Jennifer Givhan

Jan 30, 2024 | theoffingmag.com | Jennifer Givhan |Marisa Crane |Michelle Koufopoulos |Raejeana Brooks

I’m not the most maternal of women, however matronly my body appears.           And my body appeared ready at eleven, twelve, thirteen.           It wasn’t just boys who came with their hands and their mouths and their need. But almost-men. Who tried to put babies in me.

Sep 4, 2023 | europe.stripes.com | Tamala Malerk |Isabel Cañas |Jennifer Givhan

Graphic reading Hispanic Heritage Month: Septmeber 15 to October 15 (Graphic created by Tamala Malerk) is celebrated from September 15 to October 15. This year, bookworms can celebrate the month by reading books written by Hispanic authors. From memoirs to mysteries, we’ve got a book on this list for every reader.

Apr 2, 2023 | contrarymagazine.com | Jennifer Givhan

My mom tells my dad she wishes she’d never married him, never had his children, who inherited his depression. She’s tired of being around sadness. Melancholia. A beautiful flower in another family tree. She’d wish me away for a happier heart. As if the chemicals misfiring in my brain could ever replace the tubules pumping—maddening, deafening, red, red, red—through my veins. The center of all things. Bodies who’ve come from bodies. Desiring such separateness. Such cleaving.

Apr 2, 2023 | contrarymagazine.com | Jennifer Givhan

To me you’ll always be the boy with the backpack, the boy whose daddy left him left us left meth in the tin house, the shed in the backyard and the two black dogs. Remember the dogs? Remember the pipe, the drawer, the cubby hole in the wall near the beach, and the cigarette smoke in your skin? I remember the length and height of you, the string bean weaning of you, the arch in the caked rims of you, homeless and smelling of shoes. I hated you.

Apr 2, 2023 | contrarymagazine.com | Jennifer Givhan

I felt sepultured in the snow globe Gabe gave me for Christmas, on the bridge beside its festively scarfed, hatted, and gloved characters, dropping sticks into the creek from one side, then clambering to the other side to see whose stick emerged first from the tunnel. I checked the rushing water but found, instead of sticks, tiny corpses. Dozens of them. Tiny faces mired in scum, sealed in ditchwater, swallowed by hissing. The mud caked in their hair, their toothless gums.