Cagibi

08/23/2023

A remarkable short essay just landed in Cagibi Express! Angela Townsend discusses the art of storytelling via religion, breakfast, flowers, galaxies, and Vin Diesel’s film career.

'I want to tell you everything, you know. I want to bear witness to every star, every impossible feat of mercy, every pancake, every rescue.

But I am made of stories and moon dust, flesh and limits. The Big Story is told seed by seed, Cheerio by Cheerio, note by note, awe by awe. Each tiny “oh” deserves its own sermon.

There is time to tell them all, here among the great flotilla of poets and prophets and first-year seminarians and amateurs of all ages.'

by Angela Townsend

08/17/2023

"A Plane Lands in Hawaii" from Issue 19 is a beautiful blend of fiction and nonfiction that speaks to the writer (and imaginative child) in all of us. 🛬

*

They are poised on top of the exit stairs, near the cockpit of the plane. There is a father and a mother and a daughter; there may also be brothers and a sister, figures as indistinct as my classmates. The family gazes outward beyond the tarmac, to the land and sea of Hawaii, brown and blue.

The heroine, who is eight or nine, wears a dress of the finest velvet. I had been generous; I had given her velvet. The dress may be red or black or even blue or green. It’s the velvet that’s important, not the color.

“We’re here! It’s beautiful!” the heroine says, or something similar.

The family remains at the top of the stairs.

That was it, everything that I handed in, the beginning of my first story.

by Alexandria Searls

08/15/2023

New Postcard by Vimla Sriram just went live in Cagibi Express!

"Athens messes with your timeline. History doesn’t hide behind fortresses here; it beckons you from every corner. You followed your instinct. I ignored mine."

by Vimla Sriram

08/14/2023

Beautifully reflective poem in Issue 19 by Juan Pablo Mobili.

I wonder if I ever looked
upward, to our beleaguered sky,
if the ground, so troubled,

had to be watched at all times,
or if we were afraid to stumble
on another body so still

it had become invisible.

by Juan Pablo Mobili

08/06/2023

A relatable poem by Mari Pack in Issue 19 because sometimes, you just don't know.

"Really, I would give up the whole internet

if it made the world better. No Tik Tok,
but fried green tomatoes, a warm bed, a nice hat for everyone.

My island in Animal Crossing has only apples,
but my friend came to visit

on an airplane manned by a Dodo bird.
She brought me six peaches, grown herself."

by Mari Pack

08/03/2023

Have you ever played The Wikipedia Game? Let Daniel Olivieri tell you more...

"Going down a rabbit hole feels like bingeing on knowledge. There’s that same shame of having consumed too much. Facts, it seems, are the snacks of learning. However many you eat, they never quite add up to a full meal. I’ve never finished a Wikipedia rabbit hole and felt, 'Yes, that’s enough for me. I learned just what I was hoping to learn.'"

by Daniel Olivieri

08/02/2023

A captivating and enigmatic story by Benjamin Page in our summer issue.

"My mother wakes me sometime past midnight and tells me to look up. Two stars move together high above the elm tree. One flashes green, the color of a tulip bud. The other flashes red, the color of smoldering wood. On such a quiet night I hear the crickets, I hear the faint wind, and I hear a buzzing sound I’ve never heard before.

My mother, usually so unflappable, sidles up against the tree trunk and rubs her face amongst the leaves. A need to touch something she’s sure of, I suppose, but it frightens me.

We’re all awake tonight, our entire community spread across the valley, looking up. Some simply stand, while some, like my dear mother, fling themselves to the ground to feel the earth against the wide of their backs."

by Benjamin Page

07/25/2023

Issue 19 is live! Click and dive in!
Cover image by Adam Courtney.

Welcome to Cagibi Issue 19.

07/24/2023

Our summer issue goes live tomorrow!

