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Just days before this issue was set to go to press, terrorist attacks took place in Beirut and Paris. It’s hard to face news like this, and it’s even harder to do so while introducing this issue of NAR with our usual enthusiasm or aplomb. We are, however, genuinely excited to present “a genocide of potential: in search of Black Brilliance.” All of the poetry in this issue, guest edited by Metta Sáma, was written by black poets whose work, as Sáma says, contains “careful constuctions of emotions, ideas, spirits, bodies, psyches.” In these days of fear and grief, with our emotions and psyches scarred, it’s hard not to be bitter, to not want to respond to the “venom” as some commentators say with bigger might. But like the young Parisian Thomas Tran Dinh instructs us, after survivng the attack at the Bataclan, “Let’s love each other.” He acknowledges that it would be easy to succumb to “hate and fear.” It would be easy for many of us here to ignore Beirut and Paris. It would be easy enough to give in to despair. It would be even easier to rouse lesser angels of our nature. But the nar follows the arc of love, art, and community engagement as a way to move forward.
ART
Cover Space Between [digital photo composite] • Denis Hagen
8 A Fragile Heart [collage on paper] • Marcia Jones
12 Manned Flight [digital & ink] • Clay Rodery
21 dark light [mixed media] • Anthony Temmaglia
27 Twins [ink & digital] • Catherine Byun
36 Untitled [pen & ink] • Eric Piatkowski
FICTION
12 Manned Flight • Thomas Wilson
21 What Lies in Store • Laura Demers
27 Biddenden Maids • Kristen N. Arnett
36 Fallout • G. S. Phillian
NONFICTION
3 Indigent Disposition • Christopher Notarnicola
5 Philematophilia • Traci Brimhall
44 Everyone Here • Jane Armstrong
47 Doom • William Stobb
POETRY
9 Violence Against Women • Haki R. Madhubuti
10 How to Keep It Real When Everything Has Gone Wrong • Adrian S. Potter
10 Red Background • Lynne Thompson
11 illustrated equation no. 2: something about seeing . . . the shape of things . . . • Giovanni Singleton
19 Dahomey Sister • Rashidah Ismaili
20 Jazzing at the Art Gallery • Lenard D. Moore
20 I Can’t Breathe • James E. Cherry
26 The Talk • Quincy Scott Jones
33 “yonder they do not love your flesh” • Rosamond S. King
34 These Things Ain’t Gonna Write Themselves • Gwendolyn Mitchell
34 Knuckle Head • Teri Ellen Cross Davis
35 figure study 2: the old lady has alzheimer’s & all she can remember is • Niki Herd
35 anonymous • Kelli Stevens Kane
35 Stepfather • Ti Kendrick Hall
41 Alibi • Reginald Harris
42 Dzud • Patricia Spears Jones
42 A Man Walks Into a Bar • Zakia Henderson-Brown
43 solo • Makalani Bandele
REVIEWS
42 From One Realm to the Next • Katy D’Angelo
45 Synecdoche: Brief Book Reviews • J. D. Schraffenberger
46 Crosscuts: Brief DVD Reviews • Grant Tracey
MISCELLANY
2 From the Editors • NAR Staffers Out in the World
47 Contributors