Watercolor by Karisa Keasey

WELCOME TO OUR Spring 2020 issue! The theme is WELCOME, which seems ironic and untenable in this brave new world of social isolation. We chose the theme months ago to highlight refugees, and this issue does reflect that, but the world has taken a turn since then, so alongside our featured artist and young refugee writers, our core KINDRED authors and contributors have reflected on the theme WELCOME in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic: What does it mean to be welcoming when we must keep our distance? What if the key to mitigating our own anxiety is to think of others? How do we continue to shine light on those who are suffering in the world when we, too, are suffering? This issue includes prose, poetry, and music, first-time and long-time contributors, and original watercolors that remind us that we are all connected. We hope you enjoy this offering. WELCOME to the end of the world as we know it.

In this issue, we are honored to highlight the winners of the second Bangkok Refugee Young Writers Contest (BRYWC). Founder and Director of the BRYWC, Lace Fang, started this contest as a way to engage refugee and asylum seeking youth in her community and create a platform to share their unique voices. Participants in three age groups submitted essays on the theme HOME. Lace said that “refugees and asylum seekers face the hard challenges of being forced to leave a place they call home to find a new home. This experience is difficult and painful, but it can also help one understand the most important parts of home.” To learn more about this project, please visit (and like!) their Facebook page.

OUR FEATURED ARTIST is award winning artist Karisa Keasey, who has been using her paintings to promote social justice and amplify the voices of some of the most marginalized people in the world for more than seven years. Recently she came out with her book “When You Can’t Go Home,” which follows the lives of 10 refugees whose stories are set alongside 30 of her watercolor portraits. In addition to raising awareness about refugees, Karisa donates 50% of the profit from each book to World Relief so they can continue their work in refugee resettlement. Karisa lives in the greater Seattle area, where she paints and speaks full time. See more at karisakeasey.com.

 

The golden days

By: Sarah Ruth, Bangkok Refugee Young Writers Contest Awardee

“Home”… Oh, what a sweet word it is! This one word brings all the emotions, memories and love. After all, home is not just a building made of bricks and cement, but it is where everyone lives together in harmony with each other. It is a place to share, care and love. Here people make…

 

 

Home is where the heart is

By: Sharon K., Bangkok Refugee Young Writers Contest Awardee

Dripping sand, cement, worn-out painted walls; Cats eat rats, rats eating cockroaches and cockroaches eat everything. Her grandma’s unique cooking, the screeching cry of her brother yelling for his favorite toy. Smoke from the inebriating charcoal, her mom shouting for her to clean up after herself. That is what the 10-year-old Sharon imagines when she…

 

 

 

 

-Fine tune feeling-

By: Sarah McArthur

I go out into the morning, I try not to tune the feeling too much. If I can make one line that is true, it is enough. Just before I had spent hours trying to be important and what a waste it was. My work looking up in state of permission asking, “Is it good enough…

 

 

Welcome to hellstrip

By: Samuel Greenlee

The parcel of land goes by many names. Hellstrip, planting strip, outlawn, greenway, verge. It is that space between the sidewalk and the street, a sort of no man’s land that might be filled with sod, a tree, or dirt piles and dandelions. The verge in front of our home was largely barren when we…

 

 

Love in the time of coronavirus

By: Steve Yates

Wednesday morning.  4:00 a.m. or so.  Another worry-filled day approaching. As I continue to rest in my warm, comfortable bed I begin my ritual of praying for my kids, grandkids. When I get to my Parkinson’s list I get hung up thinking about Tom and his wife Jeanie*. I finally get up, let the…

The second bedroom downstairs

By: Deborah Pless

you can have the second bedroom downstairs

move in your boxes and don’t mind how the crows will scream

at the glory of another sunrise

every damn day

just – put away your books and focus on the light come dappled through the trees…

 

 

Things You Do Not Know

Music and Lyrics By:  Tara Ward

LYRICS I was right to wile away the hours in the summertime

I do not regret the springs that opened up in me and overflowed

Just to bring us back together

Oh baby the things we did not know…

Strands of rebellion

By: Karisa Keasy

They sit cross-legged in the grass. The sun reflects on the dew in the community garden, highlighting Durga’s contagious smile. She sits in a bright green kameez with a dupatta draped around her head, binding her midnight silk hair. Her husband, Phauda, sits beside her, twirling blades of grass. Durga’s laugh lines deepen as she…

 

 

A welcome distraction

By: Stephanie Platter

Jacob wrestled with God. I have no idea why. I have no idea how. I just know that he did. I know because I too wrestle with God. I’m wrestling now. Confounded by the parasitic terrorist of a germ threatening my normalcy and yours. So I walk to the water to make sense of it…

Unwelcome thoughts

By: Rachel Womelsduff Gough

1. My living room has two forts and one mattress.

The forts are new.

The mattress is left over from a sleepover the weekend before this madness hit.

I like to keep the downstairs tidy in case we have company.

The forts might be with us for awhile.

2. My daughter’s teacher calls.…

Maybe it’s exodus, not revolution.

By: J.M. Roddy

What if your authentic self is not welcomed? In recent months, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have made headlines for stepping down as senior royals. I don’t read celebrity gossip, and I can’t claim to judge their character. But the act itself struck me as brave. Markle has been under intense media scrutiny, and there’s…

 

 

Home sweet home

By: Sharoon J., Bangkok Refugee Young Writers Contest Awardee

A small, square slab decorated with beautiful flowers around it, always grabbed my attention in my early years. It was hung above the entrance door of my home. I always admired the beautiful colors and often asked my grandmother what’s written on it. She used to tell me that it was written “Home Sweet Home”.…

Home

By: Any Vo Doan, Bangkok Refugee Young Writers Contest Awardee

The spring is oncoming, and that just remind me all about my old home Vietnam. During the middle of January, we will celebrate Vietnamese traditional holidays. You might not know the name of it so Vietnamese we called: “TET holidays,” which means new year for us. It’s been more than 2 years. I don’t remember…

 

 

Wombat ways

By: Marissa B. Niranjan

You stifle a cough, so others won’t stare

but can you spare a square?

You yell, you scratch, you’re quite a pair

but can you spare a square?

Don’t be lured into our lair

but can you spare a square?

This moment is heavy, and equally rare

but can you spare a square?

They don’t…