Issue 27 | Fall 2022
Spot
Rolla Barraq
Translated by Muntather Alsawad and Jeffrey Clapp
Hold the camera steady
zoom in
and if you want to go further
choose a different angle.
Make sure the light is right.
Maybe the shade out front
needs a spot of light.
All you can do next is press the button.
And that’s what you did—
you pressed it.
…
Bring back the rubble
and the children
and the houses
and the lost souls
and all the voices that fell silent
within that picture—
if you only could!
About the Author
Rolla Barraq was born in Mosul in 1985. In 2018, her poetry collection, What Has Arrived from It, won the competition of the General Union of Writers in Iraq. She has a PhD in Arabic literature and lives in Mosul, where she is leader of the Poetry Club.
About the Translators
Jeffrey Clapp’s poems, short stories and translations have appeared in Samovar, North American Review, Blue Unicorn, Dalhousie Review, Arkansas Review, Sycamore Review, and many others. He is a past recipient of the Daniel Morin Poetry Prize at UNH and the Indiana Fiction Prize from Purdue. His work has been anthologized in Best of Blueline and Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America. He currently lives in South Portland, ME.
Muntather Alsawad studied poetry and literary criticism in Iraq, where he taught in college and primary school, and published poetry and criticism of his own. A native of Basra, he currently lives in the cooler climate of Portland, ME, where he works at the Portland Museum of Art.
Prose
Nonie in Excelsis (Excerpt from About Ed) Robert Glück
Dirk Julia Kohli, translated by Rob Myatt
Panthera onca Jasleena Grewal
The Border Solomon Samson
Tikibik Dominic Blewett
Mistake or Accident Laurie Stone
Excerpt from Mice 1961 Stacey Levine
The Cathedral of Desire Nina Schuyler
The Gorge James Warner
In This Case, He Killed an Innocent Person Carla Bessa, translated by Elton Uliana
A Chinese Temple in California Alvin Lu
Poetry
you have become an archive. Lorelei Bacht
thunderclouds
On the Things I Did at the End of the World Beatriz Rocha, translated by Grant Schutzman
In this movie David C. Hall
Spot Rolla Barraq, translated by Muntather Alsawad and Jeffrey Clapp
Let There Exist For Us… Eva-Maria Sher
That I Would Cameron Morse
Surf
Cover Art
Image 001 Richard Hanus