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10 Questions for Laura Newbern

September 8, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

. . .She was upright, lodged

at one of the bigger brighter spas in the country,
under her husband's lover's name. She was not

in the pit, not in the silent, bottomless pool.
And yet she was. Of course that was where she was.
—from “Of the Mind,” Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I wrote a poem in 3^rd or 4^th grade called “The Nervous Child,” about walking out of a piano recital because the terror of waiting to perform was just too much. It rhymed, and it ended with a death-wish. I can still recite it.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
Honestly I think...

10 Questions for Alex Chertok

September 7, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

for Judy Garland's name
and your son's birthdays
to hourglass out
—from "Ever since Alzheimer's cut a hole in your pocket", Vol. 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I wrote a poem in middle school I called "My Dearest Dear," until recently still featured on what looked to be the first website ever made, in the voice of a mother watching her child grow up and out of his need for her. (I still remember these lines: "Your youth has faded to a speck so mere / In some distant land which is not clear / Within my heart, my dearest dear.") This was the only time I carried out Frost's dictum "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader....

How to Talk to Your Parents About Politics: Part 2

September 3, 2021 - By Dominique Fong

Photo Credit: Marcela McGreal, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Young Asian Americans describe how they’re coming to terms with political differences at the dinner table and in society

Tip #2: Understand the impact of traumas of the past

Johnny Trinh, a 23-year-old from Westminster, a southern Californian city with the country’s largest population of Vietnamese Americans, started to see how his parents' flight from the Vietnam War shaped who they are and made them cling to certain conservative messages. At first, he felt like they had no common ground, but over time, his criticism of their views softened. He became less quick to judge, and more eager to preserve what he could of...

How to Talk to Your Parents About Politics: Part 1

September 2, 2021 - By Dominique Fong

Photo Credit: Marcela McGreal, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Young Asian Americans describe how they’re coming to terms with political differences at the dinner table and in society

When Jamie Gee joined a Black Lives Matter protest last year, the crowd marched peacefully through downtown Oakland until it got to the city’s Chinatown district, where Gee saw some people smashing windows and spraying graffiti on the walls of Chinese businesses.

“That was upsetting,” Gee said. “I could see they were actively hurting my community.” Soon after the protest, Gee, a 34-year-old middle school teacher who is Chinese...

10 Questions for Alisha Dietzman

September 1, 2021 - By Edward Clifford

I should write more about America and us naked in a river.

You called me a coward as you pulled off your clothes.
Not wanting to be a coward, I pulled off my clothers

                                                The midnight of a night slipping

—from “Love Poem without Light,” Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The first poem I wrote that made me feel like a poet spanned 14 sections and over 30 pages. I had read The ...