The Miami Native

Jun 23, 2024 | miaminativemag.com | Jen Karetnick |Nicole Tallman |Caridad Moro-Gronlier |byNicole Tallman

I’ve always enjoyed ekphrastic poetry because it combines two of my loves: poetry and visual art. So, for this issue, I asked two local poet friends to join me in responding to paintings by Miami painter Carlos Antonio Rancaño. Their poems are featured alongside the paintings that inspired their words. ‍Carlos Antonio Rancaño was born in Miami to Cuban/Panamanian parents. His work is saturated with bright, warm colors and his sharp, rigid brush strokes form a pedestal for the subjects in his work.

Jun 21, 2024 | miaminativemag.com | Jen Beagin |Casey McQuiston |Alissa Nutting

In 1973, the literary critic Harold Bloom proposed a new theory of authorly angst: “the anxiety of influence.” Writers wanted to be original. They worried they were what kids call copy-cats; they wished to wipe the words and ideas of their literary predecessors from their brains, like fingerprints from a crime-scene. ‍This affliction has yet to reach Miami. Perhaps it never will.

Jun 20, 2024 | miaminativemag.com | Arjun S. Byju |byArjun S. Byju

The psychiatrist Irvin Yalom, influential for his existential approach to therapy, said there were four ultimate concerns in life: freedom, death, isolation, and meaning. The first, we think, accounts partly for the last: We are free to take actions that have consequences, to author our own destiny, and as such find purpose. We are aware of our own mortality. For all the poetic value of relationships, we arrive and depart from life undeniably alone.