When there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely. again, somehow, one saw life, a pure beat. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be.
-Virginia Woolf, “The Death of the Moth”

EDITOR’S NOTE
Jena Salon

When I think of Virginia Woolf, the picture that springs to mind is a woman in a large dress, wading slowly into a river, her pockets laden with stones so that she will be sure never to surface again. The image is always romantic and never fraught with the realities of drowning, gasping for breath, thrashing as your body struggles to reverse the process. …Read the whole letter here

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ESSAY
Christine Schutt
Country: A Mix Tape

 

FICTION
Kate Brody
Help Wanted

Carlin Twedt
The Standpipes

Brazil
Ferreira Gullar
Minofagasta; Zinuk
Translated by Anne Freeland

Molly Jean Reid
Dog Story

Justin Kramon
What People Do in Their Apartments

John Kinsella
A Seaside Burial

Madeleine Walker
Windmills

Katherine Zlabek
Love Me, and the World Is Mine

H.E. Francis
The Way Back

 

POETRY
Clay Matthews
Friday Night Lights
Evening Aubade

Eric Paul
The Visit
Wider
Riot

Bethany Goch
In a Typical Gesture of the Period, She Cut Off Her Hair and Sent It to Him
At the Biker Bar
Response to Your Letter Regarding Lottie Williams, the Only Person Known to Have Been Hit by Space Debris

Romania
Ana Blandiana
The Hidden Light
Stairway
Seed of Darkness
Translated by Paul Scott Derrick and Viorica Patea

Amy Meng
Song
Self-Portrait with Questions

Diane Mehta
Brooklyn Sonnets I, IV, V

Korea
Kim Kyung Ju
Manhole
Translated by Jake Levine and Jung Hi-Yeon

Jesse Nathan
Ideas
Ice at Mile Marker 255

Adam Scheffler
My Body

France
Matthieu Baumier
#1; #2; #3
Translated by Elizabeth Brunazzi

Nikolai von Keller
Miraflores
Ghosts
Lydia Minier’s Heart Gives Out While Playing Hide-and-Go-Seek at a Dinner Party

Stephen Massimilla
Her Sacrifice

Matt Rasmussen
Canal
Blurb for a Book of Poems by Deoxygenated Water

Scott Withiam
Massive Efforts
Agendas

Daniel Wolff
Untitled
Untitled

Terrance Owens
The Night Shift