In our Fall 2018 Edges anthology, writers, both established and emerging, offer prose and poetry that embrace the theme of edges. These works explore the edges of cultures and country, the edges of language, the edges of space, the edges of gender, of the mind and body. They allow us to consider both self-imposed limits and externally-imposed limitations.
Nathalie Handal’s poem Edge, gives language to the heart of our inquiry.
“she stares at the world,
takes it to the edge of
all the words
men weren’t able to invent.”
An edge offers imagery of the margins, the fringes, the brink and the precipice. An edge also promises the vision of possibility, of what lay beyond the limits we would often rather not live within.
“if the dream is to go beyond empire
if the dream is to stretch our extremities
all the way thru…”
– Lucas de Lima, pinto (“chick” and slang for “penis” in brazilian portuguese)
The writers in this collection explore these possibilities personally, figuratively, and politically. In Andrea Jeftanovic’s short story The Disquiet of Being Anonymous, two characters struggle for intimacy in spite of walls, windows, and the loneliness of modernity. In Vi Khi Nao’s The Launch, womb and the word are blurred, literal and literary creation are interchangeable.
At a time where we seem to need so many boundaries—both as protection and to assert and affirm our agency—these works probe what it might mean to move beyond our limits. While we might imagine these boundaries as hard and inflexible, this anthology aspires to salve and inspire all of us who have—especially, lately—been on edge. Nicole Callihan meditates on softness, and Shay Lawz reminds us:
“A child is an open body”
and
“No woman should ever be ashamed.”
NONFICTION: Bad Muslim by Leila NadirThe world was good/bad, moral/immoral, black/white. Afghan/not. Emotions, hopelessly, painfully bare. (Do you love me?)
NONFICTION: Native Tongue by Ola Osifo Osaze“What do you mean you don’t speak Yoruba,” he asked, a shadow of pity darkening his face. “You should know how to speak your language. Didn’t your parents speak it at home?”
FICTION: Intruder by Melanie Márquez AdamsMortified, my self-pity unleashes. Do you see? That’s why he dumped you, because you’re stupid. I crawl to the bedroom and attempt to make the bed. Why are you cleaning up?Why bother?
REMEDIOS: once more, with feelings by Mahwash Shoaiblet us give thanks this eid
to the erasing of raw aches of the body
the nightly chase of ellipsis to essence
the testing of boundaries of nerves and compassion