I want my story to be ordinary.
for Andrea C. Ruiz Costas and Keishla M. Rodríguez Ortiz
Nicole Arocho Hernández grew up in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. Her poems have been featured in Variant Literature Journal, The Acentos Review, The Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Her first chapbook (I Have No Ocean, Sundress Publications, 2021) is available online. Her second chapbook (How can colonized see light—) is forthcoming from Glass Poetry Press. She is the recipient of the 2021 Katherine C. Turner Prize and a Tin House Summer Workshop alum. She is also the Translations Editor at the Hayden’s Ferry Review and an MFA candidate at Arizona State University. Her spirit never left Puerto Rico.
Edited by Emilie Menzel and Teri Vela.
The featured image is “Lord Ullin’s Daughter” by Albert Pinkham Ryder (before 1907), selected and manipulated specifically for Nicole’s poem by our Art Director, Meg Sykes.