Cagibi Issue 19 Works And Contributions By: Alexandria SearlsBenjamin PageCarolyn OliverCharlotte FriedmanDaniel OlivieriDarren ChaseGeorg AmselJeffrey BarbieriJuan Pablo MobiliKatarzyna […]

05/15/2023

Have you ever felt a maternal instinct for wild animals? In "Notes on a Reluctant Mother" in Issue 18, Sarah Giragosian weighs the pros and cons of "Human Procreation and Motherhood" vs. "Animal Caretaking."

"I try to work out my ambivalence about having human children the next time I visit Emily, the director of the wildlife sanctuary where I volunteer each week. A grandmother and seasoned wildlife rehabilitator, she has one son, now an adult, as well as two dozen raptors and the occasional mammal that she and her fleet of volunteers, including myself, tend to each day. I figure that she—mother to a human and surrogate mother to raptors—will be able to help."

by Sarah Giragosian

05/11/2023

Things boil over in this poignant flash fiction piece by Amy Monaghan.

"Their mother is a good person who makes bad choices. At least, that’s what many people will say about her afterwards. That’s what Tommi will say years from now in their adulthood, which will instigate the fight that will lead to Selah telling Tommi she never wants to hear from her again. Often, all the time, Selah will wonder why it was that sentiment that became her final straw. Often, all the time, Selah will doubt herself."

by Amy Monaghan

05/09/2023

A gorgeous poem after Michelangelo’s The Deposition by S. Maniaci...

"Witnessing il Divino,
I recall old ocular theory—
how light and vision are created
by the eye of the viewer, also how
a friend once claimed we exist
because we’re loved;"

by S. Maniaci

05/01/2023

A powerful novel excerpt by Wynne Hungerford in Issue 18 with a heart-in-your-throat ending:

He spoke slowly, but there was an urgency beneath the surface. He said, “There are things you think you can imagine, terrible things, but it’s never like the real thing. Imagining is not understanding. You know what I mean?” His eyes glazed over with tears. “I’m living day to day. I don’t know what else to do.”

He took a breath. His jaw was set hard. “I’m going to move my hand,” he said, “and you’re going to be quiet as a church mouse.”

by Wynne Hungerford

04/28/2023

Huge congrats to Cagibi past contributor George Franklin for winning the prestigious Yeats Poetry Prize, recognized at an NYC event! For his exquisite, moving poem “Picking Favorites.” Here he is receiving the award plaque, though mostly out of view from where I was sitting! Judge Alan Feldman on left. Bravo!

04/25/2023

Issue 18 is live! A powerful and at times painful issue in which poets and writers consider the human condition as well as the beauty of nature that surrounds them. Inspired by family, art, myth, performance, and history, their characters embark on whirlwind journeys into the unknown, encounter unexpected reckonings, and reach drastic turning points: a gunshot, a punishment, a brutal haircut. There’s a lesson in all of it.

Welcome to Cagibi Issue 18.

04/04/2023

Congrats to Aimee Wright Clow on this Poetry Prize — her poem "Landscrape" appeared in Cagibi 15.

cc University of Washington Bothell

Last week venerable literary journal Smartish Pace named IAS alum Aimee (Harrison) Wright Clow (MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics, 2014) the winner of its 19th annual Beulah Rose Poetry Prize. Her poem "the what inside the thing made kin" will appear in the Summer 2022 issue of the journal alongside...

03/22/2023

A heartfelt new piece from our ongoing On The Ground series in Cagibi Express: "Letter to The Chisinau Refugee in Her Bathrobe" by William Fleeson, with accompanying artwork by Lola Simon.

"I remember you sitting outside on a bench, smoking that chilly March morning in your bathrobe and your house slippers. Stress made a scar of your face. You were younger than me but fatigue gave you an aged aspect. Somewhere inside the building behind you—your home, for now—your children, if you had any, slept or had perhaps awoken to play with the other displaced kids. Few men had come with you all. They were needed in Ukraine."

