Perigee

Uncategorized

Worse than White

29 Jun 2015
0
  Worse than White by Ginger Skinner   Abigail was born too light. Too light for her momma and aunties. All of them varying shades of deep brown and proud of it. “I don’t know how that child ended up so light. Everybody say her momma laid down with one of them Proctors over in Birchwood,” said Aunt Millie. “Just as pale as a ghost. Like a lil white girl,” added Aunt Colleen. Shavonne from sixth grade was inky dark just like Aunt Colleen and described Abigail the very same way.  It tended to ooze out of her mouth each time her fist met Abigail’s face. “Dumb ass white girl!” The last time it happened, Shavonne hooked Abigail’s leg with her foot just as she stepped off the school bus. Abigail landed hard, face first on the sidewalk, and all the fifth and sixth-graders watched as Shavonne hovered over her and spat out, “You think you better! Don’t you? Well, you ain’t.” Shavonne’s words bruised Abigail. Abigail had long blamed her father for her peachy-beige complexion and smattering of freckles. She’d suspected he was the culprit because she heard her momma once call him a “redbone devil.” And one time...
Read More
Uncategorized

Writing in the Margins: Questioning

29 Jun 2015
0
  Throughout this week, Perigee will be featuring writing from participants of  Apogee Journal and NY Writers Coalition’s first ever Writing in the Margins Workshop. On the first night of our eight week course we asked participants to write down questions: Questions about writing, writing and justice, writing and identity.  The goal was not to answer these questions, but rather to collectively identify what we need and want to question. To begin this series, we’d like to share these questions with you.     Social Justice Do you have to be angry to create good social justice writing? What is the goal (‘point’ seems too blunt) of writing with an awareness of social justice? Is it focused on the present, the near future, or the way future future? How do I write with urgency without being pedantic? (I.e. I want to help push a socialist revolution without anyone realizing it.) How do I use my writing as a tool for social change? Should writing be prioritized over organizing? Ah!! How can we imagine what collective liberation will look like? What gets in our human way of figuring out how to redistribute wealth? What do you read to start a revolution?...
Read More
Uncategorized

The Star Side of Bird Hill: An Interview with Naomi Jackson

26 Jun 2015
0
  Apogee Issue 5 contributor Naomi Jackson launches her first novel Tuesday, June 30. The Star Side of Bird Hill is the story of a family, three generations of women living in Barbados and Brooklyn. The weight of diaspora and separation, the weight of motherhood and childhood, of sexuality and desire swings pendulously through the pages of this remarkable story. Cecca Ochoa (CO): First of all, congratulations on writing a gorgeous and skillful debut novel! I couldn’t put it down.  On the eve of the release, how are you feeling? Naomi Jackson (NJ): Thanks so much for this interview invitation, and for your wonderful questions, Cecca. I’m so glad to be speaking to Apogee. I have a literary crush on you all. A couple days out from book launch, I’m feeling good. About a month ago, I turned the corner from super angsty to just a little bit angsty. I have been fortunate to be surrounded by writers, friends, and family who encourage me to slow down and enjoy the process of publishing my debut novel. Tiphanie Yanique and Tayari Jones are two guiding lights. I was so pleased to meet Edwidge Danticat when she read at Hunter College in...
Read More
Uncategorized

Faith at the Border: Caitlin Blanchfield

26 Jun 2015
0
  Our online symposium, Faith at the Border, is nearing its end. What follows is a compelling and thoughtful email exchange between Apogee’s Poetry Editor and Issue 05 contributor Caitlin Blanchfield in which they discuss fear, dread, Rudolf Otto, and sociopolitical structures. These contributions for Faith at the Border are from our Issue 05 writers. Read their work in Apogee Issue 05, available for purchase now.    Jupiter, 2011 Nica Ross   Apr. 16 Joey: Greetings Poetry Contributors, As part of our promotion strategy for the upcoming issue, the editors have discussed using our web presence to host an online symposium of think-pieces and/or essays by contributors of issue 5 on the subject of translation and faith. Translation and Faith: What role does faith play in crossing borders? Borders can be seen as representing a physical object or event–a borderline, state border, text or body (human, water)–or an intangible such as language, words, hybridity, and identity. The other side cannot be known until it is experienced and is, perhaps, unknowable even then. In the act of crossing between, in what do you place your faith? And how? If you feel a response to any element of this question, I encourage you to participate. I...
Read More
Uncategorized

Faith at the Border: Mike Crossley

25 Jun 2015
0
  Our fourth day discussing Faith at the Border with our issue 05 writers. Today we’re featuring Mike Crossley, who addresses belief, connectivity, and the pressing, human reason to “trade subatomic matter.”  These contributions for Faith at the Border are from our Issue 05 writers. Read their work in Apogee Issue 05, available for purchase now.      Jupiter, 2011 Nica Ross Untitled, by Mike Crossley   There is faith in the words we say and write. Faith that the synaptic traffic merging into molecular-chemical activity, into something resembling a thought, successfully completes its route and not only retains meaning, but transmits an understanding. There is faith in the fact that this all starts as quantum intent. More or less, Einstein calculated energy turns into matter, matter into energy, neither destroyed only redistributed. We shake hands and trade subatomic matter. We stare at one another and project electrons back and forth, translating particles. This connectivity. The fundamental quality across all humanity is the need to understand. Learning a new language to translate the intent of material. Think about this. One’s intent, which began as a quantum swirl, has been arranged through a series of symbols. Then interpreted. It’s contagious. So much of...
Read More
Uncategorized

