Issue 8: October 2019

If humans were to become extinct tomorrow, plastic, that quintessential human artifact, would remain on Earth for centuries more. See Barbie on our cover, seeking shelter behind a piece of driftwood? Barbie would live on as the Rockaways disappear under rising sea levels. Barbie will remain, alone and naked, but we might not. Barbie is what the next life forms will find as they dig through the layers of trash we leave behind to understand what happened to this planet. What will it say about us?

Issue 8 is filled with birds, rolling greens, and other precious remains of summer as fall comes upon us. Will stories such as these also become a thing of the past? Will readers of this uncertain future come across the word “egg” or “field” or “tree” and wonder, what were those? When the next life form toddlers encounter a paper crane, will they know that it once could fly?

When a sixteen-year-old climate activist is ridiculed and demonized, when democracy is repeatedly mugged by filthy crooks and reality itself is vanishing in front of our very eyes, it does require a daring imagination to project ourselves in a future in which we humans still exist and live on as organic matter, and not just as the plastic relics of our failed visions.

How do we dare?

The Editors.

Issue 8

October 2019

Features

Poems About Film by Alberto Blanco - by Alberto Blanco, trans. Ronald J. Friis and Maria Bartlett
A Bit of (Pas de Deux): Translating Jacques Brel - by Michele Herman // Essay & Song Translations

Stories

Don’t Talk to Me About Sleep - by Charlie Scaturro
Building Seven - by Dawn Ryan
Ties - by Elizabeth Genovise
The Weight of One Egg - by Jessica Olivo
Venerable - by Logan Ramirez
The Day Papá Folded Into The Sky - by ME Vera
In Translation: Up There // Yukarıda - by Muzaffer Kale, trans. Ralph Hubbell
Estrangement - by Whitley Carpenter
Prelude to a Housewarming - by Will Clattenburg

Essays

Are you with me? - by David Stuart MacLean
Fourteen Stories in the Life of a Tire Saleswoman - by Megan Taylor-DiCenzo
Paper Cranes - by Susannah B. Mintz
All On a Bright Day In April - by Traci Skuce

Poems

Three Poems by Alyssa Mazzarella - At the Farm Stand // Occupation // State Farm for Women
Two Poems by Christine Jones - Nipple Reconstruction or No Nipple Reconstruction // Early Morning Swim at Ballston Beach
Evening - by Dominique Russell
My Brothers Teach Me What It Means to Grow Up Male in West Texas - by Janice Northerns
Revised Common Liturgy - by Jen Stewart Fueston
Right Side, Wrong Side - by Lee Ann Dalton
My grandpa asks me to say Polish things in English - by Marek Kulig
In Translation: re-flecks, the no not // Rien, le reflet - by Monchoachi, trans. Patricia Hartland
Garden Renovations - by Nadia Farjami
In the Parking Lot of the Stop & Shop I Concede to the Afterlife - by Nicole Callihan
In Translation: Like That Tree // Como ese árbol - by Osvaldo Bossi, trans. Allison A. deFreese
In Translation: Lithium (The Dance of the Snake) // Lithium (Dansul Şarpelui) - by Ștefan Manasia, trans. Clara Burghelea
Checkmate - by Wayne Mennecke

Issue Cover

“Rockaway #barbie” photograph by Nadia Belalia.

Issue 8.1

Features from Cagibi Express

Postcard from Roma (Tuesday, January 7, 2020) - by Margaret Erhart
Rain of Tears: On the Ground in Reggio Calabria (Thursday, January 2, 2020) - by Michael Cronin
Jarndunmunha: Postcard from the Outback (Monday, December 30, 2019) - by Nicole R. Zimmerman
Postcard from a DMV Parking Lot in New York (Thursday, December 19, 2019) - by AM Roselli
At the End of the Road: Postcard from Wisconsin (Tuesday, December 17, 2019) - by Sarah Cords
Aileen Cassinetto // The Cagibi Express Interview + Poem (Tuesday, December 3, 2019) - Cagibi interviews Aileen Cassinetto, the Poet Laureate of San Mateo County and publisher of Paloma Press
Looking for Anne: Postcard from Prince Edward Island (Wednesday, November 13, 2019) - by Julie A. Sellers

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 8, 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!