Online headquarters for the latest updates, previews, and excerpts from the literary magazine located in the southwest corner of northeast Ohio.
The Young Man’s Bath
The Young Man’s Bath BY DEBARATI MITRA(TRANSLATED FROM THE BENGALI BY CAROLYNE WRIGHT WITH PARAMITA BANERJEE)Clattering down the dilapidated steps
the boy has gone to take his bath.
Some instrument plays in the highland passageway,
from the uterine…
Valdoltra
Valdoltra by Tomaz Salamun
People die with their eyes apart.
Death scratches the throats of the onlookers,
but never of the dying one.
I think about cushions. People standing around
annoy me. I think that there isn’t any
greenery. How will I cope with it?
Submissions Deadline!!!
The editorial team for Artful Dodge has been in a continuous reading period over the past year, working hard to put together the next issue. This is a quick update to let all of our interested contributors know that the Artful Dodge will be suspending…
To Forge a Letter: Charles Dickens
(Cover of the 2nd Artful Dodge [1979])
Perhaps a little backstory is in order here. Our wonderful, though now middle aged, child of love Artful Dodge was named after someone. And not just anyone but rather after another love (or perhaps lack thereof). Jack Dawkins, or the Artful Dodger, from Charles Dickens’ book Oliver Twist is who we pay homage to. We find a certain nicety in the image — the one who avoids responsibilities like the plague is the one who writes most free.
But you see, we ran into a terrible ruckus when Mr. Dickens himself wrote to us. The books had told us the copyrights had expired - he was dead after all. But oh no, oh my. Not at all, Mr. Faggin, not quite.
Here’s what we received and we do hope you find some semblance of humor in the posthumous (or still humous) work of Mr. Dickens.
Always, More Light
(Photography by Adam Al-Aali, 2009 - Film)
by Walter McDonald
This could be a vision
to saints, day
to a glacier.
Think of a stone
under tones of snow
rolled slow,
like a diamond.
—
Think of a baby
waiting to be born.
No one remembers the dark
before the sudden slice
of the scalpel.
—
Don’t reach for the lights.
For now, let wide-eyed
touching be enough.
Artful Tangents
The editorial team for Artful Dodge every year includes student editors from the College of Wooster, where the Dodge is currently based. Artful Tangents are prose poems and flash fictions composed by our past and present student editors, each on a…
Write Your Story
(Picture found here)
From Issue 48/49 of the Artful Dodge
Raised in the Mormon tradition as a young girl, Terry Tempest Williams kept a personal journal, which inevitably contributed to her professional writing. They were mostly private. However, after her mother’s death, Williams was able to read through her journals. Before she passed, she revealed to Terry where the journals were located, but “every one of them was blank.
“It broke my heart. What I realized is that she had wanted to keep a journal—all these attempts—but she did not dare. Because … why? Who knows why? Fear of speaking, fear of recording what she really felt, the fear of having someone know what she felt, but here she was, dead at fifty-four, and she bequeathed me all her journals and they were all empty.” (Williams’ mother died of cancer, which also affected many members of the family).
Williams saw a message in her mother’s empty journals: “What that said to me was, “Write. Write your story. Speak, and be fearless in that expression.”
