House of War
by James Carroll

A year after the Al Qaeda attack, at a rededication ceremony on September 11, 2002, much was made of the post-9/11 repairs having been completed in a mere twelve months. No one seemed to know that the entire Building had been constructed from start to finish in less than sixteen months. [More]

Doing Time
by Steven Bulleit

I sit on my bunk as the minutes tick by. The count should have cleared over half an hour ago. Something’s up. In a place where timing and routine and schedule are the axis upon which the world revolves, remaining locked for so long past the standard count time sends Morse code through the heart of every inmate. [More]

The Theater of Night
by Alberto Ríos

I saw Clemente this morning in a dream.
It was him, Clemente, but when he was    young.

I knew the hard, animal bones of his face.
I went to school with a boy like that and I    have an uncle, too.

You’ve seen them, people with so much horse    in them still
Even after centuries, so much horse and    donkey

In the strong ones, so much spider
In the skinny ones, the way their thin fingers

Move over a piece of chicken. . . .

[More]

A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
by Janna Levin

There is no beginning. I’ve tried to invent one but it was a lie and I don’t want to be a liar. This story will end where it began, in the middle. A triangle or a circle. A closed loop with three points. [More]

Dance Card By Roberto Bolaño; translated by Chris Andrews 1. My mother read Neruda to us in Quilpué, Cauquenes, and Los Ángeles. 2. A single book: Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1961. On the title page, a drawing of Neruda and a note explaining that this edition commemorated the printing of the millionth copy. Had a million copies of Veinte poemas already been printed in 1961? Or did the note refer to all of Neruda’s published works? The first, I fear, although both possibilities are disturbing, and unimaginable now. [More] The Selected Poems of Wang Wei translated by David Hinton At Cloud Valley with Huang-fu Yüeh 1 Bird-Cry Creek In our idleness, cinnamon blossoms   fall. In night quiet, spring mountains stand empty. Moonrise startles mountain   birds: here and there, cries in a spring gorge. 3 Cormorant Bank A quick dive in red locust, then it rises into flight across crystalline shallows, perches alone on old driftwood: sleek robe of black, beak gripping that fish. [More]

Vera Williams:
The Unity Statement


Robie Harris & Susan Patron, with Perri Klass


Saul Williams:
, Said the Shotgun to the Head


Administration of Torture: Audio Slide Show with Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh

A Tribute to Grace Paley:
An Evening of Readings and Remembrance


Guillermo Arriaga & Paul Auster

Words Under Confinement
A panel discussion


Sufjan Stevens
A musical performance


Dreadful Lies/Peculiar Truths
A panel discussion






The War Works Hard
by Dunya Mikhail
Translated by Elizabeth Winslow

How magnificent the war is!
How eager
and efficient!
Early in the morning
it wakes up the sirens
and dispatches ambulances
to various places
swings corpses through the air
rolls stretchers to the wounded
summons rain
from the eyes of mothers
digs into the earth
dislodging many things
from under the ruins . .
Some are lifeless and glistening
others are pale and still throbbing . . .

[More]


Blood Beats: Vol. 1
by Ernest Hardy

When you are the one marginalized and you struggle to represent self and experiences, you can either do so by funneling your shit through the vocab and paradigms that have been historically set in place and elevated (and, in doing so, you effectively reinforce the primacy and superiority of the dominant/established order) or you struggle to create new models, thereby not only challenging but even mocking or dismissing the accepted model which likewise dismisses you. You may not create beauty, you may not create lasting “art” but you forge a new tongue, force a new way of looking and interpreting—a new value system. [More]