‘I don’t remember whether I believed that I could just / abandon one life to begin another’
It feels like it was only yesterday morning that I got up from my desk
leaving my biography half-written and half-read
I don’t remember whether I believed that I could just
abandon one life to begin another
or whether it was simply a moment of half-consciousness
and returning half a century later …
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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.
‘For European thinkers, defining things has always been a serious hobby.’
Jaan Kaplinski on Europe.
‘It is a nice thing when we say to each other, I am as happy with you as I am when I am alone.’
A story by Devon Brody.
‘All sex is about letting go, I tell myself, and it is about time I do.’
Fiction by hurmat kazmi.
‘In clothes, I met strangeness with strangeness. They dressed me with a kind of distanced power.’
Rosie Findlay on fashion and religion.
‘Curling herself into a tight fist against the cold, Martha huddled in the doorway and wondered if tonight she might see snow.‘
