Steven Dunn

‘My cousin is an artist. He says, You draw some good knives but you still need to work on your stab wounds.’

Various Artists

Protest is an exhibition of historical and contemporary works by sixteen artists concerned with the sociopolitical issues of their day.

Rae Armantrout

‘Because children suspect that objects conceal their powers and intentions, animators make an alarm clock run, screaming, in circles.’

Issue 135

Roddy Doyle

‘Then he said it. — Victor Forde, I can never resist your smile.’

Rae Armantrout

‘Your dad told me to tell you / how good you look to him right now.’ Rae Armantrout revisits Shakespeare’s sonnet 3.

Garrett Caples

‘light plays on the planet / long enough to tell time’

Linda H. Davis

‘Plunged inside the skin of the horse, I felt his sensory burdens, sufferings and fears: his keen sensitivity to sound, smell and touch (even the weight of a saddle)’

Tara Bergin

Astrid Alben

‘2016 is almost over but the impact of this year’s political events will reverberate around the globe for decades.’

Issue 135

John Connell

‘Her dreams were interrupted occasionally by the sound of the cow and her newborn calf from the outhouse sheds. A low bellow would crinkle the folds of her mind and then seconds later it would be answered from some other shed in the distance.’

Philip Ó Ceallaigh

‘Britain has made the control of borders and the free movement of people its central obsession, its fundamental national anxiety.’ Philip Ó Ceallaigh on Brexit.

Fatima Bhutto

‘I have gone to the forest to lie among the moss and sleep under a canopy of trees. I have gone to the forest to root among the soil and listen to the birds.’

Azam Ahmed

‘I do not do this work for the government, or the Taliban, or even the men who I collect from the battlefield and return to their loved ones. All these years I have done this for God.’

Lily Dunn

Lily Dunn on her father’s losing battle with alcoholism.