Display Format: Prose

The main prose format for posts.

In the Black, With Jessica

by Christian Kiefer

Posted on by Zack Ravas

The sound of a car gearing up the ashen road. Chuck thought at first that it had to be someone from Cal Fire or another crew but then the radio crackled and Bob told him it was a civilian. “Copy,” he said, and then, after releasing the button: “Fuck.”No part of him that was not

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‘Festival Days’ by Jo Ann Beard: Bright Illuminations

by Michelle Latiolais

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Consciousness. One of science’s big questions. What is consciousness? But we have been writing consciousness for thousands of years now, and one of America’s most miraculous writers has just given us a second collection of essays so brilliantly perceptual that the writing is—for all intents and purposes—neurological. The visual tapestry is so vivid, so rich, one forgets one is in the medium of language. Take almost any image or detail in a Jo Ann Beard piece and follow its pathways, its firings, its bright illuminations, its quieting into a kind of shade thrown across the entire essay—it is a map […]

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On the Art of Jonathon Keats

by Alla Efimova

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Is Jonathon Keats an artist? I have never doubted this over my nearly twenty years of working with him on various projects, even while Keats himself has often resisted and resists such a definition, preferring the title of an experimental philosopher. Keats is represented by an art gallery (Modernism, Inc.) in San Francisco and has had exhibitions and installations in many art museums and galleries internationally. And yet, while his projects are widely covered in the press—both specialized and general-interest—art publications shy away from giving him coverage. Keats purposefully operates on the margins of the art world, seeing it as […]

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‘Why to These Rocks: Fifty Years of Poems from the Community of Writers’: In Touch With the World

by Meryl Natchez

Posted on by Zack Ravas

When I applied to the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop in 1987, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for, or that this unique summer program would become my poetry home. I had just read The Gold Cell, and saw an ad in Poetry Flash that mentioned Sharon Olds was teaching at the workshop. I blush to say that I’d never heard of Galway Kinnell or Robert Hass at that period of my life; with four children and full-time work, I was out of touch with the world of poetry. When I arrived in Olympic Valley that […]

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‘My Heart’ by Semezdin Mehmedinović: Matters of Life and Death

by CJ Green

Posted on by Zack Ravas

People say that when you have a child, it’s like your heart has left your body and begins walking around on its own. This idea came to mind reading Semezdin Mehmedinović’s novel My Heart (225 pages; Catapult; translated by Celia Hawkesworth). It begins with a heart attack that sends the protagonist into an eloquent, existential spiral, after which his priorities become increasingly clear to him. “Since I passed fifty,” he explains, “I know that everyone dies young.” The overall effect is of a camera sharpening: the background noise gives way to a crisp foreground, the local details of love and […]

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‘A Swim in a Pond in the Rain’ by George Saunders: An Impassioned Introduction

by Colton Alstatt

Posted on by Zack Ravas

George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (432 pages; Random House) is a warm introduction to the Russian masters of literature—warm as a house party: “Reader, meet my friends Tolstoy, Chekov, Gogol, Turgenev. Russian masters, meet my reader.” Using his experience teaching stories by these authors, Saunders is a generous guide inspired by his love of the short story, whether masterful or imperfect. As he scans the seven stories included in his book, Saunders has fun as he works for ways a prospective writer might create similarly enigmatic stories. Neither inefficient nor blocky, these discussions are the […]

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Three Windows Onto Rome

by Kirstin Valdez Quade

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Santi Quattro CoronotiOn the right wall of the basilica is a fragment of a fresco of San Bartolomeo. He’s a bearded old man, mouth obscured by damage, his eyes suspicious. His own wrinkled pelt is thrown over his shoulder like a traveling cloak.No longer the cheerful dandy, dressed in white with swinging purple tassels. (He

Subscribers only: to access this content, you must be a member of ZYZZYVA Studio. Membership is included with any subscription. Subscribe today, or if you are already a subscriber, log in to continue reading. (Read our FAQ for more details, and contact us if you have any trouble logging in.)

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‘How Beautiful We Were’ by Imbolo Mbue: A Vast Landscape

by Owen Torrey

Posted on by Zack Ravas

In one telling, the story might begin here: the children started getting sick, and nobody knew why. At first, two died within a month. Before long, several more got feverish, then stopped being able to speak, and, soon after, to breathe. Surely, it was said, there must be a common cause. But what was shared between these children? Only the irreducible things: the ground they walked over, the air they breathed, the water they drew from the village well—right where the pipelines ran. When Imbolo Mbue’s second novel How Beautiful We Were (364 pages; Random House) begins, these things have […]

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ZYZZYVA Staff Recommends March 2021: What to Read & Listen To

by ZYZZYVA Staff

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Lily Nilipour, Intern: Throughout the sustained isolation of this pandemic, we have learned much about our personal relationships to each other—to those close to us, to our groups and communities, and to society at large. It has been a time of great tragedy, on many fronts, but we have also seen people come together in extraordinary ways. In searching for ways to process the events of the past year, I have found myself turning to Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being for some wisdom. For the Time Being is a profound study of a paradox: the importance we place on […]

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Slow Street Art

by Dominica Phetteplace

Posted on by Zack Ravas
Photo: Adrian Bonifacio

Stand on 24th Street and look north, uphill toward Sanchez Street, and you’ll see a bright orange landscape. Artist Amos Goldbaum has designed a mural that stretches from one end of the block toward the other—painted directly on the asphalt. I was enchanted with this work from the moment I first saw drone pictures of it on Instagram. Only a robot can give you the whole picture in one take: a superlong Victorian framed on one side by a riot of tiny houses that resolve as you travel uphill into a Twin Peaks, a lone palm, and then finally, Sutro […]

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8 Things You Can Do To Support the AAPIs in Your Life

by Mimi Lok

Posted on by Zack Ravas

The following is a reprint of a Google Doc by author Mimi Lok. You can read the original document here. In the week since the Atlanta shootings, which claimed the lives of eight people—six of whom were AAPI (Asian American & Pacific Islander) women—I’ve seen my own experience reflected in the AAPIs around me in heartbreaking and illuminating ways. What has emerged most clearly are the layers upon layers of pain—the grief and anger for the victims and their loved ones, the fear for our own loved ones and for ourselves, and the added hurt of invisibility and silence within […]

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti: The Latin America Notebooks

by Mauro Aprile Zanetti

Posted on by Zack Ravas

“He traveled a lot and he traveled light. He always carried a raggedy Pan Am bag about the size of a large toaster, in which he packed a change of underwear and an old navy tie in the unwanted event that a tie might be required somewhere, and he didn’t want to embarrass his host. And he always carried small notebooks, which he filled with images, poems, political observations, character sketches.” These are Nancy J. Peters’s words portraying her business partner and lifelong friend, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Her tribute to San Francisco’s first Poet Laureate was paid on the occasion of […]

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