Why Do So Few Blacks Study Creative Writing?- Cornelius Eady
"Always the same, sweet hurt,
The understanding that settles in the eyes
Sooner or later, at the end of class,"
The Free World- David Bezmozgis
"Others worked around them, avoiding notonly helping them but also looking them in the face. Old people sit-ting piteously on luggage had become a familiar spectacle."
Tyrant Memory- Horacio Castellanos Moya
"It’s been a week since Pericles was arrested. I expected him to be released today,as has always occurred on previous occasions, when they let him come home after a week. But now the situation is different."
Pick Me Up- Hind Shoufani
"Smiles, freeze, drop off the faces of strangers who
try their pick up lines of sleaze on trains through France, who see a redhead
made up in tight
clothes that show off the curves"
My Little War- Louis Paul Boon
"Bah, said the ra-dio operator, it’s all down to fate, if it’s your turn to die, you die.What’s-his-name replied that more people were dying here in one goddamn hour than over the course of ten years back in his village."
All the Way Live-Terrance-Hayes
"'Do all dudes have one big testicle and one little tiny one?'
Hieronymus asked, hiking up his poodle skirt as we staggered"
Keyna, Will You Marry Me?- Philo Ikonya
"Today,
Something steals our land.
Someone has kidnapped our spirit of nationhood,"
Bones Will Crow- Edited by James Byrne and Ko Ko Thett
"A poem I slept with a night too late,
What I’ve been imbibing for four/five years,
All have come into being just now" -Khin Aung Aye
To Die a Little- Eduardo Halfon
"She asked what writing meant to me, and I took a swig of beer and a deep drag on my cigarette and, exhaling all the smoke along with my words, answered that to write was to die a little."
Homing Pigeons- Maxine Case
"Ma says that Mr. Peterson is not our class. When I ask her what she means, she just looks at me. But then again, Ma says that most people are not our class."
From Kenyan poet Philo Ikonya to National Book Award-winner Terrance Hayes, Sampsonia Way has featured writers from around the world, many of whom have dealt first-hand with censorship and persecution. As part of our mission to “protect and advocate for writers who may be endangered,” Sampsonia Way provides access to writing that reminds us why freedom of expression should be fought for.
