“Memory and music are as inseparable as they are elusive.” (Natalie Marino on Sevdah)

To be young is fleeting. Love and life pass like the ungraspable wind, never to return again.

Music, Literature, Selections, Personal Essay, HistoryGuestJune 18, 2025Hippocrates, John Keats, James Joyce, Lucille Clifton

Songs for the Sevdah Issue (A Selection)

The sevdah playlist is a lush echo of the pulse of sage & velvet that defines this issue, with songs chosen by our editorial team in the process of curating & dreaming.

The Presto Letters

In an older sense of the word, to understand means “to stand among.” When I need to understand anything, I often stand among songs.

Literature, Music, SelectionsTopaz WintersJune 16, 2024William Shakespeare, Noname, Johnny Cash, Jonathan Biss, Sylvia Plath, Erik Satie, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ovid, Alanis Morissette, Chet Baker, Bleachers

Songs for the Presto Issue (A Selection)

An ineffable, blink-quick mix of songs chosen by our team & contributors to evoke the flirtation of silk & song woven through the presto issue.

At Least at Times It Knew Me (Lucy Hannah Ryan on You Make Yourself Another)

In the back alley of my mind a taxi leaked orange light against the worst of my wounding and I said, I want to leave that here.

Literature, Music, Personal Essay, SelectionsGuestApril 8, 2023Purity Ring, Angel Olson, WILLOW, Z Berg, Florence and the Machine, FKA Twigs, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, Lucy Hannah Ryan, Metric

The Elegy Letters (A Selection)

My work as a writer is aimed at truth which, like a song, cannot be contained.

Music, Selections, LiteratureTopaz WintersJuly 25, 2022beebadoobee, Carolyn Forche, Larry Levis, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, AC/DC, love letters

Songs for the Elegy Issue (A Selection)

A series of songs chosen by Issue X’s contributors, a mix to light up all that desperate quiet & sing the grief alive.

The Synaesthesia Letters (A Selection)

When a poem reaches its most potent limits, I consider it reaching into the state of song.

Music, Selections, LiteratureTopaz WintersJuly 26, 2021Wislawa Szymborska, love letters, Gustav Mahler, Igor Levit, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lyle Lovett, Elvis Costello, the Smiths, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Failure

Songs for the Synaesthesia Issue (A Selection)

A selection of songs that have marked this era of fluid warmth, the soundtrack to which we’ve been dreaming a bright new thing into breath.

Ode to the Gothic Heroine (A Selection)

Our heroine keeps walking, and we follow, unseen ally, shadow of hope, anticipating the thrills and horrors lying in wait.

Literature, Music, SelectionsAmrita ChakrabortyApril 28, 2021k.d. lang, Orla Gartland, Susanne Sundfør, The National, Soap&Skin, Agnes Obel, BANKS, Hayley Williams, Bat For Lashes, Daphne du Maurier, Maggie Rogers