Issue 7: July 2019

7! Welcome to the seventh issue of CAGIBI’s literary journal.

A quick origin story: We had a long tradition, along with many friends, of weekend escapes at a big house way out from the city, in a small town in New York’s Sullivan County. The house, owned by a couple, had something like 7+ bedrooms and a long table in the dining room to accommodate all of us who happened to find ourselves there, all the old friends and almost always new ones. Outside, a back porch spanned the length of the house. There on the back porch, we talked and played backgammon. We talked about how we ought to do our own writing retreat, in a house like this one—we’d done a literary collaboration before, and were ripe for another one—we talked about how we ought to do something…while we talked and dreamed and gazed out at the view: a little red shed on a gently sloping lawn, a kitchen garden, and a hillside reaching up into the sky.

This issue’s cover is a photo from those days, a view of that hillside. That something became Cagibi.

This view of trees is a peaceful moment, a respite. Gazing out at this assemblage of green chaos, we experience paradoxically a moment of rest. Like the rest note in a musical composition: the silence is not an absence of sound, instead it transcends the notes on either side of it. The music lifts the rest notes and takes them for us to a place beyond silence. You won’t find everything to be peaceful in this issue, certainly not. We’re pleased to say you’ll find some chaos and rage, respective of the world we live in, and these tones may be restoring, too. What pieces will you find restoring in this issue, what pieces transcend?

The Editors.

Issue 7

July 2019

Features

(1.) A Life with Lists: (1.a.) Dispatch from Mississippi - by Jordan James
Confused, Day-to-Day Lived Realities: Interview with Deborah Baker - by Katharine Coldiron, an interview with Deborah Baker on her book The Last Englishmen

Stories

The Center of Everything - by Couri Johnson
Mount P. - by Denise Robbins
In Translation: Pascal’s Gelato // Il gelato di Pascal - by Francesca Diano, trans. Laura Valeri
Other Esther - by Gemma Seltzer
auf Deutsch - by Heidi Davidson-Drexel
Socialization - by Kathryn Draney
Race - by Keenan Norris
Molecular Music - by Larry Malchow
The Longboat - by Sam Keller

Essays

How to Set the Dining Room Table - by Elizabeth Jannuzzi
Ellen - by Jane Bernstein
Member, Neptune Society - by Sally Ashton
Riffat’s Diary - by Taymiya R. Zaman

Poems

Autobiography of Buzz Aldrin - by Bill Neumire
Hephaestus - by Colin Criss
Carte Postale - by D. R. James
Lines Composed 750 Miles West of Charlotte, North Carolina, on Hearing of President Trump’s Scripted Plea for Unity Drowned Out by the Raucous Crowd Chanting ‘Lock Her Up !’ October 26, 2018 - by D. R. James
In Translation: A European Peace, 5 // Una paz europea, 5 - by Fruela Fernández, trans. Sarah Hartley
Maafa to Mami Wata - by Heather 'Byrd' Roberts
Stalin Wakes on Hitler’s Birthday, April 20, 1945 - by Holly Woodward
A Place to Put the Body - by Jennifer Bundy
Most of That Life - by Jennifer L. Hollis
Year One - by Kelle Groom
My American Childhood in Reverse - by Kimberly O’Connor
Self-Portrait with Ripe Tomato - by Lauren Camp
Hybrid - by Lourdes A. Gautier
Polite Dinner Conversation - by Mary Beth Ashley
Ode to Drag Queens - by Michelle Peñaloza
In Translation: Wind // Wiatr - by Tomasz Różycki, trans. Mira Rosenthal
But It Wasn’t - by Tony Leuzzi

Issue Cover

“Hillside” photograph by C. Shade.

Issue 7.1

Features from Cagibi Express

The Face Tells the Secret (book excerpt) (Wednesday, October 9, 2019) - by Jane Bernstein, from her novel The Face Tells the Secret
Thanksgiving in Budapest (Tuesday, October 1, 2019) - by Ashley Stimpson
Mary Pilon // The Cagibi Express Interview (Tuesday, September 24, 2019) - Cagibi interviews Mary Pilon, co-author of the new audio series, Twisted: The Story of Larry Nassar and the Women Who Took Him Down
A Holding Pattern: Postcard from the Persian Gulf (Tuesday, September 10, 2019) - by L. Ashby
USS John F. Kennedy: Postcard from My Youth (Tuesday, September 3, 2019) - by John Van Kirk
Postcard from Upper Truckee River, Sierra Nevada (Tuesday, August 27, 2019) - by Kim K. McCrea
As a River (book excerpt) (Tuesday, August 20, 2019) - by Sion Dayson
Postcards from Granero Drive (Tuesday, August 13, 2019) - by Andrea Lee Dunn
Naomi Shihab Nye // The Cagibi Express Interview (Wednesday, August 7, 2019) - Cagibi interviews Naomi Shihab Nye, the Young People's Poet Laureate, whose latest book is The Tiny Journalist
Postcard from Esztergom, Hungary (Tuesday, July 30, 2019) - by Karolina Zapal

Prefer to Dive In at Random?

A cagibi is a place where things are often gathered pell-mell, which comes from the French word pêle-mêle, a state of affairs characterized by the random mixing of things, a chaotic state of affairs that also opens the door to unexpected discovery. In that spirit, while this page lists the contents alphabetically by the contributor’s first name, here also is a separate list in random order, to encourage you to skip around the contents of Cagibi Issue 7, to discover a work of prose or poetry you’d like to sink down into. We expect it will stay with you, and we hope you’ll be inspired to share it. Dive in!