Category: Susan Lewis

It Was the Year (III)

4/27/2015

monsters came out of our closets. Relieved at this validation of our vestigial fears, many of us embraced them, figuratively & literally. Photos of clawed, fanged, & otherwise terrifying specters cuddling with their ‘victims’ supplanted kittens & Venus fly-traps in classroom & water-cooler show-&-tells. Only when the stubborn & spoiled among us tried to coax them beyond the privacy of the bedroom did the horrified creatures, insulted by this misapprehension of their essential nature, revolt. Although diplomatic repair was attempted, it was too little, too late. Our psychic equilibrium came crashing down when we realized we might find them literally anywhere, lying in wait to expose our security for the delusion it had always been.

--Susan Lewis

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It Was the Year (II)

3/23/2015

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paper came back in style. Old people & hoarders were offered top dollar for their dog-eared, coffee-stained relics – in pads or loose leaf, rag or acid-free. At first the craze was fueled by nostalgia for units of wealth which could be handled. When some of us remembered that paper had also facilitated communication, another craze was born, for mark-makers of any sort. Experts popped up like mushrooms after rain, peddling classes in cursive & calligraphy. Since most of us were born physically incapable of shaping our fingers to the task, hand surgery became de rigueur. The gulf between the financially padded & everyone else led to a proliferation of hatchet jobs with a concomitant epidemic of hand-cripples incapable of participating in the new social dialogue, but bent on subverting it any way they could.

--Susan Lewis

SUSAN LEWIS lives in New York City and edits Posit (www.positjournal.com). She is the author of eight books and chapbooks, most recently This Visit (BlazeVOX [books], 2015), How to be Another (Červená Barva Press, 2014), and State of the Union (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2014). Her work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in The Awl, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Connotation Press, Gargoyle, Luna Luna, Ping Pong, Prelude, Propeller, and Yew. More at www.susanlewis.net.

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It Was the Year

12/3/2014

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we customized our saddles to attract the company of angels. The unimaginative among us fashioned theirs from feathers & were laughed at. But the coolest girl in town built hers from water. Unperturbed by its weight, she walked even more smoothly than usual, to avoid making the wrong kinds of waves. The ebb & flow of her hips was nothing short of redemptive, demonstrating that even subjugation can give rise to blossoming. Soon, young people everywhere were making theirs from glass & sand, spiders & jellyfish. The boy who was stung to death was envied for his success. The ensuing spike in casualties gave the elders little choice but to crack down on our budding creativity, casting us back to our preoccupation with nothing but ourselves.

--Susan Lewis

SUSAN LEWIS lives in New York City and edits Posit (www.positjournal.com). Her most recent books are This Visit (BlazeVOX [books], 2015), How to be Another (Červená Barva Press, 2014), and State of the Union (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2014). Her work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in The Awl, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Connotation Press, Dusie, EOAGH, Gargoyle, Otoliths, Ping Pong, Propeller, Raritan, Seneca Review, Verse, Word For/Word, and Yew. More at www.susanlewis.net.

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"Terrible to dress in the clothes
of a period that must end."--Frank Bidart

"You must remember that certain things die out for a while/ so they can be remembered with affection later on." --John Ashbery

It Was the Year (III)

It Was the Year (II)

It Was the Year

Author

Categories

"Terrible to dress in the clothesof a period that must end."--Frank Bidart "You must remember that certain things die out for a while/ so they can be remembered with affection later on." --John Ashbery

It Was the Year (III)

It Was the Year (II)

﻿It Was the Year

Author

Categories

"Terrible to dress in the clothes
of a period that must end."--Frank Bidart

"You must remember that certain things die out for a while/ so they can be remembered with affection later on." --John Ashbery

It Was the Year