Issue Five Contents

4 poems
by Domingo Alfonso 2 poems
by Rito Ramón Aroche 3 poems
by Caridad Atencio Flower Power
by Miguel Barnet 2 poems
by Pierre Bernet 2 poems
by Yanelys Encinosa Cabrera 4 poems
by Alberto Peraza Ceballos 3 poems
by Maria Liliana Celorrio 4 poems
by Felix Contreras art
by Wally Gilbert 3 poems
by Georgina Herrera 3 poems
by Karel Leyva 3 poems
by Robert Manzano 2 poems
by Roberto Méndez Martínez Grand Prismatic Spring
by Jamila Medina 2 poems
by Edel Morales 3 poems
by Alex Pausides How Lucky They Are, The Normal Ones
by Roberto Fernandez Retamar A Gust Disperses the Limits of Home
by Soleida Ríos 3 poems
by Mirta Yáñez Frogpondia
On the green line
by Edel Morales
translated by Carmen Laura Contreras, Anne James, and Yma Johnson
Edel Morales was born in Cabaiguán, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. He is a writer, narrator, investigator, editor and cultural promoter whose literary works are internationally recognized. Morales graduated from the University of Havana with a bachelor's degree in history (1984) and a master’s in cultural development planning in (1992). In 1985, he published a foldable volume titled Volutas bajo el suéter. In 1994 Morales published Viendo los autos pasar hacia Occidente and Escrituras visibles in 1999. He selected and wrote prefaces for an anthology of young Cuban poets, Cuerpo de cuerpo sobre cuerpo (2000), and La Estrella de Cuba: Inventario de una expedición (2004 and 2005). His book Lejos de la corriente was released in 2002 with a corrected and expanded edition published in 2004. Also in 2004, Morales published Los pies en la tierra. Otro color, otras figuras geométricas (2007) won the Félix Pita Rodríguez Award in 2009. Morales is a member of UNEAC and an honorary member of Asociación Hermanos Saíz. His fiction, articles and interviews appear in numerous anthologies, periodicals and digital sites in Cuba and other countries. His poems have been translated into English, French, and Spanish. Morales has also won numerous awards for his writing.

Anne James has edited and solicited work for Ploughshares, St. Petersburg Review and Zymbol, the latter of which she founded in 2012. She also served as Treasurer of the New England Poetry Club from 2012-2016. She now works as a freelance editor, literary agent, translator and publishing consultant. She can be reached at annejjames@gmail.com.

Laura Contreras was born in Cuban in 1995 and is currently pursuing undergraduate degrees in history and Chinese at Havana University. In 2017, she conducted tours for Chinese and Costa Rican visitors to Cuba. Contreras worked as an English-Spanish translator for UNEAC at the International Poetry Festival of Havana, also in 2017. She was employed as a Chinese-Spanish translator in a Cuban Factory for a company based in Shanghai in 2018. Contreras currently works as a private Spanish tutor and teacher.

Yma Johnson is a first generation Sierra Leonean immigrant who began her writing career in 1996 as a journalist in Puerto Rico. She has written articles on topics ranging from the criminalization of the mentally ill to Japanese swordsmanship. She is a master’s candidate in creative writing at Eastern Michigan University where she taught rhetoric and composition. She also taught a poetry at a women's prison. Yma won 1st place in the 2012 Current Magazine Fiction and Poetry Contest as well as an honorable mention from 2014 Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, the St. Petersburg Review, The Encyclopedia Project Vol. 3, an anthology of experimental literature. Her fiction was also anthologized in, “Cthulhu Lies Dreaming,” short story collection of works inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. 
Reading Baudrillard on the subway's green line
I understood for a moment, in all his irony,
that of the object and subject being the same.

It's this world's truth:
the murder and the victim,
the origin that dilates and bursts.

A duality of look and reflection
that the future  resolves
In the uncertainty of the footprint on
nothingness.

Taken in by transparency
the villages from the mirror went in and out, made themselves at home
In the space-time of the silent wagon,
with all its alterity on its back:

they were themselves and different,
a same person,
in the last term, in the last resort:
the impossible certainty of the One.

Or maybe I didn't get to to understand it all
and it was only an illusion,
just a minute, I've said it:
the passion of the illusion passion that shows and runs away,
shaking the vertigo off
from a clothed body at half-awake;

or the passage of an unsteady particle,
going and coming on the green line's
devices
with a focused mind's lucidity,
pursued until disappearance
by the inflexible eye of the surveillance cameras
under the effective scintillation of other hyperreal images,
already lacking innocence.
Edel Morales was born in Cabaiguán, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. He is a writer, narrator, investigator, editor and cultural promoter whose literary works are internationally recognized. Morales graduated from the University of Havana with a bachelor's degree in history (1984) and a master’s in cultural development planning in (1992). In 1985, he published a foldable volume titled Volutas bajo el suéter. In 1994 Morales published Viendo los autos pasar hacia Occidente and Escrituras visibles in 1999. He selected and wrote prefaces for an anthology of young Cuban poets, Cuerpo de cuerpo sobre cuerpo (2000), and La Estrella de Cuba: Inventario de una expedición (2004 and 2005). His book Lejos de la corriente was released in 2002 with a corrected and expanded edition published in 2004. Also in 2004, Morales published Los pies en la tierra. Otro color, otras figuras geométricas (2007) won the Félix Pita Rodríguez Award in 2009. Morales is a member of UNEAC and an honorary member of Asociación Hermanos Saíz. His fiction, articles and interviews appear in numerous anthologies, periodicals and digital sites in Cuba and other countries. His poems have been translated into English, French, and Spanish. Morales has also won numerous awards for his writing.

Anne James has edited and solicited work for Ploughshares, St. Petersburg Review and Zymbol, the latter of which she founded in 2012. She also served as Treasurer of the New England Poetry Club from 2012-2016. She now works as a freelance editor, literary agent, translator and publishing consultant. She can be reached at annejjames@gmail.com.

Laura Contreras was born in Cuban in 1995 and is currently pursuing undergraduate degrees in history and Chinese at Havana University. In 2017, she conducted tours for Chinese and Costa Rican visitors to Cuba. Contreras worked as an English-Spanish translator for UNEAC at the International Poetry Festival of Havana, also in 2017. She was employed as a Chinese-Spanish translator in a Cuban Factory for a company based in Shanghai in 2018. Contreras currently works as a private Spanish tutor and teacher.

Yma Johnson is a first generation Sierra Leonean immigrant who began her writing career in 1996 as a journalist in Puerto Rico. She has written articles on topics ranging from the criminalization of the mentally ill to Japanese swordsmanship. She is a master’s candidate in creative writing at Eastern Michigan University where she taught rhetoric and composition. She also taught a poetry at a women's prison. Yma won 1st place in the 2012 Current Magazine Fiction and Poetry Contest as well as an honorable mention from 2014 Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, the St. Petersburg Review, The Encyclopedia Project Vol. 3, an anthology of experimental literature. Her fiction was also anthologized in, “Cthulhu Lies Dreaming,” short story collection of works inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.