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We Did It – Aster(ix) Journal Newsletter |August 2019
Aster(ix) Journal
Aster(ix) Journal

We Did It – Aster(ix) Journal Newsletter |August 2019

Aster(ix) Journal
by
August 27, 2019
*|MC:SUBJECT|*

Happy summer to Aster(ix) familia,

 We’re thrilled to share the big news: Aster(ix) won a 2019 FIRECRACKER AWARD for best debut literary magazine from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses!
 

From the Firecracker Judges:

“This refreshing new publication is striking, inspiring, and smartly visionary. The judges are impressed by the commitment to editorial excellence evident in the compelling content and clean design. Commendably, the journal’s mission highlights generative experiment, recognizing the relationship between the creative interrogation of dominant discourse and effective social change. Moreover, leading the charge to nurture and publish works by artists and writers committed to social change with particular attention to works by women of color working on the margin of their discipline, Aster(ix) serves as a remarkable beacon for our times and beyond. This is an impactful and stunning debut, charting and accomplishing necessary work in the field.”

Thank you CLMP for the honor!

This month we have much to share and celebrate, starting with our translations. Reading these works help evolve our questions of each other and the world around us. We are excited to publish an interview with Italian writer, Francesca Marzia Esposito, author of the short story “Autumn Lessons,” available on Aster(ix) in both Italian and English. Along with Esposito, read  works translated from writers Cecilia Vicuña, Hilda Hilst, Kishwar Naheed, Kim Hyesoon, Andrea Jeftanovic, Marigloria Palma, and Flavia Rocha who have been translated from Portuguese, Urdu, Spanish, and Korean. 

New online are poems from our print issue What We Love, by Amy Sara Carroll, Li Yun Alvarado, Mahwash Shoaib, and Karen An-hwei Lee. 

Stay tuned for our next newsletter which will have a sneak peak of our Summer Issue!

With much love,
Aster(ix)
NEW ON ASTERIX
ASTER(IX) TRANSLATIONS
INTERVIEW: FRANCESCA MARZIA ESPOSITO: WRITING DIAGONALLY

The creative process is something that in and of itself has an inexpressible power that cannot be accessed even by the artists themselves. It’s the only way I know how to approach writing – staying ignorant to a certain extent on the rational level and moving through these images, moments, elements of existence that strike me, that are significant for me because they are on my radar. 

FICTION: FESERCII D’AUTUNNO BY FRANCESCA MARZI


AUTUMN LESSONS BY F. MARZI ESPOSITO
TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN BY JEANNE BONNER

I left some roses here, near the end.
But they didn’t sound real,
they seemed human. They behaved like words,
with their cold curves and hard angles, arrows
of sound inside a box. You say FLOWER
with such cruelty. You make me understand
why every rose is an ex-rose.
FOUR POEMS BY CECILIA VICUÑA TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH

El león, sin embargo,
no puede dormir.
Si deja de vigilarla,
ella podría despertar
y nosotros desaparecer
instantáneamente.
TOMFOOLERY BY HILDA HILST TRANSLATED FROM PORTUGUESE

Her name is Joyce (!). She is mignon and delicious, with a teenager’s small breasts, she’s 30 but looks 20 (I’m not afraid of syntax), her mouth with slightly raised corners, the light eyes between yellow and brown, hair almost auburn, elegant in gait and posture.
STANDING AT FALLUJAH’S DOOR BY KISHWAR NAHEED TRANSLATED FROM URDU BY MAHWASH SHOAIB

What should I do with those poems
I had written on
flying birds and laughing girls
for now girls even cheaper than plunder
are bought and sold
THE DISQUIET OF BEING ANONYMOUS | ANDREA JEFTANOVIC, TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH BY J.C. REYES

That night’s darkness sliced by bedroom lights. A considerable time passed. I didn’t know what to do as you moved your lips into a cryptic appeal.
A LULLABY BY KIM HYESOON TRANSLATED FROM KOREAN BY DON MEE CHOI

The mother of the child coddled her dead child in her arms.
She sang a lullaby.
This is the contents of her lullaby.

 
THIS MOMENT OF MINE/ESTE MOMENTO MÍO BY MARIGLORIA PALMA TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH BY CARINA DEL VALLE SCHORSKE

Man defiled her with his ideas (his scientific alchemy)
blasting rockets between her radiant hips and storming
her secret locks. Then he climbed up and spat in her face,
digging his heels in her chest. Brutalized moon

latest issue from Aster(ix):

unbound


In 2013 when we started Aster(ix), we didn’t know what we were committing ourselves to, but for the past five years the journal has been fueled with urgency, love and desire for a space that could house our wild tongue, imagination and vision…”

Aster(ix) Journal’s Winter 2018-2019 Issue, (Un)bound: Five Years of Asterisms, collects our favorite writing from the Asterisms section of the online journal, writing that embodies the spirit of Aster(ix) five years into our extraordinary adventure.

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