Read the Current Issue: On Silence
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"Every poem, story, essay, photograph, or work of graphic art in this issue invites readers to consider alternative experiences and ways of being, coaxes us out of our day-to-day normal into someone else’s world. Pieces in this issue will inspire laughter, pathos, and perhaps deep reflection. In a world where writers, musicians, and artists are being silenced, threatened, imprisoned, even killed, we are so thankful for all of you, for the communities from which you come, for the unique perspectives you share with Aji, a small magazine, to some degree a speck on the stage of contemporary national art and literature."
-Erin O'Neill Armendarez *This is a large PDF file. Please allow adequate time to download.
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Featured Artist : Shelley Schreiber
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Shelley Schreiber is a ceramic artist working and living in Denver, Colorado. She is partner and director of Continuum Art Studios. In our latest artist interview, Shelley tells us that she "want[s] viewers to feel an emotional connection to the work and the harmony between physical materials, critical thinking and inner contemplation" and that she hopes "it evokes some questions about meaning."
Her advice for artists just starting out? "We need support, acknowledgement and understanding of our work, our dedication and passion, along with who we are as human beings. We don’t always fit the norm in society, and that is a good thing." At Aji, we couldn't agree more. Visit Shelley's website: https://www.shelleyschreiber-art.com/ or follow her on Instagram: @slsindenver Read the full interview in Issue 17: On Silence. |
Othello as Written Is an Inhuman Shell: An Interview with Keith Hamilton Cobb, PT II
"A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in acting, Keith Hamilton Cobb has portrayed a variety of theater and television characters. He wrote and starred in American Moor, a complex examination of Black identity within the American theater. Numerous theaters have featured the play including New York’s off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe. In the second part of this two-part interview, we discuss racism, the connections among various television characters and Othello, and the ending of American Moor." -William Nesbitt
This interview delves into critical conversations on racism, action and difficult truths. On the subject of racism and action, Cobb says "...you can read and you can listen. You can contemplate and attempt to change the white-leaning biases in your pedagogy—and I assure you they are there. You can trumpet loudly your awareness that the privileges that you enjoy as a white American citizen are unjust because they are not shared by those who do not look like you. That’s another truth. You can attempt to counter whatever level of white obliviousness you have every day and I don’t say that as a pejorative. I don’t say that to indict you. I’m just saying that if you are brought up in this American culture, in all that it has been, brought up in the ways of American white right capitalism, you have blind spots."
"I say you know if all the wealth that you have, which keeps you comfortable and assures you a life worth living, is the manifestation first of American chattel slavery and then hundreds of years of disenfranchisement of Black Americans—and it is—are you going to divest yourself of it? Are you going to sell your house and live in the only housing affordable by the nearly 20% of Black Americans? Or share your income amongst those who on national average make 1/8 of what you do only because they are Black and have historically not had any of the opportunities that you have been afforded?"
Learn more about Cobb, the Untitled Othello project and more in the interview in our latest issue.
This interview delves into critical conversations on racism, action and difficult truths. On the subject of racism and action, Cobb says "...you can read and you can listen. You can contemplate and attempt to change the white-leaning biases in your pedagogy—and I assure you they are there. You can trumpet loudly your awareness that the privileges that you enjoy as a white American citizen are unjust because they are not shared by those who do not look like you. That’s another truth. You can attempt to counter whatever level of white obliviousness you have every day and I don’t say that as a pejorative. I don’t say that to indict you. I’m just saying that if you are brought up in this American culture, in all that it has been, brought up in the ways of American white right capitalism, you have blind spots."
"I say you know if all the wealth that you have, which keeps you comfortable and assures you a life worth living, is the manifestation first of American chattel slavery and then hundreds of years of disenfranchisement of Black Americans—and it is—are you going to divest yourself of it? Are you going to sell your house and live in the only housing affordable by the nearly 20% of Black Americans? Or share your income amongst those who on national average make 1/8 of what you do only because they are Black and have historically not had any of the opportunities that you have been afforded?"
Learn more about Cobb, the Untitled Othello project and more in the interview in our latest issue.
Now Available: Critters by Joel Glickman
"Whether prowling the fringes of everyday life like dreams or leaping onto center stage, Glickman’s animals are resplendent, often heart-breaking, and his elegant, well-traveled poems shimmer with verbal surprises, sneaky epiphanies, and profound empathy for all creatures, including humans. Traveling Glickman’s roads and streams with him as a trusty guide means falling in love with his diverse, unforgettable animal companions, bearing witness to the meanings of their lives, as well we should, being citizens of Earth. This is a book you will treasure.” -Cynthia Belmont
Joel Glickman is Professor Emeritus of Music at Northland College where he continues to teach music, including jazz studies, part time. He is a previous contributor of poems to Aji and several other publications.
BUY THE BOOK VIA BLURB for $16.99
Joel Glickman is Professor Emeritus of Music at Northland College where he continues to teach music, including jazz studies, part time. He is a previous contributor of poems to Aji and several other publications.
BUY THE BOOK VIA BLURB for $16.99
Now Available: Mondegreen by Mike McNamara
“Nobody else writes like Mike McNamara about the human soul. These lyrical, visionary poems strive to make sense of that space between the outside world and the world in our heads, and how hard it can be to navigate both at the same time. The magnificent title poem ‘Mondegreen’ recalls extraordinary and painful episodes from the poet’s past: drunken days, a little girl laughing in a sunhat ‘oblivious to her tainted bloodline of full-blown psychosis’, a hellish late-night train ride in the company of a ‘pock-marked, demonic, drink-crazed devil’, interspersed with snatches from old diaries. A ‘mondegreen’ is a misheard lyric, and throughout the book McNamara plays with dream, memory and perception, with the idea that life is all misheard, misunderstood, both real and unreal at once. There is a sense of bewilderment here that feels far more genuine than any factual authority: the only way to comprehend life’s mystery is to accept that we can never understand it.” -Anna Lewis
BUY THE BOOK VIA BLURB for $9.72 |