lorie Shaull, “Stolperstein” / Flickr The story begins like this. No. It does not. There is no story. Or, they shoveled a load of speed and shuddered toward the coast. Saltpans. Sparse groupings of...

  • Spring 2019

    A shot from from a hill near Kukupalong refugee camp near Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh of refugees streaming in and out of the camp
       By Mayyu Ali
    View of the Kukupalong refugee camp near Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. / PHOTO: Russell Watkins / UK Department of International Development “I can be killed here in Bangladesh. My body can earn a...

  • Spring 2019

    A shot from directly above of a red taxi cab waiting at a street light on a street marked by numerous parallel yellow lines
       By Jason S. Polley
    PHOTO: Ruslan Bardash/Unsplash The meaty gweipo complete slippery scolds assailant aplenty The meaty miasma of North Point’s postcard avenues, where Big-Leaf Fig bases are...

  • Spring 2019

    A bowl of rice, lightly colored by an application of soy sauce
       By Chris Song
    PHOTO: Jmoritz320/Pixabay But a bowl of rice with soy sauce was your breakfast yesterday. Colors of foods varied as fate played out with this resemblance on the table – Clay-pot sauce poured int...

  • Spring 2019

    A photograph of a white kite held by an arm that stretches into the bottom of the frame with the moon hovering just above the kite
       By Wawa
    Prelapsarian Bloom: One Day One Life, thread on kite, LED light. Photo courtesy of the author. [untitled] a day a life, between death and birth, under the moon, tw...

  • Spring 2019

    A photograph looking up the front of a colorful apartment building
       By Belle Ling
    PHOTO: Florian Wehde/Unsplash Tasting Karma Does the doctor prefer eating an apple before he announces death? The doctor says: “Just so—sorry.” Or, he prefers studying an apple? ...

  • Spring 2019

    A hand-lettered sign in Chinese with English words that read “To Yuen Long / Please Press Bell”
       By Eddie Tay
    Press Doorbell Please. PHOTO: Eddie Tay How I Impress Others with My Cantonese At a dim sum restaurant you’ll need to ask for la jiu jeong (chili sauce), la jiu yeow (chili oil), or dao b...

  • Spring 2019

    Small dishes of food in bamboo bowls on a dim sum cart
       By Arthur Leung
    PHOTO: Alice Cheung Dim Sum Cart Dim sum house in Mongkok, the crowded, traditional one with gleaming walls, red flowery carpet, you squeeze through waiters and eaters, tables and chandeliers to...

  • Spring 2019

    A shot from above as a throng of people cross a city street
       By Kate Rogers
    PHOTO: Siriwan Leowratsamee/Unsplash Lamma Island Tofu-fa On the broken trail to Mot tat a field of white ginger lilies  flags us down. We shrug off our packs. Huddled among rui...

  • Spring 2019

    A black and white photograph of human shadows on the pavement
       By Jennifer Wong
    Rainy Afternoon Hong Kong 2018. PHOTO: Joan Pabona @kuochuqu #historyofthebees  #gardenwall #blah #sowhat In 19__ I broke an expensive urn.  Since then I have been breaki...

  • Spring 2019

    Looking through a series of blue gates, each with a hole in the center. A red crossbeam can be seen just beyond the final wall.
       By Kit Fan
    PHOTO: Joel Fulgencio/Unsplash Hong Kong and the Echo What do we know but that we face One another in this place? – W. B. Yeats, “Man and the Echo” HK. I loved my mountains, rivers, and t...

  • Spring 2019

    Rohingya children in a school in a refugee camp
       By Rohingya Poets
    Rohingya students reading The Blossom in the Community Rebuilding Centre education facility in Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp, ​​​​October 2018. Photo courtesy of Mayyu Ali. Translator’s note:...

  • Spring 2019

    A collage combining old bacterial slides with other mixed media, organized in rectangles
       By Crystal Z Campbell
    Crystal Z Campbell, Friends of Friends (Six Degrees of Separation), 4x6x72 inches, vintage collection of bacteria slides circa 1940s, steel, LED strips, automotive paint, plexiglas, 2013 do...

  • Spring 2019

    A double-exposed image of the moon, tinged red
       By Xiao An
    PHOTO: Luca Iaconelli/Unsplash Watching the Moonrise Alone Watching the moonrise alone the silent moon is like the person watching They’re alone together No one utters a single w...
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