New Read: Witness XXII

Two of my poems are featured in this journal published annually by the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada (Las Vegas). Impressive Contents below:


"With this issue, we revive, in different form, the feature for which Witness is perhaps best known: the special issue. Beginning in 1987 with Volume 1, “Writings from Prison,” Witness has published nineteen special issues on topics ranging from exile to autobiography. Many of these issues have been used as classroom texts in colleges, universities, and libraries, and some were released as university press anthologies. Because Witness is presently only published annually, however, and because we continue to receive outstanding work that, while resonant with several themes, doesn’t conform to the rigid needs of a special issue, we have elected to continue our topical focus as a portfolio rather than an entire volume. Our goal is to echo some of the themes evolving from Black Mountain Institute’s public programming while still inviting superior work of every possible subject.

"In the case of this issue’s portfolio, 'Dismissing Africa,” the topic was encouraged by 'From Apartheid to Darfur: Africa’s Struggle Against Disdain,' a Black Mountain Forum panel that featured Wole Soyinka, Chris Abani, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Alexandra Fuller, and Chenjerai Hove."

Portfolio: "Dismissing Africa"
» Introduction*
Fiction
» George Makana Clark - "The Hippo Hunters"
» Chris Gavaler - "The First Documentary"
» Zachariah Rapola - "Tulo ya Montshiwa"
» Valerie Sayers - "The Object of My Preposition"
Poetry
» Yahya Frederickson - "Letters from Kogi"
» Emmanuel Sigauke - "A House for Mother," "Gonera Bees"» Bernard Matambo - "About Zimbabwe"
» Dike Okoro - "What Song in This World is Without Sorrow?," "Remembering"
» Tina Barr - "Zabiba," "Before the Prophet’s Birthday"
Nonfiction
» Colleen Kinder - "Moderate Pomp"
» Tom Whalen - "Carlier and Kayerts"
» Catherine Taylor - "Duffer’s Drift"
» Lynne Sharon Schwartz - "Reality Tour"
» Chris Abani - "Ethics and Narrative: the Human and Other"

Photo Essay
» Jan Banning – from "Bureaucratics"

*Panel transcript PDF Fiction
» Bonnie Jo Campbell - "The Trespasser"
» James Allardice - "@ the Corner"
» Ander Monson - "New Golem"
» Donna Hemans - "Letting Go"
» Jason Ockert - "Echo"
Poetry
» Kelle Groom - "Oh don’t," "The City of Your Final Destination," "Untitled (People on Fire)"
» Stacy Kidd - "A Blackbird," "The Devil’s Men and Women," "The Devil’s Men and Women,"
"And ask for your eyes that night might tear them," "Fast, but Mined with a Motion, a Drift"
» Carolyn Hembree - "11 a.m. Aubade: V. Cleb at 33," "Eyecandy at Fifteen"
» Jonathan Rice - "Consume," "Distances," "Detritus and Combustion"
» Joelle Biele - "Psyche"
» Tina Barr - "Lipoma"
» Mark Irwin - "Inventory," "Horse," "Avian, and Lit by Air"
» Thomas Reiter - "Sweet Tree, Sweet Tree," "The Convicts’ Garden, St. Kitts"
» Jennifer Atkinson - "Landscape with Goat’s Eye," Landscape with Mud Turtle"
» Dale M. Kushner - "After the Garden, They," "Long Abandoned," "The Mothers"
» Anya Silver - "When My Father Told Me Stories"
» Carl Phillips - "Living Together," "Heaven and Earth"
» Mary Szybist - "Conversion Figure"
» Maya Bejerano - from "The Hymns of Job," "Autumn Leaf"
» Eva Hooker - "Door," "What is Furious and Cold," "The Moon Grows Red in Its Reeds"

Nonfiction
» Kelle Groom - from "City of Shoes"
» Arielle Greenberg & Rachel Zucker - from "Home/Birth"
» Yelizaveta P. Renfro - "Translation: Perevod"