The Adroit Journal

Jan 13, 2025 | theadroitjournal.org | P. Aiden Hunt

“How do you quantify the murmuring grief of the Americas?” asked poet Daniel Borzutzky in his 2021 collection, Written After the Massacre of 2018, and he continues to ruminate on this question. The poems in The Murmuring Grief of the Americas continue to focus on opposition to capitalism, imperialism, and the casual midwestern racism that leads to migrant mistreatment.

Oct 20, 2024 | theadroitjournal.org | Ademola Adefolami

Back to Issue Fifty-OneBY ADEMOLA ADEFOLAMIReading ThingsBefore the email came in, I had already started reading about Manhattan, Kansas, because I thought I would get into the MA English program. My logic, even if untested, was convincing to me: if one of the professors in the program had taken time to read through my writing samples and application and had felt that my materials were good enough for an application fee waiver, then maybe it was indeed good enough to get into the program.

Oct 2, 2024 | theadroitjournal.org | Christina Pugh

When a reader once called me a research-based poet, I was startled. I had never thought of my poems in that way. Though I know that something I call “poetic thinking” drives my work, I had never written a poetry book based, for example, on historical manuscripts or an archeological site. Distinct from the empirical drive of research, poetic thinking feels more imaginary.

Sep 25, 2024 | theadroitjournal.org | Ben Lewellyn-Taylor

Charles lives across the river from his daughter, watching her grow up from a distance. Elizabeth is unaware that the man on the other side is her father, if she’s even aware of him at all. Years before, when Mary became pregnant with Elizabeth, she made the decision to leave Charles behind. Because Charles is not of Penobscot descent, and therefore not allowed to live on Maine’s Penobscot Nation, this is the only way to ensure that Elizabeth can grow up Penobscot.

Sep 5, 2024 | theadroitjournal.org | Caylin Capra-Thomas

I’ll never get over them—I won’t even try. Color, fragrance, notion: lilac. If in New England you come across a stand of them in the woods, you’ll find a cellar hole nearby—someone’s bygone home. Common lilac is native only to the Balkans, so every spring wind’s purple whiff was at some point uprooted and transported to you—unless you live in the Balkans. Inflorescence: the flowering, so many small lives attached to a central lifeforce, flourishing.