Oxford American # 110, Fall 2020

Editor’s Letter: Change and Transformation, by Eliza Borné

POINTS SOUTH

A Lesson in Acceptance, by Bryan Washington

May 1, 2020, a poem by Pauletta Hansel

Ways to Keep Breathing, by Mik Awake

Hoods in My Hymnal, by Rachel Louise Martin

Joyride, by Karen Good Marable

The Visitor, by André Gallant

Cara Cara Orange, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

SOIL

The Days Are Walking, by Holly Haworth

Back to the Land, by Alice Driver

The Dimming Mystique of Mileston, by W. Ralph Eubanks

Cotton Plant, photographs by Timothy Hursley

Seeds Unbound, an essay by Frederick McKindra

WOOD

Underneath the Sweet Gum Tree, by Martin Padgett

A Search, a story by Jayne Anne Phillips

Be for a Blessing, by Carly Berlin

The Silence at Buddy’s House, by John Lingan

WATER

The Breaking Point, by Kerry Rose Graning

Because It’s There, by Erik Reece

Hunger for the Water, by Leslie Pariseau

A Ghazal for My Mother, a poem by Vivian Blair Hobbs

STONE

Look for Shape, Look for Shine, by Liam Baranauskas

First Casino on the Moon, a poem by Ansel Elkins

Finding Southern Comfort and The Great Call, by Valerie Boyd

Ex Parvis Magna, by Jamie Quatro

Yellowbelly, by David Searcy

FEATURES

The Blessings and Burden of Forever
Notes on home, family, and our ancestral land
by Rosalind Bentley

Trafficking in Teachers
Filipino teachers, hired to fill historic shortages in the South and elsewhere, fight their exploitation by opportunistic recruiters
by Rachel Mabe

Bitch Baby
A story by Halle Hill

“THIS STORY CANNOT BE TOLD UNLESS WE START FROM THE BEGINNING”
A conversation on Black history, sorrow, and protest
by Minnijean Brown Trickey and Crystal Mercer, moderated by Danielle A. Jackson

Poem for an Election Year
by Marcus Wicker

OMNIVORE

Resurrection like Green Apple Plastic
Maury Gortemiller’s Do the Priest in Different Voices
by Jason Bruner

The Condition of Gray Itself
Jasper Johns, Edisto Island, and (un)color
by Baynard Woods



Art by: Deborah Roberts, Dionne Lee, Esther Pearl Watson, Jessica Fontenot, Jonathan Michael Castillo, Hope Gangloff, Antoine Williams, Haim Alvarez-Correa Brodmeier, Keris Salmon, Hélène Amouzou, Roe Ethridge, Carter/Reddy, John Divola, Matt White, Marion Post Wolcott, Rory Doyle, Timothy Hursley, Susan W. Raines, Johnny Defeo, Bill Aron, John Akomfrah, Jennifer West, John Lusk Hathaway, Jules Buck Jones, Lily Brooks, Caleb Charland, Royal Robertson, Lorna Simpson, Kris Graves, Milton Carter, Camilo Ramirez, Delita Martin, Ron Jude, Devan Shimoyama, Ebony Blevins, Maury Gortemiller, Ugo Mulas, Jasper Johns

Cover: “When you see me” (2019), by Deborah Roberts. Mixed media and collage on canvas. © Deborah Roberts. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. Collection: Dallas Museum of Art, Texas