the Yale Literary Magazine

we publish original poetry, prose, and interviews twice a year at yalelitmag.com& re-publish other things we like here.  

[theyalelit]

HAPPY HOLIDAY WKND

BOMBA ESTERO - FIESTA

[russian-style]

Russian movie posters of 1920s.

[prairielights]

TIMOTHY LIU

June 10, 2015 - 7:00pm Prairie Lights

In this special Gay Pride Month event, Lambda Literary Award Finalist Timothy Liu will read from his new book of poetry, Don’t Go Back to Sleep.  

[red-lipstick]

Zin Lim (Korean American, b. 1974, Seoul, South Korea, resides San Francisco, CA, USA) - 1: ID#05, 2014  2: Nomad 1, 2015  3: Nomad 6, 2015  4: Nomad 2, 2015  5: ID#02, 2013  6: ID#15, 2013  7: ID#08, 2014  8: ID#10, 2014   Paintings: Oil on Canvas

[theyalelit]

“This series, begun in 1992, is based on questionnaires that ask the “sitters” for their drug history and their birth date. Each birth date corresponds to an astrological sign, which in turn corresponds to an astrological location. I then remake that quadrant of the sky with photogrammed images of pills glued onto paper. I relabel these “stars” with the chemical history of the sitter to create a portrait of inner and outer space.”—Fred Tomaselli http://www.esopus.org/contents/view/346

[rookiemag]

Why Can’t I Be You: Sarah McCarry

An interview with the writer about mythology, rejection, and diversity in YA fiction. By Stephanie. Collage by Ruby A.

[lareviewofbooks]

“A 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL who finds a cat” has always been the tagline for Mark Z. Danielewski’s new serial novel, The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May (TFv1). And indeed, no spoiler alert needed, over the course of the eponymous “rainy day,” May 10, 2014, Xanther will do just that. But before her LA story even begins, readers must work through 40-odd pages of coming attractions (“New This Season”), the book miming the look of the televisual serial with textual “trailers,” opening billions of years in the future and rewinding through the present before settling in an African cave during the Middle Paleolithic. This front matter foreshadows a planned 27-volume work that would, if realized, likely see the publication of the final episode in 2027.

The “main feature” of TFv1 concerns the events of May 10 and follows nine primary characters, including Xanther and her parents, all of whom are assigned unique fonts to evoke their distinct modes of speech, backstories, and “Affect-Intersectional Motivations.” As the hours unfold, the narrative ranges widely, moving from Echo Park to Venice Beach, Singapore to Mexico, incorporating multiple languages, dialects, and genres. By the end of the day Xanther will rescue and reanimate the cat that will become her “familiar,” a supernatural animal seemingly destined to be her guide and protector, and this cat is just one of many nonhuman entities, animal and technological, that are themselves characters. Readers even meet “Narcons” (TF-Narcon3, TF-Narcon9, and TF-Narcon27), nigh-omniscient Narrative Constructs that edit, ventriloquize, and otherwise give voice to characters whose “data points” they claim to know in their entirety.

Such a wide-ranging, multivoiced novel invites readings from many perspectives and areas of expertise; it is perhaps best read in a group, and reading it together inspired our collective response. As reviewers at the outset of a multiyear project, all we can offer is an inventio, the first steps in the direction of developing a critical heuristic, the concepts, questions, and techniques with which sense might begin to be made of this serialized work, the scale of which will eclipse even Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. It is not incidental that the Ancient Greek rhetorician Hermagoras of Temnos should appear just nine pages into the primary narrative, because what one must do at the outset of any inquiry is identify the concrete elements: who, what, when, where, how, in what manner, by what means (quis, quid, quando, ubi, cur, quem ad modum, quibus adminiculis). Bloom’s taxonomy of learning is referenced on the same page, and in its terms our work is less to evaluate (Bloom’s highest level in the cognitive domain) than it is to annotate, mark, and comment upon as we start to familiarize the unfamiliar.

Jeremy Douglass and Caterina Lazzara and Rita Raley and Tyler Shoemaker on The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May

[lavernecox]

On May 29, 2014, the issue of timemagazine magazine which proclaimed the “Transgender Tipping Point” was revealed with me on the cover. June 1, 2015 a year and 3 days later, Caitlyn Jenner’s vanityfair cover was revealed proclaiming #CallMeCaitlyn I am so moved by all the love and support Caitlyn is receiving. It feels like a new day, indeed, when a trans person can present her authentic self to the world for the first time and be celebrated for it so universally. Many have commented on how gorgeous Caitlyn looks in her photos, how she is “slaying for the Gods.” I must echo these comments in the vernacular, “Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!” But this has made me reflect critically on my own desires to ‘work a photo shoot’, to serve up various forms of glamour, power, sexiness, body affirming, racially empowering images of the various sides of my black, trans womanhood. I love working a photo shoot and creating inspiring images for my fans, for the world and above all for myself. But I also hope that it is my talent, my intelligence, my heart and spirit that most captivate, inspire, move and encourage folks to think more critically about the world around them. Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities. The love and devotion she has for her family and that they have for her. Her courage to move past denial into her truth so publicly. These things are beyond beautiful to me. A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am “drop dead gorgeous” and that that doesn’t represent most trans people. (It was news to be that I am drop dead gorgeous but I’ll certainly take it). But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves . It is important to note that these standards are also infomed by race, class and ability among other intersections. I have always been aware that I can never represent all trans people. No one or two or three trans people can. This is why we need diverse media representstions of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities. I started #TransIsBeautiful as a way to celebrate all those things that make trans folks uniquely trans, those things that don’t necessarily align with cisnormative beauty standards. For me it is necessary everyday to celebrate every aspect of myself especially those things about myself that don’t align with other people’s ideas about what is beautiful. #TransIsBeautiful is about, whether you’re trans or not, celebrating all those things that make us uniquely ourselves. Most trans folks don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class. I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks. Trans folks of all races, gender expressions, ability, sexual orientations, classes, immigration status, employment status, transition status, genital status etc.. I hope, as I know Caitlyn does, that the love she is receiving can translate into changing hearts and minds about who all trans people are as well as shifting public policies to fully support the lives and well being of all of us. The struggle continues…

