by Susannah Brister For twenty-two years, I didn’t really know what my body looked like. Whenever I got in or out of the bathtub or the shower, I never looked straight at myself. I averted my eyes from the mirror, afraid that seeing my own nakedness was somehow wrong. Raised in the homeschooling evangelical Christian … Continue reading Shaping Identity: Body
by Ann Marie Bausch There is a famous family story about my husband as a little boy. At a gathering, a relative asked one of the only questions adults can think to ask of children: “So what do you want to be when you grow up?” Wes, five years old, looked puzzled, and then replied, … Continue reading Shaping Identity: The Identity that Wasn’t
A note from Rock & Sling: Jason Mehl’s essay “Ears to Hear” appears in Rock & Sling 13.1. You can read the essay here. By Jon Maire On the surface, “Ears to Hear” is an interesting personal essay about a safari and a guy with a real – or imagined – heart problem. But when … Continue reading An Interpretation of Jason Mehl’s Essay “Ears to Hear”
by Margaret Rozga As a person who has long been active in social and racial justice movements, my goal as a poet is to create poetry written from a deep commitment to social justice issues. My books can serve as examples. 200 Nights and One Day is about the Milwaukee fair housing marches in which … Continue reading Vox II: Contributor Notes
by Ann Marie Bausch When news of sexual assault allegations against author Junot Díaz broke in the spring of 2018, my first reaction was grief: Not him! Díaz was one of my favorite writers, an advocate for immigrants and the causes of the dispossessed worldwide, someone I felt I had learned from. But his alleged* … Continue reading What We Read
by Meghan Foulk Now, more than ever, do we need to hear from the greater community within America. Polarization and pointed fingers widen division and crumble our foundations; we see each other as enemies rather than members of the same community. Being a Women and Gender Studies minor, intersectionality of identities is crucial to understanding who … Continue reading Vox II: Intersectionality
by Caitlin Wheeler A few years ago, a few colleagues and I hosted lunch for a well-to-do visiting author. The author invited a local friend to join and they gabbed about nearby orchards and her friend’s meadery. When a colleague tried to join the conversation by sharing an experience she’d had working in a bicycle … Continue reading Vox II: Engage
by Emily Hanson American Identities is the exploration of the fluidity and the multiplicity of the different identities that have created the world we live in. As assistant poetry editor for this issue, I will be screening poems that share unique identities, exploring the idea of what being an American means. In this special issue … Continue reading Vox II: American Identities
by Sara Whitestone This piece was originally published by GFT Press. Of all my States of Mind, Virginia is the hardest to unmix—to cipher down thousands of memories and moments into just a few words, to distill from so many impurities just a few potent truths. What do I write about Virginia, where I have … Continue reading Thankfulness
by Karen Bjork Kubin I wish you could have seen the look on his face, walking home from school. I wish you could carry it with you, etched under your ribs, the way I do. My son’s face was luminous, open, free. It was early in the school year, late August or maybe early September. … Continue reading Rainbow Boy
