Volume 4, Issue 7
To honor those 250,000 Africans who were enslaved for two in a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation became effective January 1st, 1863, Volume 4, Issue 7 features work that celebrates Black joy in the face of (in)justice. It’s not enough to just celebrate though. The work we have chosen for this issue proves that happiness can not be stripped from the Black community no matter the oppression they continue to experience. We are featuring poems by Yasmina Martin and Edythe Rodriguez, fiction by Morgan Christie, nonfiction by Sloane Kali Faye, and visual art by Britnie Walston.
Yasmina Martin’s poem, “We congregate in aisle ten of the twentyfour hour walmart,” immerses us in a world that has found light and beauty in the profane imagery of a Walmart in a southern town, transforming it into a sacred space where the speaker can be vulnerable.
Edythe Rodriguez’s poem, “freedom cartography,” starts off with an auntie struggling to do the speaker’s hair, a young girl. This ritual then morphs into the past where the auntie is mapping out a path towards freedom for a slave girl with every pull of hair into a braid.
“We Cannot Leave Our Truths for Dead: Why I Chose to Change My Name and Modify My Pronouns” by Sloane Kali Faye is a stirring personal essay about how one person went from hiding her/their truth to finding freedom through Black feminist theory.
“Cheese!” by Britnie Walston is a vibrant and colorful painting capturing the freedom, imagination, and endless possibility of childhood.
“Polyp Trees” by Morgan Christie follows Tulie as she takes care of her grandmother, Mebba, in the South.
To spite the ongoing violence that has occurred in the past years in the community, we hope you find as much healing and solidarity in this work as we have.
Book Reviews
Interviews
Art & Photography
Homage to von Humbolt | Visual Art
“What interests me most is the way in which the human body/anatomy corresponds to structures in nature, plants, trees, and the landscape. This can manifest itself either internally or externally in the form of patterns, designs, or metaphorical context; the subtle yet enchanting similarities between the inner life of plants, trees, and humans. What are humans if not plants, trees, and fungi, themselves made-up of organic material?”
Untitled | Visual Art
“Untitled. Mixed-media. Uses text, found images, tape, paint, and plant detritus to capture a feeling.”
Chamber Coda | Visual Art
“Chamber Coda was created exclusively with the pills found in the artist’s mother’s room after a final (successful) overdose. The nation is in the midst of an opioid epidemic, but marginalized populations are at dramatically higher risks.”