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A Public Space

No. 09

Politics and Pop: Brian T. Edwards on the making and censoring of art in Cairo; Antoine Wilson at Valhalla; Steve Powers's love letters; All the Best Stories Are True: a manifesto by David Shields; new fiction from T. C. Boyle, Danielle Evans, and Richard Powers; and poems by Derek Walcott, Idra Novey, Mary Jo Bang, and others.

Table of Contents



 

If You See Something

The Failure Bubble: It’s 1998 All Over Again

I hadn’t planned on publishing a novel about the consolations of failure just as the dot-com bubble was inflating and the startup money was beginning to scrub the city stupid block by block.

Benjamin Anastas


 

If You See Something

More Geese Than Swans: At Play in the Fields of Cinnabar

The American Legion’s club 432 holds a book sale every summer in the Veteran’s Memorial Hall in Cambria.

Gary Amdahl


 

If You See Something

Valhalla

My father requested a witness cremation.

Antoine Wilson


 

Fiction

Of Strange Lands and People

A man rides backward in a packed subway car.

Richard Powers


 

Fiction

Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go

Georgie knew before he left that Lanae would be fucking Kenny by the time he got back to Virginia.

Danielle Evans


 

Art

Love Letter

Love Letter is being painted from Forty-fifth Street to Sixty-third Street on the rooftops and walls of Market Street in West Philadelphia—fifty murals, created by Stephen Powers, who has done similar projects in Dublin and  Belfast.

Steve Powers


 

Poetry

Two Poems

May my enemy be assuaged by these waves / because they are beautiful even to his evil

Derek Walcott


 

Poetry

Untitled

Through God’s grace / the little drops came down, and the spectacle / of human science blabbered on, just waiting / for something to witness up close.

Joshua Beckman


 

Poetry

Haunt

There are too many cedars here / hiding the sun hovering / over the dead

Maureen N. McLane


 

Poetry

Windshield Wipers

Both of them hide something, / That is why they move in such harmony.

​Aleš Šteger


 

Poetry

A Equals All of a Sudden

At work one night / A truck driver had a truck / All of a sudden.

Mary Jo Bang


 

Poetry

Two Poems

dancing in the dark / just two double-spaced antelopes / falling into the idea that art / is somewhere out there in the woods

Ron Padgett


 

Poetry

Mariner

Stranger, I’ve locked the door / to our ocean room.

Jennifer Chang


 

Poetry

In the Barracks: A Found Poem

They had been in the country only for a few days when the hills began pricking into the barracks (which once had been university classrooms) with sniper fire.

Wayne Miller


 

Poetry

The Ex-Cárcel of Valparaíso

And so it was agreed  / the empty prison would be reopened  / for festivals

Idra Novey


 

Poetry

Lullaby on the Marsh

Slack at the end of the lasso’s loop / before the wrist is snapped / Shape of the wave underneath the wave / before the crescent topples over

Sally Keith


 

Poetry

California Poem

What is needed is a recognizable molecule that carries the unstable / promise to the brain.

Joel Craig


 

Poetry

A Bird Loose in the House

The frame—a grid—contrives a theater, / The specter of narrative: / A shadow play  / Alive on a curtain alive with wind.

Eric Pankey


 

Poetry

The Last Word is Emma’s

The moment the anglers  / pulled their net ashore / it broke, and when we / called you up, the line  / was engaged.

Robb St. Lawrence


 

Poetry

Two Poems

I am moved by morning / As the egg is moved / By skillet’s heat

Loren Goodman


 

Fiction

Anacapa

The boat left at eight a.m., and that wouldn’t have presented a problem, or not especially, if Damian hadn’t been in town.

T.C. Boyle


 

Focus

Cairo 2010: After Kefaya—Brian T. Edwards Introduces the Next Generation

You are stuck in traffic in downtown Cairo.


 

Focus

Looks Like It’s Falling Apart: An Introduction

I am the son of the generation who got the shock of multimedia in my face after university.

Omar Taher


 

Focus

Beyond Paradise

Selma sat on the balcony of her father’s house reading Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera.

Mansoura Ez-Eldin


 

Focus

Bordering the Marvelous

Hilal had two memories of his childhood he could never forget.

Mohamed Al-Fakhrany


 

Focus

Ahmed Alaidy in Conversation with Ibrahim El Batout

Ibrahim El Batout has been shot twice.

Ibrahim El Batout


 

Focus

In the Absolute

Oh dark day…What are all these entangled relationships I find myself in, which each day get more entangled than the day before…

Khalid Kassab


 

Focus

The Parkour War

Morning... Like any filthy morning, people feeding off of other people...

Ahmed Alaidy


 

Focus

Young Lover, New Lover

When she’d been there alone with the cat and it had bit her playfully, a shudder had run through her body.

Muhammad Aladdin


 

Feature

All the Best Stories Are True

These are the facts, my friend, and I must have faith in them.

David Shields

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