Issue 10: Life is Real Only Then, When 'I Am' | Glory Chasing | Nine-ball
The latest from Khôra
Welcome to Khôra, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues.
Last month was Khôra's one-year anniversary! Thank you for your enthusiastic response to our magazine over the past year, and ENORMOUS THANKS and LOVE to our subscribers. Over the past year, it has been an honor to collaborate with so many visionary writers and artists, whose work for Khôra is being shared all over — from writing workshops to university lectures to publications to social media. Just last month, we were thrilled to read Hippocampus Magazine’s interview with author Megan Stielstra, in which she called Khôra “an amazing experimental journal.” We are humbled and couldn’t do it without you, our phenomenal subscribers. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Issue 10’s Featured Writer, Priyanka Sacheti, is a writer and poet based in Bangalore, India. Her literary work has appeared in many literary journals such as Barren, Parentheses Art, Dust Poetry Magazine, Popshot, The Lunchticket, and Jaggery Lit, as well as various anthologies. She is currently working on a poetry and short story collection. Her poem One Day is accompanied by her photo of an “unfurled hibiscus / glowing quietly in the dusty December light.”
We’re excited to feature Argentinian-born, Berlin-based multimedia artist Juan Arata, who works in the fields of installation, video, sculpture, writing and painting. Issue 10’s cover image Life is Real Only Then, When 'I Am' (pictured below, from Arata’s recent exhibition) explores the notion of the occult.
“I create as I speak
but I don’t know the higher language
just a notion of the occult.
The secret knowledge is in the mistake.”
In Issue 10, we’re back with new work from our collaborative team of curated writers: Carol Fischbach, Ploi Pirapokin, Adam Swanson, and Sabrina Tom. What a gritty, glorious group! We’ve also collaborated in this issue with phenomenal artists Helen G. Blake, Jen Fuller, Fay Ku, and Soumya Netrabile.
If you love what you’re seeing, please subscribe, share, tweet, retweet, and post, and Khôra will be back next month.
Yours,
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/Khôra squad
“I cannot write petrol without thinking of you.
It is a favorite scent of mine
but it was a truth I nurtured in secret:
myself at petrol stations,
drunk on those rich fumes.”
— from One Day by featured writer Priyanka Sacheti
Issue 10 Highlights
One Day by Featured Writer Priyanka Sacheti
“you were there, one day, you weren’t.
I thought I carried seven seas
inside me but they were only tears.
What, after all, is a saltless life?”
Read One Day.
Nine-ball by Sabrina Tom / Artwork by Helen G. Blake
“On the speakers played Dwight Yoakam’s “Purple Rain.” A song for men. Chris and Peter hummed with pleasure, in harmony with cowboy music, with each other. Peter flipped over and arched his back like a bridge. A crossing. He turned his head, resting his cheek on the green felt and transforming it into something lovely and verdant…”
Read Nine-ball.
Glory Chasing by Adam Swanson / Artwork by Jen Fuller
“Inside an adult sex shop, far from the street entrance, a curtain made by strings of tiny metal beads separates the plastic-wrapped silicone and DVDs from a dark hallway lined with five booths on either side. In the back of the store, the booths are numbered, and each of the small square rooms has a hole cut into the center of the adjoining wall, creating an opening between the booths large enough for an exchange.”
Read Glory Chasing.
Witness by Carol Fischbach / Artwork by Soumya Netrabile
“I’m held hostage, glued to the spiral stickiness of staying in the same seat. No forward movement as [Flat spin] scenery changes and repeats and regrets roar in my ears. A [Rudderless] body with malfunctions I do not understand. The pilot has no control and I cannot stop the spin and the centrifugal force of aging presses itself into my skin and into my belly and into those I love and I can’t stop the spin and I know we’re all going to crash and I can’t stop the spin.”
Read Witness.
Help the Shoots Grow, Pull Them by Ploi Pirapokin / Artwork by Fay Ku
“Part II of IV
Our best friend was wrapped like a hand roll in her blanket, lying sideways. Her tousled black hair poked out on one end, and her thick calves came out of the other. The soles of her feet were dusty, her cheek, wet and shiny. Sprout’s eyes were two black saucers staring past us, as if we stood in the way of what she really expected.”
Read Help the Shoots Grow, Pull Them.
Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am’ by Featured Artist Juan Arata
“Man is the measure of all things
but Life is Real Only Then,
When ‘I Am.’
Language is the science
that contains all other sciences.
The word: the primal symbol.
Everything is symbolic.”
Read Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am’.
Khôra will be back next month.
When you subscribe to Khôra for free, you’ll receive issue highlights straight to your inbox. You’ll also have access to Khôra Salon, our speaker series, along with subscriber-only posts. If you are able to pay for a subscription, we love you, and you help to build access for others. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds. If you’re not able to pay for a subscription, we love you, and welcome to the revolution.