Work of the Week: Alfredo Aguilar

February 08, 2022

GATEKEEPER I’m riding with my father in his truck when he recounts a story— One night, cuándo estabas pequeñito, you asked me where your mother was. You couldn’t find her anywhere in the house. I couldn’t have told you then, of course— You wouldn’t have understood, but your mother was crossing back from México after visiting family for a few days. Technically, she wasn’t allowed to leave ...

Work of the Week: Rebecca Aronson

February 01, 2022

Caged Hare From here the sky is a distant thing, whiteas the curtains, which move despite the lack of breeze,the way the tree tops used to bend,blending their tips like fingers, touchingone another like shy friends. I dreamI am dusted with the dry snowjust now featheringthe ground. From there I would see the steamof flakes dissolving as they meetthe sun-struck rocks. They release heatlike laughter. The surprise of ...

Work of the Week: KJ Cerankowski

January 25, 2022

White Sands         Most people wouldn’t think of southern New Mexico as a place a person might go to lean into their queerness. San Francisco or New York, Paris or Berlin, certainly, but an alabaster expanse of Southwestern desert that abuts a U.S. military missile range? Seems unlikely. Yet, drifting among the white sands of the arid New Mexican desert was exactly where I found ...

Congratulations to Mee Ok Icaro, Winner of the Prufer Poetry Prize!

January 20, 2022

Pleiades congratulates Mee Ok Icaro, winner of the inaugural Prufer Poetry Prize, selected by judge Kevin Prufer. She will receive an award of $1,000 and her winning poem, “otherland,” will be published in the Spring 2022 issue of Pleiades. Mee Ok Icaro is an award-winning memoirist, poet, and essayist. She placed as runner-up in the Prairie Schooner Creative Nonfiction Contest, and was a finalist for the Scott ...