Alison Stine is an essayist, poet, novelist, and visual artist. Her most recent fiction book is a novella The Protectors (Little A), and her most recent book of poetry is Wait (University of Wisconsin Press). An NEA Fellow and former Ruth Lilly Fellow, she works as a reporter, and illustrates for The Rumpus.
Poetry
Summer 2002
When I Taught Mary to Eat Avocado
She didn't understand. You couldn't cut straight through with the big knife because of the pit, or heart, or stone. We gave it many names, and when it was revealed, […]
Poetry
Summer 2002
Otto Bar
You must understand. The drink tasted of blood because of the cap's mineral tang, because of the salt of the hand that served, because the singer in your band had […]
Poetry
Fall 2010
Wife
We waited in the field like birds. We ran and hid in the fields to watch. Oh make me a big house. Make me a blackbird. I want to be […]
Poetry
Fall 2010
Stepmother
Save the dreams for therapy, the therapist said. But this dream has a train. That’s new. And outside the window: a boy and a man in medium coats, the boy’s […]
New Voices
Summer/Fall 1999
Lot of My Sister
1. The only prostitute I ever met sat on a black bench and offered to share her bread with me. She was not that pretty, but the bread was warm […]
New Voices
Summer/Fall 1999
The Wig
1. Melanie who lost her hair because of a stone in her uterus, Melanie wears a wig today. I see her fumble with it, fuss with the back wisps, push […]
New Voices
Summer/Fall 1999
Blood Music
These things make no sound to me: the trace of your feet on stairs, the brush of flesh against flesh as we turn, not even waking. I think we only […]
New Voices
Summer/Fall 1999
Vincent’s Ear
1. Hear this: you are the kind of person to cup your quiet hands around a moth or slap it with the flat of your palm as it paddles toward […]
Resistance, Change, Survival
All Who Would Have Seen Us Dead
The stories I can’t write are complicated and sad. I could tell the stories I can’t write in lovely ways, ways you would remember and maybe learn from. I could […]