I remember you sitting outside on a bench, smoking that chilly March morning in your bathrobe and your […]

02/21/2023

A new postcard just landed at Cagibi, and it's from the High Line right here in NYC! Rebecca Pyle nails it.

"Oh, The High Line is wonderful, everyone said, but you can hear in their voices it was not that wonderful, and in fact, walking there, from art museum to art museum, feels like being kidnapped by passive-aggressive kidnappers, who send the wind to mess your hair and re-mess it..."

by Rebecca Pyle

02/13/2023

Today! From Anna M. Drzewiecki, a captivating new work in our nonfiction Postcard series:

by Anna M. Drzewiecki

02/13/2023

We are still celebrating and so excited for our stunning Issue 14 — all free to read online: poems, flash fiction, short stories, personal essays, and on the ground special features! https://cagibilit.com/issue-17/ Cover artwork by Jodie Herrera
Enjoy!

Welcome to Cagibi Issue 17.

02/03/2023

Our wonderful Poetry Editor, Jeanne-Marie Osterman, has donated all of her book royalties!

02/03/2023

A haunting flash fiction piece by Nicole Lynn Cohen in Issue 17.

"The hands float above him in the dreams. They are just as he remembers. Thick, square fingertips. Olive skin. Big boxy knuckles. They don’t sign anything. They only reach out."

by Nicole Lynn Cohen

02/01/2023

A clever calligram for bonsai lovers by Tricia Bogle in Issue 17...click link to view!

"there is something exquisite about the shapes we can twist a body into, / the rigors of pain, / and what enfolds within as we strip freedom away"

by Tricia Bogle

01/28/2023

Wyoming native and fiction writer Susan Hettinger takes us to sleepy, conservative Rawlins High School in 1968, where a daring new teacher shakes things up.

"Miss Grenfell wins instant popularity with students, likely due to waist-length white-blond hair, knee-high boots, and irreverence. There’s an air of informal confidence about her. She smiles easily and looks me, and presumably others, directly in the eyes—bold but not quite impertinent. I remain optimistic that her young-groovy-idealistic personality will awaken the student body from the stodginess that plagues it. And me."

by Susan Hettinger

01/26/2023

Two resonant poems by Aiden Heung, "Landscape's End" and "Prayer," also appear in Issue 17.

Most of the time we stand, like now,
at a random block, and watch the city fall
into monochromes, negating our tiny narratives.

* * *

I want / this winter to be less about the end,
meaning I’m still capable

of love, meaning I want to yield
to the terror of finding myself

Landscape’s End // Prayer

01/24/2023

This short memoir piece proves that sometimes, your favorite aria makes everything beautiful and possible.

"I have to remember to keep my eyes open as I make a left and breeze over a bridge, a wild creek, deer scattering up a hillside. I’m weaving, giddy, lost in the lilting playfulness, the melancholic discord, the hope crushed in the notes, then recovered, you’re never sure where it will go, just let it go where it wants to go. Let it lull you, let the sarabande act as the wandering improvisation to your complicated problem."

by Cassie Burkhardt

01/22/2023

We feel honored to feature Dan Garner's first published story in Issue 17!

"Sometimes Judy can’t remember if she ever wanted to be something. Probably phases of wanting to be a singer or dancer, something where everyone’s always reminding you how special you are and what you mean to them. But mostly she’s felt that life is just people trying to make something out of nothing. The truth is, she doesn’t always remember a whole lot about herself.... Sometimes, she scarcely knows who she is."

by Dan Garner

01/20/2023

A gorgeous and lyrical flash piece by Kimm Brockett Stammen in Issue 17.

"I said I stand up straight in the middle of the attic, but that is merely a figure of speech, meaning there is enough space above my head. My back is a rickety pile of half-smiles; I can stand straight nowhere."

by Kimm Brockett Stammen

01/20/2023

A poem from the new Issue 17 — "Fire Class" by Emma Bolden —

I swear to you I was a star, an incandescent gathering
of opposing forces hot to the point of implosion,
explosion, start/stop, danger/safety, I swear..

