Blackbird ArchiveReasons to Write
Reasons to Write
For the same reason our forebears sat nights by firelight and told tales and cut stories into the stone, I do it. And to do it is to cry out in the brief break in the vacuum of time between birth and death. I do it to escape entropy, however briefly, and I do it to escape from or return to reality, and I do it to have reality recast in the mind of another, even if only momentarily. And to do it is to feel naked without a notepad and a good pen in your pocket.
And I do it as a stand against the heat death of the universe and I like to do it after three days of hard drinking when the bad dreams start to arrive. And I like to do it to different types of music and old film scores, and I do it to square up to and stare down the vaunted and the dead.
I do it to attempt to make something that might last. And I do it to be counted among the countless before me and the countless to come after me, until we are no longer ourselves anymore. I do it to tell a good tale well.
Alli Cruz’s poetry has appeared in DIALOGIST , Hobart , The Louisville Review , and The McNeese Review . She is a recent graduate of Stanford University, where she studied English and theater and performance studies. She currently resides in Orange County, CA. Photo by Morgan Canaan
Katarzyna Jakubiak is the author of a short story collection Nieostre widzenia (Biuro Literackie, 2012). Her scholarship, translations, and fiction have appeared in the magazines Twórczość , Gulf Coast , Callaloo , Theater Journal , the anthology New European Poets (Graywolf, 2008), and elsewhere. Her book-length Polish translations of Yusef Komunyakaa’s poetry won the New Voices in Translation Award from the Polish magazine Literatura na świecie in 2006. She is an associate professor of English at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. Photo by Piotr Dygul
Andrew Koch’s work is forthcoming in Colorado Review , North Dakota Quarterly , Ploughshares , and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a 2017 Academy of American Poets prize for emerging writers. Koch is a doctoral candidate in creative writing at the University of North Texas and a lecturer at the University of Texas at Arlington. Photo by Mary Ellen Knight
Romie Hernández Morgan’s poetry has appeared in New Ohio Review and The Journal . She holds a BA in English and Spanish, and is currently an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Arkansas, where she is a Walton Fellow. She is the nonfiction editor of Up North Lit and The Arkansas International . Photo by Patrick Font
Stephen O’Donnell’s short stories have appeared in Strange Horizons , the Minetta Review , Short Edition , and Five on the Fifth , among other publications. He is a writer living in Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Aisling Lynch
Jessica Tanck’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Colorado Review , DIAGRAM , The Los Angeles Review , and New Ohio Review . She is a poetry fellow and PhD candidate at the University of Utah. Photo by Kris Harmelink