[therumpus]

I feel so lucky to live in a world with Laverne Cox.

[lareviewofbooks]

We interviewed over a dozen writers, artists and social activists at the 2015 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Check out our interviews with Tavis Smiley, Karen Bender, and Robert Putnam, and stay tuned for upcoming interviews with Mallory Ortberg, Issa Rae, John Scalzi, Heidi Julavits, Rashad Robinson, Octavia Spencer, and many more.

CYNTHIA BOND started writing Ruby over 10 years ago. What started as a 900-page epic was reworked and reworked, scribbled in notebooks and on Post-it notes hung on a clothesline, and finally made whole in a debut novel released earlier this year. The story is about Ephram Jennings and a beautiful woman named Ruby Bell, whom Ephram has been in love with ever since they were kids back in small-town Texas. Now in their thirties, they both return home, where Ruby is forced to relive the violent and painful memories that caused her to leave in the first place. The book is at once a delicate love story and an epic, multigenerational saga driven by the trauma imposed by slavery and prejudice on black families in the South.

In this interview, Bond explains that the story was inspired by her mother, who grew up in a small Southern town that she felt she needed to escape from, and that Bond drew further inspiration by digging deeper into the family well and finding the pastoral, almost otherworldly beauty of her grandfather’s hometown in the Piney Woods. She also talks about her inspirations — from the historical fiction of writers like Zora Neale Hurston to the magic realism of poets like Pablo Neruda — the grueling 10 years of work on this debut novel, and the challenge of writing from a personal place to then creating characters with lives of their own.

[theyalelit]

Los Angeles Plays Itself

“In memoirs, in documentaries, in conversation, people often describe pivotal, fear-triggering events as having “changed Los Angeles overnight.” After Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson family, people in the city started to lock their doors “overnight.” I was at a Christmas party when someone said to me that on the eve of the O. J. Simpson ruling everyone in Hollywood became a gun owner overnight. Nothing in Los Angeles happens overnight, but this is how people like to talk. Why, I don’t know, but I think it has something to do with wanting the city to be either a dream or a nightmare, like in David Lynch’sMulholland Drive. Psychologically, there are two L.A.’s. One is where Naomi Watts gets to be the sunny aspiring actress Betty and have beautiful teeth and a gorgeous lesbian relationship with an amnesiac Laura Harring. The other is where Naomi Watts is Diane, with fucked-up teeth, an unrequited romantic obsession, and a bullet in her head. They’re both the same movie, and none of it makes any sense. But it says something about how the city sees itself: things are one way, or suddenly another.”

[theyalelit]

summer reads u could pick up!! /// boycott the nyt’s 100% white booklist 

Ladan Osman, The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony

Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen

Abdourahman Waberi, The Nomads, My Brothers, Go Out to Drink from the Big Dipper

Saraba, the Survival issue

Elizabeth Alexander, The Light of the World

Eight New-GenerationAfrican Poets

[fullpraxisnow]

Finally starting this. Just a heads up y’all, this book is online here.

[theyalelit]

summer reads!!

[durgapolashi]

psychic > carefree

[housingworksbookstore]

Jezebel: You quote Eileen Myles—“My dirty secret has been that it’s of course all about me”—in The Argonauts. I’m wondering how you think Myles’s next sentence also applies to your process or thinking about your work, if it does: “But I have been educated to believe I’m no one so there’s a different self operating and I’m desperate to unburden my self of my self so I’m coming from nowhere and returning.” Maggie Nelson: I think Eileen had a very different, less privileged upbringing than my own—as she has written elsewhere, she was always being told “don’t think you’re anything special,” so she was just happy to see her name in the phone book. Whereas I was fully encouraged to think of myself as worthwhile and fully expected by competitive parents to “achieve,” etc. But that aside, her comment here means everything to me, because within this “coming from nowhere and returning” is probably the key, to put it bluntly, to how we’re going to get ourselves and each other out of the disaster we’ve made on this planet. I can explain this further but I think I’ll let it stay vague for the moment. But I know exactly what she means, and it’s key.

A Conversation with Maggie Nelson About The Argonauts, Motherhood, Love (via housingworksbookstore)

[theyalelit]

Joel Shapiro and Michèle Gerber Klein in Bomb Magazine

MGK You’re not doing a performance. You’re making a material object that’s about your thought.

JS Yeah, I was investing the material with attitude.

MGK But you invest it with life, I think.

[gumaasaat-deactivated20170103]

Senam Okudzeto All Facts Have Been Changed to Protect the Ignorant, 2001-2006

acrylic ink on silver wash rice, 26 x 20 cm

source

[theyalelit]

Forbidden from riding bikes, fearless Afghan girls are skateboarding around Kabul