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!
The Unbuilding of a Universe
The Thing flashed by, momentarily visible through a doorway; leftover creations that went hurtling wildly down hallways, looking for safe havens. D’Adrian followed it out, tracking its traces into his old bedroom but from there he wasn’t sure where it had gone.
The Empty Boat
What is a wave but a giving that rehearses its taking away.
Beckon and retreat
to repeat
until we call it nature
On the need to form an alliance
Pawn to D4
we don’t have the legs to stand on
or arms to stop quarrels from reaching
our waters, we don’t own
these bodies of water or airspace
we can be toppled with one tomahawk–
My Mother Folded My Father’s Guayaberas and other Poems
The years thread
evenly, appear to look
that way, and fractures
of family life show up
in inevitable rips
I could live with.
Gyal; Re-member You
The holes in you that you can’t see
become a cliff you fall over into despair
a puddle you walk through into resentment
a fire you stumble through into rage
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.
