Guest Editor
antilang. no. 6, Abrupt Environments
Good. Short. Writing.
antilang. is a magazine of literary brevity.
Abrupt Environments
What is the human cost of climate chaos? How have you been affected? Maybe you have a story about dislocation, or loss of biodiversity, or drought. What do you wish people were writing about—or talking about—but aren’t?
Excerpts
An oily bacterial sludge covers the sea like a second skin. Something pecks the water and returns to flight.
—Cheryl Ferguson Bernini, “Adrift”
…in the red land if anything breathes / it ll go up redder still
—James Collier, “mntn pine beetle epilogue”
A basket of silver hake / at our steel station. Remind me, the cutter says. // length sex weight maturity otolith stomach / Scrape and bang. The net again.
—Cairistiona Clark, “Trawler Set”
…they fished out the last striped bass out of the great / lakes and now this guy’s talking to me about a goddamn / fungus cream
—David Groulx, “Fungus Cream”
A story of frustration is etched on my sister’s door—deep scratches from a wheelchair forced through an uncooperative frame.
—Laura Manuel, “Moving Karin”
for the birds / always birds, many birds / have come and gone / as if an endless winter / as if a south were someplace / beyond smoke
—christian favreau, “following”
I have no use for images of wheat fields, / children with sun in their hair, / women bright with fertility, / arms heaped with grain…
—K.S.Y. Varnam, “Culling”
…even from here I know the wood’s shrinking, / is raining dust like tired ash.
—Collin Van Son, “Fallout”
I watch the black waves crush / the little boats like grounds in a pepper mill / spilling into the glass cage / of the Pacific.
—Erin Emily Ann Vance, “Lighthouse Keepers are an Endangered Species”
A hole / is a hole // despite / what fills it.
—Conyer Clayton, “Footprints”