New World Writing Quarterly

Thanks to all who sub­mit­ted. NWWQ will accept sub­mis­sions again July 1–14, 2023. Special thanks to our Senior edi­tors Elizabeth Wagner and Kim Chinquee for select­ing much of the work pub­lished in this  quar­ter­ly issue.

The red-haired Polish teacher, Kasia, stood up at the front of the room in chic white pants with the white chalk in her hands. Today we would talk about food, she said. Pomodory: toma­toes; ziem­ni­a­ki: pota­toes. –more

I knew my father would come for me even­tu­al­ly. But I’m deter­mined not to let the nick-nick of lock picks shake me off the mid-cen­tu­ry mod­ern set­tee I bought on my own rather than accept his bequeathed over­sized sofa. I set my jaw tight.

–more

Five-Paragraph Essay on Time

More than once, but only a few times,
I set an alarm for 5 a.m.
and blew off my high school essays
to watch TV. It rang
and I left my warm bed to shiver
at the desk in the liv­ing room window.

Nervous about fin­ish­ing, no chance to revise,
I dou­ble-spaced –more

Pictures

Too blus­tery and wet to go out, I sit down with a box of old pho­tos. Here’s one of Aunt Esther in a spiffy hat with my broth­er Bob in 1940 or ’41 on the stoop of a house in Detroit where he was born, a cou­ple of years before she gave birth to her –more

What is your form? Solid? Liquid? Gas?

Are you afraid of heights?

Have you ever left the atmosphere?

Can you keep your­self occu­pied in thought?

Are you able to take on a lifes­pan of a few hun­dred mil­lion years?

Do you want to explode –more

In Those Days

Weeks had only one Friday. Life was sim­pler as there was less to antic­i­pate. The grass was no green­er but had beau­ti­ful tints of deep blue. It did not snow often but when it did some were awed by its silence. The shad­ows of the day were the ordi­nary –more

Blood of the Banana

For Troy, Brian, Alexandria, Arielle, Guadalupe, John, Nate and X

The flower pod hung
low and heavy,
a gor­geous appendage
dangling
two feet below
the bunch.

If left to nature,
it would ooze
its latex, clear at first,
then crim­son –more

The lawn chairs rose in the air as if the Rapture was leav­ing the right­eous behind. When the towns­folk saw their pas­tor in a chair, they won­dered why they were stand­ing in their back­yards. They shout­ed for an expla­na­tion but –more

I sat with a poet I loved like a father, read­ing poems. They were my poems, and I want­ed to know what to do. Let me say this kind of dream has nev­er come to me before. I passed man­u­script pages to the poet I loved like a father, and he passed them –more

On a very sad night—sad because Donna leaves ear­ly the next morn­ing and that is exact­ly the kind of thing I’ve become less and less able to bear with any grace—I sit hunched for­ward in the reclin­er in the guest room –more

Lonesome George

Maybe you won every battle
but the last. Maybe you didn’t
fight at all. In the end
you found a warm spot by the window
where you could nurse your coffee
the whole work­ing day.

Killing Time

1.
When the bad thoughts come,
My shrink tells me,
–more

Last night I had a dream that I was dying or about to die. Some organs had been removed from my body. They looked like lit­tle wood­en knobs. They were said to be lungs. Excuse the pas­sive voice, but dreams are ruled by the –more

No one gets it–its slip­pery gift
for wrig­gling away, like the gaunt cat
we found in an alley and tried to stash
in Old Steve’s garage until one of us
could con­vince a mom to let her inside.
After a week of eat­ing, –more

What is (not) made up is the cock­tail par­ty in a city where the host tells the woman that she will nev­er go to a trop­i­cal rain­for­est because of the spi­ders. But she gets a thrill hear­ing about them because they are –more

When I took my final breath, I felt no pain and so I thought, fleet­ing­ly, that I had escaped death. In the time it took to inhale and exhale, a deeply tucked-away image burst on the sur­face of my mind.

Years ago, a vol­cano –more

After the Fall

After the fall I picked myself up,
slip­ping my collarbone
under the collar
and smooth­ing the lumps in my pants,
lift­ing up my arms as if I’m reach­ing for some­thing that’s out of reach,
how do you know if it’s out –more

Mr. One

If Nathan want­ed to know where I was, I was think­ing, he could come and look for me. He couldn’t oblig­ate me to sit at a table with that man when he was the one who accept­ed the invi­ta­tion. I’d told him to decline –more

When the real becomes unre­al and the unre­al real:  A Conversation with Xu Xi about Monkey in Residence & Other Speculations

Xu Xi 許素細 has authored or edit­ed nine­teen books, most recent­ly This Fish Is Fowl –more

My moth­er was an opti­mist, my father was an optometrist. They opened up the shop at a time in Brooklyn when you did­n’t have to be so seri­ous about a thing like that.  You could have a lit­tle fun, you could put some of your­self –more