Volatile urgencies. Ethiopian cover artist Wosene Worke Kosrof brings an ancient alphabet into our jostling, electric present, infusing AGNI 89 with a directed energy. Jo Ann Beard’s lead-off essay simultaneously inspects and enacts the writing process as she thinks back on the stories her father told about war and loss. Poet Sharon Olds grapples with a mother’s legacy, and sings an aria to the unchanging glide at her own body’s core. Jonathan Escoffery writes about a cash-strapped high school teacher who humiliates himself for pay. And Sam Kahn watches the iPhone replace the cigarette. Eamon Grennan, Grace Singh Smith, Hebe Uhart, Cyrus Cassells, Shauna Barbosa, and many more.