Happy Thirtieth Anniversary New Jack City Xavier John Richardson I remember that movie in theaters. I remember the war on drugs that inspired it. Walk with me. It’s June 1, 1991. Me and my boy, Danny Boy, are walking past the GCC Walnut Mall I, II, III, on the UPenn campus, just four […]
Two Poems By Golden I KNOW MY WEDDING DAY WILL BE A CORONATION & A FUNERAL TOO for Golden I command the procession as any southern Black widow would—coal laced, fangs erect, red velvet rippling underneath my abdomen sea-like. Each bridesmaid, the kin in kevlar suits & the poplars in patent heels, leads […]
Malcolm Peacock, Essex and Dennis, Kanekalon and rubber bands on paper, 18″ x 24″. Malcolm Peacock, D’Angelo, 2019, Graphite on Paper, 14″ x 12″.
A Stroke of Fever Johanna Dong He arrived at the peak of wet season, when rain slicked the treetops and swept away the red earth roads. Black Eye claimed she’d seen him pull up to the bungalow on the back of a mud-splattered motorbike, dressed in loose linens and sandals, clutching only a […]
Spanglish Dmitri Derodel Mi papi no dijo una palabra a mi that I remember. My first word era bilingüe—“no.” No sé si él estaba allí to hear me, his shoes were not meant para este país. Mamá y yo, no estábamos su hogar and he needed something distant and familiar, reggaeton, más hijos […]
The Death of Oscar Proud as the Black Patriarch Joe Hughes III Silence: my dad, wearing his black leather jacket and faded Steelers cap, nudging a peach-skinned 2-year-old girl into my aunt’s doorway. It’s November and my 12th birthday is approaching. Swarming memories of maroons and bright yellows are morphing with images of […]
Allana Clarke, Meh Muddah Teach Me, 2019. Allana Clarke, Yet Here We Were, 2019.
sustaining // remnants of their girlhood SA Smythe ; “‘We was girls together,’ she said as though explaining something.” —Toni Morrison, Sula to understand black girlhood we must know we was girls & that couldn’t explain when . protagonist is not a lone individual but […]
The Liar’s Tongue Elinam Agbo Save for the immature fire, it is dark outside, and our grandmother, who lives in the incomplete house, is worried about armed robbers. When we left our wives and retreated here, we expected Grandmother to open her arms, to gather us around a meal and recount stories from […]
Mechanisms of Blue Day Heisinger-Nixon To consider Derek Jarman’s Blue. To consider the single, monochromic slide of the film, the narration emanating from a sick, blue life. To consider the medication Jarman takes to disrupt the red illness of his body. To consider the blue film the medication leaves on his vision, its […]
