Hello, issue 8 here speaking. Between now and when I step down, at the emergence of issue 9, Brasil will have elected a new President. Now the candidates are campaigning hard. I myself need not campaign. I have been appointed. My term of office is two months. I have that long to fold my bird of paradise wings and hop around to seduce the literary world. The President of Brasil gets four years on the job.
Which of the three leading parties will win is not for me to know. Will it be the incumbent Workers’ Party? The business friendly Social Democrats? Or the party named like a programming variable, the Socialist Party? Trailing behind these three are three more socialist parties, one of which is the Green Party. Its candidate is being meme’d for having a personality. The Socialist Party candidate died when his private jet crashed by reason of mechanical failure or a bomb. Since the tragedy the party has moved in the polls from a distant third to a close second behind the incumbent.
You can tell Brasil has a parliamentary system. You may have heard Brasil has a lot of parties. It is of note that the six like-valued parties above take up more of a range on the political spectrum than the two parties in the United States. But one thing is the same: candidates’ signs are lining the roadways. Every candidate is assigned a number. This number is often displayed on the signs more prominently than the candidate’s name is. You use the number to vote here. This is for the benefit of Mr. Analfabet. By law every citizen must vote.
May I present Daniel Lee, who knows himself in all his facets. Gregory Novak shines the glow of love in top prose. Patrick Pawlowski probably will make that mistake again.
Laura Hurwitz finds salvation in an unlikely place.
Andira Dodge grabs ahold of flitting childhood time. Christopher Schaeffer, in honor of sports talk, is a beast. He beastin. Who writes in beast mode? He do. And S.N.W. Tolstoy lives through an 8.0 on the parental Richter scale.
On our cover, designer Nayrb Wasylycia divides the continents like man.
The Brasilia Review #8 comes to you from where the air itself is kindling. Water is mercy and this air has none.
Fiction
Who Am I by Daniel Lee
“I know the future in many cases. I am precognitive.”
She Sees Me by Gregory Novak
“…in some grander fashion than our relative arrangement would allow (or warrant).”
A Youngish Man by Patrick Pawlowski
“…from beyond her paper holding she held everything before her in her eyes.”
Non-Fiction
American Muffler by Laura Hurwitz
“American Muffler is on a block in New Haven notorious for drug deals and drive-by shootings.”
Poetry
Dateless Snapshot by Andira Dodge
“black mary janes, green dress, knobby knees / pushing an empty swing”
Donald Food Revists the Canons of Spiritual Law by Christopher Schaeffer
“This bathroom has three antechambers / and the sinks don’t turn on.”
West Country Doughnut Disaster by S.N.W. Tolstoy
“As our children, quite embarrassed, were forced to turned away”