The Death Issue
“With this issue we are proud to launch Expanded Field, a biannual, online and open-access English-language journal for creative writing and image/text experimentation. Why Expanded Field? Following from art critic Rosalind Krauss’ 1979 article “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” we want to draw attention to the tenuous manner in which various creative practices are set in relation or opposition to one another—and how we can further question the sustainability of genre- or medium-specificity. To this end, with Expanded Field we want to offer a platform for the exhibition of original and translated works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics, image/texts, and other experimental works not so easily or readily classified.”
Cover by Angelo Zinna
With this issue we are proud to launch Expanded Field, a biannual, online and open-access English-language journal for creative writing and image/text experimentation. Why Expanded Field? Following from art critic Rosalind Krauss’ 1979 article “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” we want to draw attention to the tenuous manner in which various creative practices are set in relation or opposition to one another
Quite a few people have already died. Former friends, teachers, colleagues, family members. But I never know how much it’s going to affect me. When I heard my primary school teacher had died, I was overcome by a grief more powerful than I had thought possible.
What is lightest you cut out first,
what is darkest remains till the end.
All the other shades you gush out from light to dark,
with gouges of different sizes.
My family disintegrated
with Beethoven in the background.
We had Mozart in the morning,
but in the twilight we could hear it coming:
256 Maple Lane is the thirty-seventh house on my list, and I swear, less than fifteen minutes ago, I didn’t think I was going to make it here. This neighborhood makes me feel like a Frankenstein doll mis-shelved in the Barbie dream world section.
Great is the moon
The ocean its loyal servant
creating and destroying
in the same wave
“Confusion is my business.” When I arrive Schönbeck asks, “Do you mind if I keep on working—we can just talk over a bit? This is a very difficult mould.”
The day I found the sewing machine was the day after my mother’s funeral, and the last time I was alone in my childhood home. Entering through the front door, I had a hard time coming to grips with the fact that in a few months this place would no longer belong to my family.
Good morning, Worcester Opticians. Amelia speaking, how may I help? An appointment? Of course, sir, which day would you prefer? Unfortunately, I can’t do Tuesday, would Wednesday be okay? I have one available at eleven.
art critic pick
picks you picks
a thought out of the blue
in flux he
The twenty-first-century church has always been a mystery to me. In a world where so many other phenomena – such as melting poles and heavily polluted areas with millions of people living in them – pose real threats to mankind, there is still a group of people who insist on turning to religion for answers.
As of this Spring, the ice caps melt inside his glass
in a fury of noes and yesses,
the pleasure of petrichor usually killed
by a necessary peppermint breeze.
Around 70 kilometres from Prague sits Kutna Hora. From the 13th to 16th centuries this meeting point was an energetic city that profited from the local silver mining trade and its position in Central Bohemia. Today, the 20,000 permanent residents of Kutna Hora are outnumbered by the 200,000 tourists who arrive yearly to the suburbs of this Gothic city in order to visit the Sedlec Ossuary.
“Your mother only has one week to live.” This sentence came like a punch in the face. I looked over to my sister. She was looking at her feet, utterly defeated. I tried to reach out to her but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to, damn it. We were 14 and 13 at the time and in the midst of puberty.