Witness Magazine

Vol. XXXIV No. 2 – Winter 2021

“A Continual Flight from Wonder”: Photograph by Joseph Stern. Winner of the 2021 International Photography Awards.

A Note on This Issue

 

Poetry

Hadara Bar-Nadav, Touchless Entry*
Nancy Chen Long, Orbit
Jose Hernandez Diaz, The Golden Telescope*
Jennifer H. Dracos-Tice, On Learning Your Birth Mother Might Have Watched You Swing*
Jenny Hykes Jiang, China Virus*
Edward Mayes, Nor Any Know I Know the Art and ‘Tis News As Null As Nothing
Monica Rico, Why I Don’t Go to Church
Jieyan Wang, letter to a drowned poet and exiled parts of my body

Fiction

Bipin Aurora, The Scooter-Rickshaw Driver
Aiden Baker, Blue Faced Honey Eater*
Christina Leo, Northern Lights*
Christopher Linforth, Sojourn
Robert Brian Mulder, Goodbye to Mr. Wonderfull
Jennifer Ritenour, The Little Mermaid*
Tara Isabel Zambrano, Shabnam Salamat

Non-Fiction

Andi Brown, Unscented*
*Sean Enfield, All My Niggas Was White – Notes From the Color Line*
Jade Hidle, Letter to a Mỹ Lai Mother
Mee Ok Icaro, Queer Seoul*

*A Witness Weekends read! You can find video postings of these selections read by their authors on our YouTube channel.

Cover Art: “A Continual Flight from Wonder” by Joseph Stern. A note from the artist: Albert Einstein said, “The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.” This photo shows the initial ascent.
Artist bio: Joseph Stern is a writer and photographer. He is originally from Montreal and now lives in China.
Witness blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to his or her times. Launched in Detroit in 1987, the magazine is best known for showcasing work that defines its historical moment; special issues have focused on political oppression, religion, the natural world, crime, aging, civil rights, love, ethnic America, and exile. The issues “New Nature Writing,” “The Sixties,” “Sports in America,” and “The Best of Witness, 1987 – 2004” eventually appeared as university press anthologies. In 2007, Witness moved to Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The magazine publishes one print issue and one online issue a year, and increasingly seeks out work that contextualizes the American experience by highlighting issues of global concern.