The Means of Healing: A Conversation with Martha Serpas
By Interview Issue 111
Becoming involved in a poem, allowing the lines to unfold, not knowing if there’s going to be a surprise, a turn, or deepening—this is very similar to being with a patient or family as a chaplain when I don’t have all the answers. Part of my job is to sit with them in uncertainty. It’s a big white space.
Read MoreBlessings Brighten as They Take Their Flight
By Poetry Issue 111
I’ll tell you what / a proverb does. A proverb waits / for the knowing / / animal. A proverb talks / when no / one listens.
Read MoreSonic Theology: Heather Christian’s Musical and Theatrical Liturgies
By Culture Issue 111
The musical metaphors and techniques here surpass a simple recitation of the creed, in part because the music is doing something deeply trinitarian, and you don’t need music theory to feel this in your body.
Read MoreWorking in the Dark
By Visual Art Issue 111
The heaviness of the questions I was trying to answer demanded a slower pace than photography alone could give me. I began sewing plant material from the farm into prints, and when I put the results in my scanner bed, I discovered that they became illuminated in unique ways, transformed into cosmic-looking abstractions.
Read MorePilgrim
By Poetry Issue 111
Lie beside me in this fallowland / / crossed through with tramps’ tracks wandering / lost at even these short spans
Read MoreIn the Studio
By Visual Art Issue 111
I’m crowdsourcing these skills from local weavers and the older women in my family—my grandmothers and aunts—who are now scattered all over the world. They’re sharing stories of various such beds they’d woven or inherited and sending videos and patterns over WhatsApp.
Read MoreThou (a feather)
By Poetry Issue 111
I have carried down the city of you / the continent the fields of corn the fields of you
Read MoreThou (the well)
By Poetry Issue 111
I have carried down the city of you / the continent the fields of corn the fields of you
Read MoreThe Bay
By Poetry Issue 111
Five thousand miles of wind and unbounded / / main arrested and framed as a square— / something the size of something / / knowable, even known.
Read MoreSmall
By Fiction Issue 111
After Don dried his eyes again, he felt one last burst of laughter, then calm. His mother and Viv felt it, too. Their faces relaxed. Finally, trouble left them and there was more to see.
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