And the PREE 15 Awards Go to…
As PREE expands its borders to welcome contributions from the Global South, so too do the concerns of the entries expand, not just across the globe, but also in scope, intent, and ambition.
PREE 15 is here!
PREE 15 is a bumper issue with twice, if not thrice, as many submissions as we usually recieve. This is probably due to the offer of monetary prizes for the three most outstanding entries. This issue was also open to writers from the global South and several authors from other countries submitted work. We will note those shortlisted as we upload their work and announce the winners on August 31st! Enjoy PREE 15 themed Precarity, Fragility, Vulnerability. We are excited by the quality of the submissions we received. As usual we will be adding to the issue each week until the full issue is up. Enjoy and let us have your feedback!
Meditation from My Last Night; Ballad of St. Lazzar
…the same blue we call life on these
sandcastle mansions, tops of volcanoes
long gone, silent, sealed up for the
day of the lord’s appearing,
that even now are low humming,
from the seabed, their limestone ligaments
called islands…
Stargazing
One sunny Saturday, Itopa invited me to brunch for the first time. I tasted the word “brunch,” rolled it over in my mouth and smiled. Brunch was for people who were doing well, for people whose lives weren’t a daily struggle.
Siempre Vuelvo… I Always Return
I left Cuba before I was old enough to remember it. Yet I keep returning, again and again. Both inside and outside at once. Today I write from the diaspora, from a distance that is both comfortable and painful. I watch the island from afar. I watch what hope looks like now, worn thin by decades of hardship. I watch what speaking up still costs there.
The Price of a Full Gele
I listened to the muffled urgency behind that thin door. I didn’t yet understand the geography of poverty: how in a single room, the distance between the birthing mat and the coffin is no wider than a heartbeat;
The Sea Come for Ismaida
Bit by bit, the sea decide that waving to Ismaida from the rocky front yard not enough. It want to live inside the small house with Ismaida, curling it fists into her small saucepan. Spreading it palms across the cheap painting of Jesus on the wall. Taking off it shoes and stretching it new toes along her bare floor.
In the Heavy Rain; Chary; Chaperone
once upon a time i knew
only one girl with a Ventolin pump.
how many times we going bun
Riverton
scheming for contracts
to out tyre tower infernos
Shark Bait
Good mornin, how are you? In our waters, sharks speak. In this town, women learn early the delicate dance with beasts. When to move, when to freeze/when to respond without speech/with a smile fine enough to make fillet out of him.
Three poetic studies from “A Count”
the past
remained just as it had been
nailed fast
to the special moorings
of the future
…oh, and a woman long past menopause
can you imagine what longlong silence-in can do?
fury&grief locked in embrace cycloning constricted
space? i feel i know why she — he — us — thepoets,
stillstaysosilent.
Please Teacher; Third World Poem; A Gaze at Gaza
Looking again citizens see, saw the cruise ships’ sail
Where north never meets south like east meets west
On second glance down south
We sacrifice our homes for the tourists
Nesting on their dollars like sea turtles
On the edge of high tide
