This year Rankine has served as Guest Editor of CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art & Action, whose recent issue’s focus is on the theme Black Lives Matter.

“When God was Filipino, / he put a pig and fire together and called it porkissimo.”

The line—an excerpt from the poem “I Am Not From The Philippines”—was written by Sarah Gambito, an associate professor of English and director of the creative writing program.

It was, to her knowledge, the first time her work had been used in a restaurant review, though it was not the first time food had infiltrated her poetry and prose.

“I remember having a very delicious bowl of ramen with a friend, and saying, ‘What if a poem could be like this bowl of ramen on a cold, cold day? You know, carbs and broth and complete comfort,” she said.

“I’m interested in the idea of how that can happen in words.”

The theme of hunger comes up a lot in her work because she writes often about the immigrant experience. Her parents emigrated from the Philippines to the United States, and she grew up in Virginia, before moving to New York in 1995. Because she never lived in the Philippines and left Virginia so long ago, the concept of home is very much on her mind, she said.

A trip to the Philippines in 1999 on a faculty fellowship—her first as an adult to the country of her ancestors— made her realize she has many homes.

“The idea of feeling at home in multiple places is a different kind grace that I didn’t realize I’d have access to either,” she said.

“Much of my writing has been about the anguish of feeling displaced and the anger around that. I’m ready to also look at the other side of it, because I may not have a capital “H” home, but I have these lower case “h” homes in many places that I look.”

Having already published two collections of poetry, Matadora (Alice James Books, 2004) and Delivered (Persea Books, 2009), Gambito is currently at work on a new one, tentatively titled Virginia. It’s still unclear what form it will take, she said, but chances are that food will play a factor.

“There’s a great quote from the poet Lin Yutang: ‘What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?’” she said.

Gambito came to Fordham in 2008, and in 2011, she became editor of Cura, Fordham’s literary magazine. The magazine, which is a collaboration among the faculty, the public, and students, publishes twice annually online. This school year’s theme, “Black Lives Matter,” was chosen in response to the recent racial bias events both on campus and off.

“Speaking with students, we said ‘We can do something about this. We don’t have to just observe. We can act as artists and encourage a voice against this action,” she said.

Claudia Rankine, whose book Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2014) was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry, will help to edit the Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 issues. Gambito teaches Citizen in her classes. She says one of the biggest challenges she faces is convincing students that the book, which recounts racial aggressions in encounters in daily life and in the media, is written for them, no matter what their racial background.

“We want to collect student voices from both campuses and feature them alongside the pieces we’re finding from members of the public. Poetry, fiction, some fantastic digital creative writing, creative nonfiction, visual arts; it runs the gamut,” Gambito said.

“It’s an issue for all of us to pay attention to.”

The Fall 2015 issue of Cura is being published at the end of the year, and is drawing some of its material from art coming from within the creative writing workshops. As such, Gambito is adamant that students are present for the workshops.

“It’s not just the poems that they bring in, or their stories, but it is what we co-create together. Sitting and speaking to each other is another kind of art. So I tell them, the workshop is mandatory,” she said.

“If you’re not here, we miss what you could have said. We miss what we could have created as a class,” she said. “I don’t make distinctions between writing and critiquing. We’re creating together, we’re imagining together what a poem can be.”

The sixth issue of CURA, the literary magazine of art and action  published by Fordham’s creative writing program, is now live at www.curamag.com

Fordham University has launched a national literary magazine.

The inaugural issue of CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, is now on line, with a print and kindle issue to follow in the spring.

The magazine will feature creative writing, visual art, new media and video in response to current news and themes of social responsibility. The theme of the first issue is “Home,” and proceeds from the project will go to support Covenant House, New York’s largest adolescent care agency serving homeless, runaway and at-risk youth.

Featured in the first issue are works by renowned writers Robert Bly, Lia Purpura, Evie Shockley, Rigoberto Gonzalez and Idra Novey, alongside that of Fordham graduate and undergraduate students.

CURA, says Sarah Gambito, assistant professor of English and the magazine’s editor in chief, acknowledges the marriage of literary publishing with Fordham’s mission of cura personalis, or nourishment of the whole person.

“What is unique is the idea of integrating a literary magazine with social justice,” said Gambito. “I think Fordham has created something meaningful in the literary community.”

And here are two excerpts from the inaugural issue.

Woman in Black

– Hamra Abbas –

Climbing into Bed

– Robert Bly –

There’s no end to the joy of climbing into bed,
And hearing your wife rustling about nearby;
There’s no end to the delight of the huge covers.

There’s no end to the delight of hearing your body
Rumbling, and night waiting to capture you,
And take you off to your childhood bed.

There’s no end to saying there’s no end,
No end to rubbing your feet after a run,
No end to the delight when the door closes.

There’s no end to thanking Jesus for his words,
To pulling up the covers of a century
And stretching out your toes into the dark,
And saying goodbye to the world once more.

CURA is administered by Fordham faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. You can find the online magazine, including submission deadlines, here.

–Janet Sassi