Americana Stories is a weekly feature of poetry and prose that examines and re-envisions American culture. 

To view previous Americana Stories, visit our archives.

Humor

Notes on MLK History Lesson for Immigrant Students, by Prudence Soobrattie

“Can anyone tell me who Martin Luther King Jr. was?”

“A president!” Samira shouts. At least she is paying attention. Gizelle, who sits next to her, is scrolling on her cell phone.

“No,” I reply. “Any other guesses?”

“Wasn’t that the man who helping the black people?” Angela asks.

Read Prudence’s work here.

Poetry

Even If, by Ali Asadollahi

All the time
we denied it and                    we forgot
instead of a tree
we used to put our aiming eyes on a rifle
-to hide and seek-

Some days, I forget
I’ve choked on blood and each time
I should cough up a piece of my burnt city
from my chest.

Read Ali’s work here.

Poetry

Filipino Girl, Coney Island, New York, c. 1905, by Isabel Cristina Legarda

Say she wasn’t perched on a wooden bench in Dreamland.
Say she was enjoying the amusement park
instead of being kept in its human zoo.
Say there weren’t men in suits gawking at her.

Read Isabel’s work here.

Prose

At the Breakfast Table, by Francine Witte

I’m staring down Dooley again. I’m thinking where you goin’ today, Muthafuck? He is covered in missing Loretta, his blue eyes clouded with a coat of longing they get when he hasn’t seen her for awhile. You want eggs? I ask him, and when he says, yeah, scrambled, I tell him ha! we don’t have any. I want to say that maybe Loretta does, but I keep that in my mouth and suck it like a hard candy.

Our apartment is too small for all the hate Dooley and I have for one another. The hate knocks at the walls every night as we go to bed, try to dream each other gone, but then morning comes and the hate wakes up with us same as always.

Read Francine’s work here.

Poetry

Learning the “Green Light” from My Son, by Robert Fillman

Up by seven runs, 3-0 count,
and Fernando Tatis Jr.
pretends he doesn’t see the sign
to take, decides to swing away,
loops one to the opposite field
that just clears the fence, a grand slam.

Read—and listen—to Robert’s work here.

Nonfiction

Knocked Down But Not Out: Plaster, Drywall, and American DIY, by Michael Ward

Planning a child’s nursery is like planning a funeral. Rarely is either undertaken with the express wishes of its guest of honor. The baby is unable to offer its opinion on which paint colors—for example, white gallery, Greek villa, or snowball—better captures the warm light filtered through a neighbor’s dying holly just outside the window. Similarly, Aunt Nancy is unable to opine on the tulip arrangement that graces her coffin even though she hated tulips and told everyone every chance she got. We arrive to this world in tyranny and depart from it likewise.

Read—and listen—to Michael’s work here.

Poetry

Emergency Exit Only, by Lenny DellaRocca

Androgynous and mute the saint points to the door.
What strikes me is the color.
It changes. And it’s luminous.
The room is coming apart
at the walls though no one
notices. They’re on their

Read—and listen—to Lenny’s work here.

Poetry

Scenic Railway, Rockaway Playland, by Ellen Devlin

July threw a blue-white vapor of heat
between me and a clattering behemoth
on Beach & 98th Street.

Held up by wooden slats, sturdy as cathedral
ribs—Playland, lettered on its curved face like  
a bully’s smile. 

Read—and listen—to Ellen’s work here.

Fiction

Wearable Americana, by Jim Ross

Prior generations didn’t throw things away if they could be patched up or repurposed. As a pre-teen, Dad took me to buy a pair of black leather shoes, which I (i.e., he) had resoled and reheeled seven times. When Mom finally decided the shoes had to go, Dad asked, “Why, what’s wrong with them?” His question was reminiscent of a joke often told in the early 1940s. One person says, “I think my kid might grow up to become President.” The other person says, “Why? What’s wrong with Roosevelt?” At that point, Roosevelt was in his third or fourth term. 

Read—and listen—to Jim’s work here.

Poetry

Dusk at the Codependence Inn, by Jessica Abughattas

I feel a sense of betrayal, for it should be you inside my
knowing, and they left outside, tied on the porch.
Early evening, flecked raspberry. Light muddled
mountain. Your speech mushrooms like a wick.

Read Jessica’s work here.

Poetry

Divorce, by B.A. Van Sise

Driving down the Delta
Highway with my wife,
we hit a pothole, hurting
-severely- the Hertz rental
we keep on putting through
mud, gravel, unraveling 
asphalt on a three day bender
wending along the Mississippi

Read—and listen—to B.A. Van Sise’s work here.

Poetry

Until All the Cows Come Home, by Jerry Johnson

folk broadcast bull over airwaves
all day long until all the cows come
home and Malcom said “the chickens
come home to roost” and Malcom is
gone but not forgotten and Martin is gone
but not forgotten and Emmitt Till still

Read Jerry’s work here.

Fiction

Waves, by Andrew Malo

My earliest memory is seeing the anteater on a dock at sea. I thought he was a lamppost because his arms were hidden underneath a trench coat. His nose extended at least twelve inches. He had a badly styled bullcut of dark brown hair that reached his glassy domed eyes. Before I met him again, I wondered if he was wearing a mask and the moment moved from reality to movies in memory. It certainly played like a movie. One that you can’t put your finger on, but you know you saw it somewhere, somehow. 

Read Andrew’s work here.

Poetry

Two Poems by Claudia Hernandez

AT THE ZOO

After Bolaño’s “La Francesa” & “Lupe”

I  woke  up  with a quiet mind  today. Drank a cup of coffee. Got
dressed and rode my bike  headed south,  to  the  riverbed.  Final

destination:   a  wooden   bench   facing  a  boat   crammed   with
tourists. Whale watching:  Adults $45  Children $30 Seniors $40.

Read Caudia’s work here.

Poetry

Two Poems by Mihir Bellamkonda

What a noise you make;
I do not wonder you hide in your slouching city
from the solemn and vanishing stars.

Read—and listen—to Mihir’s work here.

Poetry

What We Came All This Way For, by John Schneider

“Daylight is not what we came all this way for”
                                     — Philip Levine

We arrived, sheathed in the hospital’s gray shadow
and the unexpected darkness beneath tall green palms,

a pair of common mynah birds harmonizing their elegy
with our uncertain steps and with her distant IV trickle.

Read John’s work here.

Nonfiction

The Empire Builder, by Ann Hedreen

We were about to stake our claim to a future empire called marriage. What better way to start out than to travel to this unexplored land via a train called The Empire Builder? Especially when, for the price of our one-way tickets from Chicago to Seattle, we could load half a dozen boxes of books, two oversized suitcases, and our old-school aluminum-frame backpacks into the luggage car?

Read—and listen—to Ann’s work here.

Flash Fiction

Sisyphus, by Ben Drevlow

Every morning I let the pitbull out and he sprints the length of the yard, bops his bowling ball head on the door of the shed.

Every morning I let the pitbull out and he sprints the length of the yard, bops his bowling ball head on the door of the shed.

Read Ben’s work here.

Poetry

Ride at Woodside, by Jed Myers

Woodside Amusement Park…in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…
constructed in 1897 by the Fairmount Park Transportation
Company…continued operations until 1955.  

Read—and listen—to Jed’s work here.