Bronx River — All Issues — Underwater New York

Asiya Wadud is the author of Crosslight for Youngbird (Nightboat Books, 2018), a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry. Her other collections include day pulls down the sky/ a filament in gold leaf , written collaboratively with Okwui Okpokwasili (Belladonna/ Danspace, 2019) and Syncope (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019). No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body is forthcoming from Nightboat Books. Asiya teaches poetry to children at Saint Ann’s School and occasionally leads an English conversation group for new immigrants at the Brooklyn Public Library. A member of the Belladonna Collaborative, her work has been supported by the Foundation Jan Michalski, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Danspace Project, Brooklyn Poets, Dickinson House, Mount Tremper Arts, and the New York Public Library, among others. Recent work appears in e-flux, BOMB Magazine, Poem-a-Day, Chicago Review, Social Text, FENCE, and elsewhere. Asiya is a 2019-2020 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Artist-in-Residence and also currently a writer-in-residence at Danspace Project. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she loves animals.

Issue 17: Object PlayAsiya WadudOctober 14, 2020Poetry, Bronx River, Hot Plate

Following the Water: Snapshots of my Everyday Journeys

Sitting beside the Bronx River with the sun warming my back and a gentle breeze tossing my hair in my face, I hear the whistle and clatter of the trains as they rumble to and from Grand Central. I hear the hum of traffic along the parkway. I hear the high-pitched whir of the HVAC system for the train station. I also hear robins, chickadees, sparrows, and orioles chirping, geese honking, new spring leaves rustling, and water flowing in eddies and currents down the river. This is what I love, and this is why I walk.

Issue 5: RitualCheryl FrenchSeptember 30, 2019Bronx River, Hudson River, Nonfiction, Art

Requiem for Sea and Chains

Cynthia Manick wrote her poem in response to Chester Higgins, Jr.’s photograph, which captures a commemoration on the Coney Island beach of Maafa, the Kiswahili term for the “terrible occurrence” or “great disaster” of the Middle Passage and its ongoing effects. Buy a copy of this broadside here.

Issue 5: RitualCynthia Manick and Chester Higgins Jr.September 30, 2019Bronx River, Poetry, Art

They Come to Me

They come to me, reeking of desperation, eyes glassy with tears, weak brown like coffee. Señor Gold, they say, can’t you help me?

Can’t you help me get my man to stay?
Can’t you help me find a job?
Can’t you help me make the demons go away? They burrow in my skin like snakes.

Issue 5: RitualAllison AmendSeptember 30, 2019Bronx River, Fiction

The Orisha of Iron, or How the Horseshoe Came Back to Homeboy

Homeboy did everything he was told to do.

He asked which Orisha was the one for iron.
He found out it was the same one for war.
He took this as a sign.
He said some words and danced when nobody was looking.
He found some beads and started wearing them.
He did not make the connection between tricksters and St. Anthony.
He listened to Aguanile, and was really feeling it.

Issue 5: RitualRich VillarSeptember 30, 2019Bronx River, Poetry

Sacrificial Objects

Sleepy Peopl created this artwork for an event in collaboration with Marie Lorenz's Flow Pool at Recess. See pictures and read more about it here.

Issue 5: RitualSleepy PeoplSeptember 30, 2019Bronx River, Art

The Right Way to Tell a Story

November 24, 1993

Minutes before their first official date, Ralphie felt his confidence flag. He was standing on a street corner, and had to reach down to the hydrant for support. Why was he doing this? It was raining, just a touch, and the air was opaque; when he recovered, Ralphie walked into the bodega on 7th and sat upon a tower of rice bags. He closed his eyes. Any minute now she’d be coming, and he had to be ready.

Issue 2: Siren SongCarolyn FerrellSeptember 26, 2019Bronx River, Fiction

Poem in Which the Poet Attempts to Teach Children...

Poem in Which the Poet Attempts to Teach Children on a Walking Tour of their Own Neighborhood about the Purpose of Urban Poetry, Completely Ignoring the Tree and the River in Front of His Face.

Issue 2: Siren SongRich VillarSeptember 26, 2019Bronx River, Poetry

The River and the Skull

This is all mine.
The iron they pull from the water
came from my hands.
You can find me, if you don’t believe me,
in the names you hold in your teeth
like a pipe. In the smoke rising
over Mott Street, Mott Haven,
Mott Ironworks. The root is mine.
The name is mine. Your heroes died
on streets named after my grandchildren.

Issue 2: Siren SongRich VillarSeptember 26, 2019Bronx River, Poetry

Underwater New York is a platform for writing, art, and music inspired by the waterways of New York City.