Heat 3-25

HEAT 25 faces death – and responds with grief in the face of loss, flirtations with nothingness, and celebrations of love and vitality.

Zheng Zhi’s story ‘Joining Hearts’ (translated by Jeremy Tiang) follows a son during his father’s final days and the period thereafter as he navigates surreal religious ritual, elaborate bureaucracy, and a meeting with a long-lost uncle. In an interview with Sean O’Beirne, Tony Tulathimutte talks about giving up all sense of self – both in his stories, and in his position as author. In Grace Yee’s poem ‘living among trees’, memories of her father’s life are interspersed with questions about his interior world that can no longer be answered.

Continuing this issue’s focus on father figures, poet Lulu Houdini remembers and draws inspiration from the fighting spirit in poet and artist Dhoompoo Lionel Fogarty in ‘riot seed’ and ‘Longwing’. In her story ‘The Reserve’, Eda Gunaydin contends with the well of melancholy that remains when the painful family dynamics of childhood are, through death, left to go forever unresolved. π.O.’s historical and contemporary poem-portraits use his hypnotic rhythms and playful punctuation to show neglectful fathers, corrupt cops, a stalwart knitting lady and a valiant street mannequin with a flair for adventure, while Liam Ferney’s poems capture the comedy of country life and the indignities of aging. Finally, across the ocean, Yumna Kassab drops us into the thick of her recent days in Lebanon, where she grieves for what was, sees what has changed, and shares her deep love for the beauty that still is.

Contents

Grace Yee  living among trees  poetry
Zheng Zhi (translated by Jeremy Tiang)  Joining Hearts  prose
Lulu Houdini  Four Poems  poetry
Tony Tulathimutte (interviewed by Sean O’Beirne)  ‘Layer After Layer of Delusion’  interview
Liam Ferney  Four Poems  poetry
Eda Gunaydin  The Reserve  prose 
π.O.  Four Poems  poetry
Yumna Kassab  Nine Six One  prose