‘I remembered the freezer from when we were kids. It had been important to us then, the site of many shameful boyish deeds.’
When I arrived at my parents’ house, on one of my occasional visits, I could tell straightaway that something bad had happened. There was a shifty moment before they told me–it was death, of course, and close to home. The father of one of my old friends had fallen down in his bathroom, and never…
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘What does that mean, vegan cheese? asks a lady who’d had no query about amuse-bouche.’
An extract from The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes.
‘it’s wrong / to let delicacies, even when suspect, go untried’
A poem by Natalie Shapero.
‘“Dolphin safe” labels on our tins are reckoned among marine scientists to mean next to nothing.’
Katherine Rundell on tuna and extinction speculation.
‘The recipe is a text that can produce spattering because it was spattering before it was language.’
Rebecca May Johnson on recipes, repetition and intimacy.
‘Life is not worth living / without salami.’
A poem by Sandra Cisneros.
‘Would you like to come with me for some / old-fashioned inconclusive combat?’
