Save the Date! 2020 Submission Deadline
Calling all writers and photographers! The Alembic editors invite you to submit your work by no later than 11:59 pm on January 15th.Read now
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Sisters
We’ve been sprawled on the old wood bridge for hours.
Our young palms are splintered now by twisted boards and the tops
of our feet sting,
red
from the biting chill whipping our bare skin.
I’m more scared than you are.
You’re more scared than anything.
Icy gray clouds shift endlessly above our sweet warm breaths:
mine wasted on childish trivialities
and yours blessed with provocative profundities.
We wade in half-frozen water in the woods by where we are grow-
ing up.
This is the place I will stagnate
and it is almost winter
and our world is still big.
Read now
Emmett Till
Based on the painting “Open Casket” by Dana Schutz, 2016 Inside the open casket lies a Black boy Whose face tells his-story An innocent Black boy who was supposed to— Live a sweet childhood Yet, there it lies His mutilated face Upon the pillow of grief All hopes of tomorrow Lost in his Black suit Read now
Dirty Water
And with my own eyes I see her, breast teasing the orange creek, head cocked backwards, anchoring it softly into the water that Sam calls shit water, that my dad calls golden river. Toes pressed against the rusting dock, little moles sitting on her legs like flies, she hums. I shake, tossing gravel into the Read now
An Interview with Ed Ochester
Ed Ochester grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He is the longtime editor of the Pitt Poetry Series (University of Pittsburgh Press), and the founding editor of the journal SAM. His own collections of poetry include We Like it Here (1967), Dancing on the Edge of Knives (1973), Miracle Mile (1984), Allegheny (1995), Snow White Read now
An Interview with Ruth Gilligan
Ruth Gillligan was born and raised in Co. Dublin, Ireland. When she was 18 years old, she moved to the UK, just one month after she had published her first novel Forget, which became a number one bestseller. She works as a full-time lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. She writes regular Read now
An Interview with Phillip B. Williams
Phillip B. Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois and earned his MFA from Washington Uni- versity, where he was a Chancellor’s Graduate fellow. He is the author of Bruised Gospels (Arts in Bloom Inc., 2011), Burn (YesYes Books, 2013), and Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books, 2016), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Read now
Afro
I was six, or seven. It was a scalding Dominican summer day that began with a hurried packing of bare-essentials— underwear and shorts—as my aunt prepared me for a visit to my grandmother’s in the campo. It was basically out in the wilderness, some miles away from the city. Whilst I was inside, saying goodbye Read now
An Interview with Jane Lunin Perel
Professor emerita Jane Lunin Perel ’15 Hon. arrived to teach English and creative writing at Providence College in 1971. She has stretched students’ creative capacities ever since. She also led the initiative to establish the College’s Women’s Studies Program in 1994, serving as its first director, and was devoted to it and the Department of Read now
A Theory of Whiteness
I had a theory about white walls. White is a sterile color, unfeeling and void of emotion but not meaningless. The hospital walls were strategically colorless because memories don’t stick to something so bland. It is a mechanism to help ease the healing process, to try and alleviate the grief and mourning of the families Read now