Perigee

Faith at the Border: Caitlin Blanchfield

  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...
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Faith at the Border: Mike Crossley

  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...
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Faith at the Border: Kudam Taraf, Mina Zohal

  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...
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Faith at the Border: LiraeL O

  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...
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Faith at the Border: Resident Alien, Kazim Ali

  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?...
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Contributors: Issue 5

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...
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Mina Zohal, Baaraan-e Digar

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...
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FICTION: There Are No Free Lunches, by Kavita Das

  There Are No Free Lunches Kavita Das   On Monday mornings, the final beep would sound over the school intercom at 8:30, signaling that all P.S. 203 students should report to their classrooms. I was in fourth grade with Mrs. Pacman and a video game of the same name was all the rage. Following the final beep, our class, a sea of white, black, brown, and yellow, would stand at our desks and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We were led by a pledge-leader and a flag bearer, positions that rotated daily. Afterwards commenced the quiet period. We read to ourselves in our seats and Mrs. Pacman took on the weekly task of sorting out lunch and milk money. This involved a roll call. She called out “Regular Lunch” and all the kids who paid the regular price for lunch formed an L-shaped single line that ran along one side of the classroom and continued along the blackboard leading up to her desk. We clutched envelopes with $2.50 in lunch money in front of us, trying to make sure none of the coins slipped out. Sometimes I didn’t have my lunch money in an envelope because my parents would...
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Buy Apogee Issue 05 Now!

Issue 05 of Apogee Journal is officially here, and boy is it beautiful! In case you missed it, Issue 05 features writing by Danez Smith * Kate Zambreno * Tiphanie Yanique * Tommy Pico * t’ai freedom ford * Camonghne Felix * Lisa Ko * Emily Brandt * A. Naomi Jackson * Kazim Ali * Sam Sax * Brionne Janae * Caitlin Blanchfield * Charif Shanahan * Jocelyn Sears * John Lee Clark * LiraeL O * Marisa Beltramini * Mike Crossley * Diana Arterian * Safia Elhillo * Zubair Ahmed * Lydia Conklin * Mina Zohal An interview with Paul Beatty, the author of THE SELLOUT And visual art from Richard Hart (cover artist) * Sara Cwynar * Anastasiya Lazurenko * Simone Leigh * Derrick Adams * Mickalene Thomas * The Bruce High Quality Foundation * Jason Lazarus * Jason Larkin * Nica Ross Click below to order a copy delivered to your doorstep:   Or, check the following bookstores soon to pick up a copy: New York City: McNally Jackson Greenlight Bookstore Book Culture Housing Works Bookstore Cafe The Center For Fiction Molasses Books Community Bookstore Mellow Pages Library San Francisco: Pegasus Books Revolution Books

FICTION: Paradox, by Cole Lavalais

  Paradox Cole Lavalais   Lana closed the bedroom door firmly behind her, but it didn’t block out their noise. Even in the elusive moments when screams and screeches and sobbing stopped bouncing off of every solid surface, the reverberation remained. No stranger to self-sacrifice, Lana had done what she was expected to do, until, of course, she discovered the Bruja. Then she did what she was instructed to do. Waiting twenty-three days for the arrival of the quarter moon, then watering the tree with the fruit of forty-two days of her labor—tears, blood, sweat, urine, saliva, all collected from each of them. And for the last eight and a half days, she sat and waited, staring out of her second floor window, watching for something to blossom from the roots of the tree in the front yard. Waiting for the reprieve promised by the Bruja. Two squabbling gray squirrels rolling around the base of the oak tree reminded her of the two squabbling creatures outside of her bedroom door, so she concentrated further up the oak’s trunk. She was forced to look through a translucent version of her own somber face. It was fall, and the leaves were in...
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