The representation that recent films like Shang-Chi and shows like Squid Game allowed the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community to experience—especially after a year of increased anti-Asian violence due to the COVID-19 pandemic—feels necessary, now more so than ever.
RIDER’S ROOM (Ep.1)
An aspiring African American writer sells an urban TV pilot to a studio and is forced to rewrite the show alongside a team of studio-appointed white writers.
The Home Within my Hips and Head
In time, I learned how to cheat my body’s system, depriving it of food and exhausting it with exercise. I started to walk with my thighs spread apart from each other, keeping my hips locked and my gait wide. My hips tried to relax, begging me to stop putting them in the middle of my mind’s complex-driven conquest. But I was too terrified to hear them plead, terrified of being hated by the cruel boys in my class who wanted someone emptier than I was.
Thursday Night in Pasadena: The Story of a New York Exile and a Realization of Self Love’s Necessity
In New York City, a person knows where they stand. You know before you hop on the subway if a person is going to show up to a date. Then if they’re not showing, and […]
If Blood Were Clear
How convenient for civilization would it be?
Ghost Light
Lonely bulb
Moonbeam beacon
Cascades
On the stage
Pitch black
The Sopranos “Woke up This Morning” and Chose Violence
In a post #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter world, The Many Saints of Newark feels intentionally prescient, but ultimately fails to deliver a story that challenges the racist and sexist tropes that pervade American gangster cinema.
elegy of a fruit fly
i befriended a fruit fly once,
with body black, and bending knees.
knowing secrets of the universe, hence
it told me how to live in peace.
My Type
my type lies about their music taste until it’s too late and we’re both pretending to like St. Vincent
Five Poems by Max Hamilton
o-scrape off in time n-watch th-word-raid brake
Inside Voices
I don’t know what to do about these ethical moral dilemmas. I don’t know how to decide if my anger should be placed deeper on the Black men I share skin with, or the white women I share gender with, or even the white gays I share queerness with. Or anyone in between with oppression commonalities.
An Interview with Jessica Gross, Author of ‘Hysteria’
“I enjoy men writing about sex that I can eventually upend in my own head by writing from a woman’s perspective.”
An Interview with Clarinetist Michelle Hromin
“I think it’s important to openly talk about how you’re feeling and what you think is making you feel the way that you are.”
Best Kept Secret
My old is translated and tampered with by the new
Distance
107 miles. Sometimes I walk further downtown and the distance increases, sometimes I walk uptown and the distance shrinks. But, that’s only a measurement. It doesn’t matter where I am, there is always a distance between us. Even when I visit you.
Don’t
Don’t hold my face when you say it./
Don’t look at me as if you’ll crumble if I turn away.
An Interview with Metra Lundy and Selina Garcia, creators of the Documentary Film, “A Walk In Her Shoes”
“in trying to heal and bring myself out of a very low place, I looked to Harriet Tubman, her example, and her story”
Everyday is Like Sunday
Things were beginning to feel indefinite.
![[decorative image]](https://i0.wp.com/www.12thstreetonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Image-from-iOS-e1621039180595.jpg?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Poems by Sasha Trufanov
I’m roaming inside America/
My feet have gotten very cold
Common Sense
On January 8th, 2021, a new Netflix original series appeared called Pretend it’s a City. It stars a seductive, if not minimal cast: Martin Scorsese in the company of the infamous Fran Leibowitz. Their show […]