Our great love affair with travel has inspired not only travelogues and journals from our journeys but also some of the great poetry and fiction works of our time. Imagine Chicago before Carl Sandburg or Baltimore before Anne Tyler. These writers and others pay homage to places that they love with characters and stories that define a city or country. Travel writing done through poetry and fiction can sometimes say the most about a place, or a person's love for it, because it speaks to us in voices that we may not usually hear.

This category is devoted to the creative writing of fiction and poetry.

Next issue: April. Submission deadline: March 15, 2006.
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Destination new!
by Jessica Titlebaum

red rusty paddle boat canoe
sitting on a wooden plank makes my bottom hurt
for 2 hours—going to the mountain and coming back
 
with a German couple
and the man with a longer ponytail than my own
puts his maroon colored button down shirt around my shoulders
to protect my skin from the beating sun

to read all of Destination

Jewel of the Day new!
by Jessica Titlebaum

I am coming home soon, I think
as I lay topless on a Vietnamese beach
on a blue lawn chair near a woman
cooking lobster on a grill she carries over her shoulder
there are mountains in the distance and even farther than that
somewhere behind the mist and green and crystal water

to read all of Jewel of the Day

Venice: After Dusk
by K.M. DeBon

About Madrid
by Jilly Appleheimer

On Calle Princese my hands aren't mine
As the light changes to cross, and Spaniards bustle past,
I realize my transformation.
I invent myself anew, on these narrow streets.
And the girl from home remains for safekeeping,
The two have never met.

to read all of About Madrid

The Gap
by Jessica Titlebaum

Japanese Dave woke up before me in the mornings
he would walk to work before my cell phone alarm even rang
I took a shower on my porch, in my bathroom
said good morning to Herb, the monkey chained to my neighbor’s hut
he would do a trapeze act for me if he was in a good mood
if not, he would sit in the morning sun and await my journey to work 
and a journey it was indeed

to read all of The Gap

In Ancient Places
by Marshall Williamson

From grey, wintry London they had taken trains through to Cadiz in the far south of Spain. Following the coast toward Cape Trafalgar they made their way to the southernmost Punta Marroqui. Reaching Tarifa, they crossed the narrow straits and stepped into the place she had so often dreamt of, Morocco, Al Mamlakah al Maghribiyah.
 
Landing up at Tangier, they went straight to the train station, booking seats for Marrakech (time enough to see Tangier on the return). Along the coastline the train car was breezy and warm with salt wind.

to read all of In Ancient Places (originally in the Jan. 2005 Spotlight)

Qasidat al-Qahira
by Elie Losleben

Entering the flat with your keys in my pocket,
the room like Cairo before a sandstorm:
heavy with the weight of North Africa
and bare. Your map of Siwa
lies silent on the table, forgotten.

to read all of Qasidat al-Qahira

Among Bananas
by Philip Krummrich

There is no heat or hush
like the heat and the hush of a mile of bananas.
You walk and you walk
past identical leaves of identical green
till you ache for a spider or centipede,
anything,
hating the leaves. 

to read all of Among Bananas (originally found in the Central America Spotlight)

Front Stoop
by Tom Sheehan

From here night is the universal
shade, only stars wheeling
their slow orbits through trees,
clocking against the mountain top.

A skunk now and then joins late hours
and meanders nose-down like a hobo
scavenging for one half cigarette.

to read all of Front Stoop

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