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Magazine


Issue 104, Spring 2019

In the Spring 2019 issue, several contributors confront symbols weighted by history—antebellum architecture, Confederate monuments, the American flag—and their processing is instructive. As Jennifer Ho writes: “I cannot claim to be an American and only claim the parts I like.”

Plus: a striking art portfolio by Trenton Doyle Hancock, introduced by novelist Maurice Carlos Ruffin. Our 2018-19 Jeff Baskin Fellow, Micah Fields, explores industrial Houston. Mesha Maren on LGBTQ identity in her native West Virginia. And the final installment of Chris Offutt’s column “Cooking with Chris.”







Editor’s Letter: Clash of Symbols, by Eliza Borné

POINTS SOUTH

Claiming Dixie?, by Jennifer Ho 

Four poems, by Ashley M. Jones

Willie’s Other Voice, by Jonathan Bernstein

The Camel Experiment, by Sasha von Oldershausen 

Some People Stay, by Rachel Louise Martin

Flag Code, by Karen Good Marable

Local Fare: Oaxaca Wreck, by John T. Edge

FEATURES

Performing Arts
A story by Susan Choi

West Virginia in Transition
A ten-year age gap reveals radically different experiences for queer youth in Appalachia
by Mesha Maren

Enter the Moundverse 
Art portfolio: Trenton Doyle Hancock’s ecstatic devotion to resistance
Text by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Gusher
A personal portrait of oil-stained Houston
by Micah Fields

A Slender Wage
A story by Kevin Wilson

OMNIVORE

The House of Myth
On the architecture of white supremacy
by C. Morgan Babst 

Vessel of Antiquity
Influence, invention, and the legacy of Leon Redbone
by Megan Pugh

Cooking with Chris: 
Salt and Prepper
by Chris Offutt 

 

Art by: Jhuma Das, Peyton Fulford, Jonathan Traviesa, Tommy Kha, Deana Lawson, Michael Harrington, Nine François, Dominic Lippillo, Thornton Dial Sr., John Langmore, Ilana Panich-Linsman, Meg Elizabeth Ward, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Micah Fields, Milton Carter, Charles Gaines, Carrie Mae Weems, Magdalena Solé, Arthur Usherson, Allison Stewart 

Cover: “Awakening” by Jhuma Das | @JDasArt, photographed by Milli Apelgren