READ at

by Emma Bolden

01/17/2023

Cagibi issue 17 is live today! Read all for free. Congratulations to all the contributors, and bravo to the Cagibi staff who worked tirelessly!
Congrats and bravo to Editor in Chief Amy Dupcak!

Welcome to Cagibi Issue 17.

01/15/2023

Special shout-out to the artists whose artwork have inspired us cover after cover! Thank you Stéphane Cocke, Veronica, Nadia Belalia, Olga Breydo, Shura Skaya, Nancy Hightower, Philip Rosenberg, and Stefan Hengst

01/15/2023

It has been 5 years today since our first issue went live! Happy birthday Cagibi!
Thank you to all of you who have made each issue possible, all of our collaborators, everyone who submitted and participated to our annual contests, the artists who generously shared their artwork with us, and our amazing editorial team, especially those of you who have been working with us for so many years: poetry editor Jeanne-Marie Ostermanan, senior editor Carrie Schneider, and Amy Dupcak, (our first fiction reader) now Editor-in Chief. Come back on Tuesday when our seventeenth issue goes live!

01/13/2023

New issue going live this Tuesday!

Cagibi Issue 17 Works And Contributions By: Aiden HeungAlani Rosa Hicks-BartlettAmalia GuglielminettiCassie BurkhardtDan GarnerDavia LarsonEmma BoldenEric OdynockiGalina ChernayaJennifer […]

10/19/2022

We have some big news to share! We are pleased to announce that Amy Dupcak is taking over the helm of Cagibi as Editor-in-Chief for the upcoming year. Join us in congratulating Amy, and make sure to check out our next issue, going live on January 17, 2023.

Amy and editors are reading now for Issue 17

05/03/2022

"Mallory was already a mother. What she would have given to drink until the world became a great forgiving blank, smoke until she was just a body in a room, her mind flown away somewhere softer, kinder. But her body belonged to her son. She was hopelessly, achingly present."

A story by Hadley Franklin.
Photograph by Neil Snidow.

by Hadley Franklin

04/11/2022

"When Hesh was six years old, the social worker moved him from public school to St. Mary’s on Vernon Boulevard where she could better keep an eye on him. She had a good heart, Mrs. Cabrini—she was a distant relation to Mother Cabrini, the American saint—but it never occurred to her that Catholic school might be problematic for a Jewish kid. Sure enough the shkotzim pushed him around because the Jews killed Jesus, allegedly. When Hesh pushed back, the kids ran crying to the sisters and Hesh got the ruler. So every day he got it one way or another."

A story by Gordon Haber to begin your week.
(Artwork by Kathleen Loe).

by Gordon Haber

04/05/2022

"If you stayed inside the boundaries everything was fine. Manhattan, Kansas was even livable as long as you didn’t look out too far. Better to relax. Horizons will kill you with hope if you’re not careful."

A story by Garth Miro, from our current issue.

by Garth Miró

03/29/2022

"As the poet says, where come human beings, so too vendors. Bananas, fried lizard, yogurt drinks to mollify the heat, all advertised with the passion of songbirds. My older brother put a coin in my hand and told me to go pick up something buttered and roasted."

Click below to read this story by Ankur Razdan, one of the fiction from our current issue.

by Ankur Razdan

03/01/2022

"She also knew, when Roger moved to brush a smear of wet clay from her cheek, that he was going to kiss her. She did not expect the urgent, clothes-on s*x they had atop the wheel she’d used to throw hours earlier, could not yet imagine Millie, who’d arrive fifteen months later: five pounds, always angry, and raven-haired, like Roger."

Click below to continue to read this short story by Adele Oliveira.
Art by Callie Art

by Adele Oliveira

02/22/2022

Issue 15 is live! Dive in and enjoy!
Cover art by Nancy Hightower

Welcome to Cagibi Issue 14.