before she could contemplate doing something for herself with her time

By Alder Duan Hurley
Essays    Reportage    Marginalia    Interviews    Poetry    Fiction    Videos    Everything   

In reflecting on solidarity, we often are left with more questions than answers—an open call for work

A gathering of Lullabies that swirl in various transitional spaces and threshold crossings, carried by the voices of writers and translators

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in conversation with Cyrée Jarelle Johnson

Essays

In English, you choose to be gender-neutral. In Indonesian, it’s a gift from the language.

Marginalia

A day without a hate crime, Asian-American activism in 1970s Los Angeles, worlds made possible by the NEA

Poetry

‘And they were a solemn people: naming / the world, mapping it out, arguing about what it meant. Clandestine as / husbands’

Poetry

“ALL WILL COME BACK FROM ROOTS – NOTHING KILLS BLACKBERRY – BUT WHERE ARE ALL THE SPARROWS”

Poetry

‘The first boy that I dated weighted down his coif / with so much hair gel that the crest atop his pate / was hard as horses’ teeth’

Fiction

‘The bags of paper are bodies, sitting on ledges, tucking their legs into themselves, folding smaller, hugging themselves for comfort.’

Poetry

Never / reaching orgasm, / the colony names its price and I, / hot cent of foreign cash, / sell it slant. Daughters / say it with ozone: my sex is a metaphor / for too much / good luck.

Fiction

Not just her former hands, but the whole scaffolding of the skeleton in front of her had become a Jenga tower whose crucial block had been pulled away from the bottom

The Transpacific Literary Project is calling for writing from the space between waking and sleep, consciousness and dream, between the living world and the underworld

Poetry

A conversation on Marylyn Tan’s debut poetry collection, Gaze Back, plus a brief interview with the author

Essays

Animals are strangely perceptive—in their instinct to survive, they find a home

Fiction

‘He lingered on the edges of my social field of view, here in the basement lab where it was hot and loud’

Fiction

‘I wonder what happens to skin when it is robbed of touch. Does it break? Does it know to breathe? Does it forget the painful sweetness of a tickle?’

Poetry

‘They love long hours of blackout. / They love this snuffed out match / of a little city. To the dust that separates // stained lace. To the poor / thrum of humidity.’

‘On the radio they are playing a record that is skipping. A deep-voiced woman joyfully sings, “My life has just begun– gun– gun–”’

Poetry

“in the jungle they hide until / the seekers, bearing lime leaves jail / them in the silver night.”

Poetry

Be calm. Soon / we will bear sentimentality, scent / what is lost in these cells with carrion, / asphodel, turpentine, forsythia / blooming somewhere in the dark.

In reflecting on solidarity, we often are left with more questions than answers—an open call for work

Fiction

Not just her former hands, but the whole scaffolding of the skeleton in front of her had become a Jenga tower whose crucial block had been pulled away from the bottom

A gathering of Lullabies that swirl in various transitional spaces and threshold crossings, carried by the voices of writers and translators

The Transpacific Literary Project is calling for writing from the space between waking and sleep, consciousness and dream, between the living world and the underworld

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in conversation with Cyrée Jarelle Johnson

Poetry

A conversation on Marylyn Tan’s debut poetry collection, Gaze Back, plus a brief interview with the author

Essays

In English, you choose to be gender-neutral. In Indonesian, it’s a gift from the language.

Essays

Animals are strangely perceptive—in their instinct to survive, they find a home

Marginalia

A day without a hate crime, Asian-American activism in 1970s Los Angeles, worlds made possible by the NEA

Fiction

‘He lingered on the edges of my social field of view, here in the basement lab where it was hot and loud’

Poetry

‘And they were a solemn people: naming / the world, mapping it out, arguing about what it meant. Clandestine as / husbands’

Fiction

‘I wonder what happens to skin when it is robbed of touch. Does it break? Does it know to breathe? Does it forget the painful sweetness of a tickle?’

Poetry

“ALL WILL COME BACK FROM ROOTS – NOTHING KILLS BLACKBERRY – BUT WHERE ARE ALL THE SPARROWS”

Poetry

‘They love long hours of blackout. / They love this snuffed out match / of a little city. To the dust that separates // stained lace. To the poor / thrum of humidity.’

Poetry

‘The first boy that I dated weighted down his coif / with so much hair gel that the crest atop his pate / was hard as horses’ teeth’

‘On the radio they are playing a record that is skipping. A deep-voiced woman joyfully sings, “My life has just begun– gun– gun–”’

Fiction

‘The bags of paper are bodies, sitting on ledges, tucking their legs into themselves, folding smaller, hugging themselves for comfort.’

Poetry

“in the jungle they hide until / the seekers, bearing lime leaves jail / them in the silver night.”

Poetry

Never / reaching orgasm, / the colony names its price and I, / hot cent of foreign cash, / sell it slant. Daughters / say it with ozone: my sex is a metaphor / for too much / good luck.

Poetry

Be calm. Soon / we will bear sentimentality, scent / what is lost in these cells with carrion, / asphodel, turpentine, forsythia / blooming somewhere in the dark.