Faith at the Border: Kudam Taraf, Mina Zohal

24 Jun 2015
0
  On the third day of our online symposium, Faith at the Border, Mina Zohal grapples with borders, crossings, ghosts, and language. We asked our issue five writers: in what do you place your faith during the act of crossing between places, nations, people, bodies, things, and feelings? And how? We asked that writers be free in their (re)definitions of borders and faith. The work Mina Zohal has shared is as thoughtful as it is breathtaking. These contributions for Faith at the Border are from our Issue 05 writers. Read their work in Apogee Issue 05, available for purchase now.    Jupiter, 2011 Nica Ross Kudam Taraf, by Mina Zohal Sometimes, I sit across the table from you feeling helpless in the face of the disintegration of our materials. I think: I’m reaching for a suitable praxis, but discordant sounds are taking shape between languages. Our land. Our land. Our family our land. Environs muttered through bad teeth. Rocks fall from my mouth as I try to articulate possible futures. Mother-tongue Mother-land Mother-mother. Mother me. Fals-e marg came early this year. Hawa e besyar garm ast. Da e roz haa, besyar khasta hastam, but sleep breaks like light or water in little eruptions just at the edge of: I...
Read More
Uncategorized

Faith at the Border: LiraeL O

23 Jun 2015
0
  Today marks the second day of our online symposium, Faith at the Border. We asked our issue five writers: in what do you place your faith during the act of crossing between places, nations, people, bodies, things, and feelings? And how? We asked that writers be free in their (re)definitions of borders and faith. LiraeL O shares with us her indispensable meditation on the body, borders, and faith. These contributions for Faith at the Border are from our Issue 05 writers. Read their work in Apogee Issue 05, available for purchase now.    Jupiter, 2011 Nica Ross On Faith and Borders, by LiraeL O It’s all circumstantial The big reveal What are you waiting to show the world? What will life be like after they know all? The things we ask women to do to their armpits What’s your stink? The amount of nervous laughter we engender in women Faith and borders, faith and transitioning across space, bodies, emotional states etc… Faith in medical unknowns Faith in the community that holds me Faith in the self that holds me Faith in my carry Faith in my ability to pay it when I need to Faith in my sisters Faith in the unfolding Each slab of tissue reveals...
Read More
Uncategorized

Faith at the Border: Resident Alien, Kazim Ali

22 Jun 2015
0
  I had a question. While reading through and compiling the poetry for issue five, this same question kept harassing my core. In issue five, we catch many speakers in the midst of border crossing. LiraeL O and Charif Shanahan ruminate on borders of identity. In Zubair Ahmed’s “Blueprint,” a speaker in search of origin says, “I ask God for my blueprints. / He hands me a thing rectangular box / As lightweight as an insect.” In “New Map,” we catch Marisa Beltramini’s speaker feeling small as the image of boiling water crosses her from a profane space into a religious one. She writes, “I am small / as an iridescent beetle, / my back an arched and ready mask / of orange and black.” What originates this feeling of smallness? Of lightness? Borderlines can be represented by events or physical objects–state lines, text or bodies (their ability, their change)–or represented by the intangible, such as language, words, identity, and hybridity. The other side cannot be known until it is experienced and is, perhaps, unknowable even then. We asked our writers: in what do you place your faith during the act of crossing between places, nations, people, bodies, things, and feelings?...
Read More

Contributors: Issue 5

21 Jun 2015
0
Letter from the Guest Editor: “About the Psyche” by Morgan Parker Fiction Experiential Studies by Tiphanie Yanique The Night Suzy Link Goes Missing by Lisa Ko The Mystery of the Best Friend by Lydia Conklin Poetry Folie a Deux by t’ai freedom ford Donor List: Kidney by Brionne Janae Date Night with Abdelhalim Hafez by Safia Elhillo Phone Call with Abdelhalim Hafez by Safia Elhillo Beer Pong by Camonghne Felix No Shade, Though by Camonghne Felix Erasures by Caitlin Blanchfield From “Nature Poem” by Tommy Pico A Case for the Control of Guns in the Hands of Men by Emily Brandt Rumination on She by Lirael O Clean Slate by Charif Shanahan Risk by Sam Sax The Italian Root of Quarantine Is by Sam Sax Surrender by Danez Smith Private Manning by Kazim Ali O’ to be Young Black & Gifted by Mike Crossley Apologia by Jocelyn Sears Last Night by John Lee Clark Edges of Insomnia by Zubair Ahmed Blueprint by Zubair Ahmed New Map by Marisa Beltramini The Sun of Knowledge by Nadia Anjuman Insane Heart by Nadia Anjuman Nonfiction To Be Young Gifted and Black: A Travelogue of Black Women Artists in France and America by Naomi...
Read More
Uncategorized

Mina Zohal, Baaraan-e Digar

17 Jun 2015
0
We are deeply sorry for an error in the printing of Mina Zohal’s essay, “Baaraan-e Digar” in Apogee Issue 05. A paragraph of text was mistakenly added to her piece during production of the issue, which significantly affected the content. For this reason, and with our sincerest apologies, we are reprinting “Baaraan-e Digar” here in its entirety, with the author’s permission.   1 Every time you go home, we get hectic. We go to Walmart, Target, Big Lots, the dollar store, the coat factory, the thrift store, and Ross. We shop for eye drops for Amma jan; ties and socks for your brother, nephews, and cousins; perfumes for their daughters and wives; aspirin; a stuffed animal for Zargoona jan; and a cane for your Sufi kaka. We go over the power of attorney, the bills, the will, the plants, the mail, the keys, the yard, the car. I’m so worried about you. We pack and repack and pack and pack again. I sit on your suitcase and kiss your hands. I don’t tell you this, because I’m sick of those Wahabi pamphlets, but deep down, I still feel like a Muslim. You’re so stressed out at the check-in. In all...
Read More
1 … 28 29 30 31 32 … 43

FOLLOW US: @APOGEEJOURNAL

Twitter feed is not available at the moment.