Narrative Magazine

Narrative Magazine is an online literary publication based in the United States, operating since 2003. Its main office is located in San Francisco.

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#558448

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Articles

Willamette Shipyard Blues | Narrative Magazine

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

after Langston HughesI was lost when they let me outJust my welding gunLost when they let me outJust my welding gunSo I went down to the shipyardWhere it all beganOh they pay me wellI make a small fortuneYes they pay me wellI make a fortuneAnd every other FridayMeet the surgeonSee the sparks all crazyWhere I arc the hullYes the sparks all crazyWhere I arc the hullOne day I’m gonna turn this lightAgainst my skullRead on . . .
Without Courtesy | Narrative Magazine

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

I rode the top of my mother’s musclecar stretched out toward Montauk. I drovefast & dangerous. I ate daddy longlegs that summer. My teeth turned to inkpooling in the gums. Anyone could have written it. Dipped into me. Anyone did. But I wasn’t anyone.
Dream Children | Narrative Magazine

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Tom Jenks

A Story Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link The worst thing. Such a terrible thing to happen to a young woman. It’s a wonder she didn’t go mad. As she went about her errands, a cheerful, neat young woman, a wife, wearing pants with permanent creases and safari jackets and high-necked sweaters that folded chastely just below the line of the small gold hoops she wore in her ears, she imagined people saying this, or thinking it to themselves. But nobody knew.
Failure to Appear | Narrative Magazine

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

Neighbors, evicted, spin the bald tires of a pickup in the yard-mud, iffy load lidded with a futon. Then they’re gone, the lawn a not-lawn now and a box like a tiny hotel safe hangs from the doorknob. No one recalls being born or seems to long for what it was before memory finally gained purchase on the slick surface of a lot leased us by an agency too distant to drop a check, too anonymous to hold in a single idea. This is clear
Nefertiti by Elizabeth Metzger

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link Your name is a sentence, the beautiful one has come. If my name were a sentenceit would beI make my own misery. Lady of two lands twohands two hearts. In this oneshe is kissingher daughter. In this one I amwonderingif some people are betterthan others. Better at tolerating each other. Already a reader? Sign In
Reasons to Go On | Narrative Magazine

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link New Year’s Day, 2024after Ocean VuongBecause the stream’s awake and it’s making the sound of a thingdoing the only thing it can. Because the glass Christmas balls must come down from the reaches of the silk floss tree,my head among planets. Already a reader? Sign In
Mooncakes | Narrative Magazine

2 months ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

Listen to Helen Gu read her poem: It’s sharp enough to pierce nine suns— the knife my mother seizes in herwaxen hands. Next to the storm-stained window muted with breath, the rusted tip beggingfor a body between the wooden frames. Beneath the chrysanthemum light fogged with want, I imaginemy mother as a girl on the kitchen floor, knees stacked like broken plates.
Ladyboy | Narrative Magazine

2 months ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

Listen to Jake Welton read their poem: i’ll never be this beautiful again / bleeding orchid / face down in a pool of booze / sweat illuminated in whiskey-refracted light / to think this makes me a woman / rhinestones in my teeth / press-on nail that took some cuticle with it / all the things we do in bathroom stalls / our false uteri / always detachable and quivering / stitches never pulled tight enough / we are good boys / anything but human / good boys worshipping skin in the darkest parts...
Cry, Uncle | Narrative Magazine

2 months ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

An Essay Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link Listen to Dylan Trinidad read his essay: I worry about him sometimes, Dad mumbles as we drive away from Uncle’s house. Leave him be, Mom says, he’s doing the best he can. The car goes silent after that. I look back at the house. It’s farther away than ever. Uncle is a little odd. That’s what everyone says, anyway. Maybe it’s the way he often loses his balance or how he always smells like smoke. Most people ignore it. Not Dad, though.
John Irving at Iowa | Narrative Magazine

Mar 17, 2025 | narrativemagazine.com | Tom Jenks

A Memoir Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link I first met him in the fall of 1972. I was one month free of the army in Arizona, the government having decided there was an overabundance of lieutenants and that letting me head off to graduate school at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop would be just fine.