Baghdad was not the most obvious place to celebrate Passover. Saddam had fallen barely a week before it began, looters were rampaging through the city, dozens of buildings were on fire and Islamic hardliners were arming militias. What’s more, in a city of almost five million people there were only…
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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.
‘The burden in law on the pregnant person is to show that they are at risk, in need; they must ask, and hope, rather than demand.’
Memoir by Andrea Brady.
‘On Good Friday, the priest in the livestream video stood inside the darkened sanctuary.’
Fiction by Nicolette Polek.
‘They queue up to pass, lap / like waves beside her, to receive the darshan / from her one, black eye.’
Poetry by Phoebe Power.
‘Postures of graceful receptivity, or surrender. How do we tell the difference?’
A.K. Blakemore introduces Suzie Howell’s photographs.
‘In clothes, I met strangeness with strangeness. They dressed me with a kind of distanced power.’
Rosie Findlay on fashion and religion.
‘Though I have had dogs all my life, Coco is my first real companion.’
Fatima Bhutto on grief.
