Knot

Magazine

Spring & Summer

2021 Issue

Uniting Cultures Through Literature & Art

"He who is different from me does

not impoverish me -he enriches me.

Our unity is constituted in something higher

than ourselves - in Man...

For no man seeks to hear his own

echo, or to find his reflection in the glass.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Poetry

Featured poem: "Conversation" by Lisa Suhair Majaj

Previously Published in Beladi, Editor in Chief, Layla Azmi Goushey, May 21, 2021

"Long, White Thawbs," "Shifting Desert Dunes," "Crown Palace," and "Perfusion" by Sultana Raza

"A Canzone for Comedy's Kingdom," "Missouri Rag," "Portrait of Frida Kahlo's Daughter by the Poet's Daughter (Little Girl)," and "Greene & Greene" The Gamble House" by Jake Sheff

"When the City Returns," "Bringing it All Along," "The City Cheers on the Hard Hats," and "It is a Struggle, but Lilacs Continue to Bloom" by Tim Suermondt

"The Separation of Sisters," "Pink Lullaby Baby," "How to Receive Bad News," "How Mine Got Caught," and "We Paid Off The Morgage," by Emalisa Rose

"Showers & Rain," and "Death Certificates" by Michael Lee Johnson

"Small Talk Over Breakfast," "A Poem Where I Use the Word Palestine in the Classroom," "Fist," and "[Thanksgiving 2018 was Independence Day for One Postcolonial Nation]" by Rewa Zeinati

"Ode to Hedonism and Hepatitis Vaccines" and "You’ve Stopped Going to Birthday Parties" by Meg McCarney

In This Issue

Fiction & Nonfiction

"The Rip-Off Artist" by Steve Slavin

"ABC's" by Ying Wu

"Prisoners of Conscience" by Jon Wesick

"132 With a Bullet"by Donald Edward Peters

"Lotus Ladies Lost in London" by Sultana Raza

"A Stranger in the Hall" by Patty Somlo

"Up The Pole Without a Paddle"

by Helen Patrice

"The Unspoken Language of Spouses"

by Beth Escott Newcomer

"Canoli Spumoni Gets Way Epic"

by Andy Palasciano

"Who Can Read a Crystal Ball" by Ying Wu

Reviews & Interviews

Selling Pencils, and Charlie by Penny Perry. Book Review by Kirkus

KNOT Editor, Rachid Filali's conversation with translator great, David Bellos

KNOT Editor, Imene Bennani Interviews Tunisian Poet Khadija Ghzaiel

"Passenger," "Song of the South," and "Sound Hole" by Scott Waters

"Faith Lost Me" and "Walls Save You" by Saloua Ben Amor

"I Sat There," "Alterations" and "Intoxication" by Bhuwan Thapaliya

"A Useless Body," "An Arabic Wound," and "A Cracked Crescendo" by Khadija Gzaiel

Translated by Imene Bennani

"Bloom" and " The Shades of Grace" by Shatarupa Mishra

In The News

Radical Love: Bliss, Beauty, and Islam’s Mystical Tradition by Yahia Lababidi

Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri review – a fascinating shift

London, the New Capital of Middle Eastern and North African Arts, Culture, Music, and Literature

By Malu Halasa

Nawal El Saadawi: Feminist firebrand who dared to write dangerously

By Jasmine Taylor-Coleman
BBC News