Several poems-in-translation by Mary-Sherman Willis (poetry, ’05) of the French poet Jean Cocteau appear in Eleven Eleven:

Jean Cocteau
Translated from the French by Mary-Sherman Willis

THE SKATER

The skater launched himself onto the virgin ice, compelled to reproduce with his bladed feet the inextricable meander of a line that he carried inside himself, trapping his soul, straightjacketed as it was and under police interrogation. He would be free if he chiseled at great speed a surface from which the gash threw off shavings of snow. A masterpiece that the spectators applauded as if it were a simple acrobatic exercise. Sometimes he left behind several images of his body that would rejoin him, then precede him and invite him to join them. With crossed arms, he leaned, straightened up, sped ahead fast, turned, took off, careful never to break off his calligraphy. For an hour he inscribed his curled upstrokes and downstrokes without one error. [… continue reading this and other translations here.]

An essay by Peggy Shinner (fiction, ‘94) appears in The Rumpus:

He wants her to pet the dog. He holds the curly mass in his arms and pushes it toward her. He prompts: Isn’t it cute? The dog pants in anticipation. If this is a conspiracy the dog seems to be in on it. He always wanted a dog but their mother wouldn’t let him get one. She didn’t like contact with animals or their dirty excretions. Now he has an apartment, their mother is dead, and he has a new dog. … continue reading here.

A poem by Scott Challener (poetry, ‘08) appears in Pangyrus:

 

How comforting to be attached

To a little pump humming up the bill.

 

Low-voltage, guy-wired,

Standing with a long gun.

… continue reading here.

A story by Leslie Blanco (fiction, ‘07) appears in The Coachella Review:

Havana, Cuba
December, 1960

Alejandro Bravo was twelve when he first saw her from the window of a bus. She was underneath the canopy of laurels on the Paseo del Prado, no cameras or reporters around her, as if she was a normal person like everyone else. White dress. Platform heels. Chin-length, platinum-blonde hair curled back and reflecting the sun. He pressed himself against the window and craned his neck. The bus was stuck behind truck after truck of farm workers being brought in for a rally at the Plaza de la Revolución. CUBA SÍ, YANQUI NO! That’s what the workers were already yelling, and he felt ashamed that she was hearing it too. She must have been sitting there the whole time he and his family had been in traffic, but he only caught the flash of the white dress, like the sparkle of a jewel, when the bus started to turn onto a side street.

How was this possible? On Friday he’d seen her in Let’s Make Love and he’d thought it might be the last time.  … continue reading here.

A poem by Adrian Blevins (poetry, ‘02) appears in Roanoke Review:

I was wallowing along inadequately inside myself
just using caution on the highway like the good sign said

when a breakdown in the ambiance hurled it out there
that my pussy was the knob on a suitcase in an atrium

or a sack of potatoes or a teeny pile, perchance, of snow.
A set of cardboard boxes. A pip upon the ground.

A bonnet, a barrette, a little oval-shaped piece of soap …

… continue reading here.