Four poems from Like a Beggar and The Human Line

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Bad things are going to happen. 

Your tomatoes will grow a fungus

and your cat will get run over.

Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream

melting in the car . . .
 --From "Relax," a poem by Ellen Bass, first published in The American Poetry Review and reprinted in Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), pp. 3-4. 

  

"I'm fat and I'm old and I'm going to die," Dorianne says

as we're taking our after-dinner walk on the grounds of Esalen . . .

--From "Women Walking," a poem by Ellen Bass, first published in The American Poetry Review, Volume 38, Number 1, and reprinted in Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), pp. 21-22.

 

...She's a dead ringer for my mother,

sipping black coffee, scrambling eggs,

a cigarette burning in a cut-glass ashtray.

She opens the store.  Amber whiskeys

and clear vodkas shine on wooden shelves,

bruise-dark wine rising in the slender necks. . . . 

--From "The Muse of Work," a poem by Ellen Bass, first published in New Ohio Review, Issue 11, and reprinted in Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), pp. 60-61.

 

And yet, wouldn't it be welcome

at the end of an ordinary day?

The audience could be small,

the theater modest.  Folding chairs

in a church basement would do.

Just a short earnest burst of applause

that you got up that morning

and, one way or another,

made it through the day. . . . 

--From "Don't Expect Applause," a poem by Ellen Bass, The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), pp. 87-88.

Fiction by Rebekah Matthews, nonfiction by Liz Prato, and poems by Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, José Angel Araguz, and Pablo Neruda

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The next morning my roommate and I talk online, complaining about Gerard; we wonder if Gerard's girlfriend really likes him more than she liked girls. We look up Gerard on Facebook. There are photos of him posing in front of the mirror, his shirt pulled up, showing his impressively chiseled abs. There are photos of him with his girlfriend. She is pretty with red curly hair and freckles. There is one picture of her smiling at him the way my girlfriend sometimes smiles at her kids. . . .
--From "I Promise to Never Fall in Love with a Stranger," a short story by Rebekah Matthews, Wigleaf (August 21, 2014). 

My brother's autopsy report arrived in the mail on Christmas Eve.  I'd ordered it the week before. . . . 
--From "Anatomy of an Autopsy Report," nonfiction by Liz Prato, Summerset Review (Fall 2014).   

There is a ghost in the machine of my body. The haunting
happens like this: I loll on the bed, open-mouthed,
acting dead. My husband asks, Are you dead
again? My gallbladder this time. . . .

--From "Ghost in the Machine," a poem by Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, Linebreak (September 9, 2014). 

I made up a story for myself once,
That each glove I lost
Was sent to my father in prison . . .

--From "Gloves," a poem by José Angel Araguz, Rattle, Number 28 (Winter 2007), and on the website of the Poetry Foundation. 

Under the trees light
has dropped from the top of the sky,
light
like a green
latticework of branches . . .
--From "Ode to Enchanted Light," a poem by Pablo Neruda, reprinted on the blog "A Year of Being Here" (June 9, 2014).   

The Fall 2014 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2014 issue of the journal features poetry by Philip Belcher, Laura Lee Beasley, Bill Rector, Joan Mazza, Laura Merleau, Joseph Chaney, José Angel Araguz, Marge Piercy, Shoshauna Shy, and P M F Johnson; prose poetry by Cameron Conaway; nonfiction by J. Malcolm Garcia; short fiction by John Oliver Hodges, Timothy Day, and Missy-Marie Montgomery; and acrylic on panel by cover artist Hugh Greer. 

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a poem by Maria Richardson, and two pieces from McSweeney's

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It is both selfish of me and not
to ask you to stay a little longer. 

The mountains are playing that game
where one of them wears a cloud as a veil

and then the others follow. 
They are forcing us to play. 

They are asking us to dedicate the day
to the books on the bottom shelf. 
...

--From "To You," a poem by Maria Richardson, Best American Poetry blog (January 11, 2014).    

 

The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living.  My short stories and novels have always filled my life with meaning, but, at least in the first decade of my career, they were no more capable of supporting me than my dog was.  But part of what I love about both novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns.  We serve them, and in return they thrive.  It isn't their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from.  
--From This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins, 2013). 

Dear Class of 1994,

I regret to announce my resignation as “Most Likely to Succeed.” Nearly twenty years since the senior superlative was announced in our yearbook, it’s clear that I’ve fallen short of your expectations.  . . .

--From "An Open Letter to My 1994 High School Class Regarding My Designation of 'Most Likely to Succeed,'" a piece by Eric Corpus, McSweeney's (January 25, 2013). 

Dear TV Snobs,

TV was invented because we were tired of talking to each other and needed something else to do. You, though, keep trying to have intellectual discussions about politics and the arts while we’re watching Dancing with the Stars. Despite your oddity, we’ve tried not to make fun of you. We learned how wrong it is to judge people by watching special episodes of Family Ties and The Brady Bunch.   . . .

--From "An Open Letter to TV Snobs," a piece by Beverly Petravicius, McSweeney's (August 19, 2011). 

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (stories)

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She told him her only memory of her mother.  She was downtown, with her mother, on a winter day.  There was snow between the sidewalk and the street.  She had just learned how to tell time, and she looked up at the Post Office clock and saw that the moment had come for the soap opera she and her mother listened to every day on the radio.  She felt a deep concern, not because of missing the story but because she wondered what would happen to the people in the story, with the radio not turned on, and her mother and herself not listening.  It was more than concern she felt, it was horror, to think of the way things could be lost, could not happen, through some casual absence or chance. 
--From "Post and Beam," a short story by Alice Munro, published by The New Yorker (December 11, 2000) and reprinted in her collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (Knopf, 2001), pp. 188-218 in the Vintage Contemporaries paperback edition.

Two poems and a memoir by Tarn Wilson

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Late summer 1971, my father quit his job in Washington, D.C. as the Brookings Institution's first computer programmer, bought an old school bus with "Suck Nixon" painted on the side, and packed us off for British Columbia. 
        . . . Set loose in the primeval Canadian wilderness, my sister and I were to be educated by the land, released from shame, fear, insecurities, sexual hangups, and shallow social conventions imposed by a corrupt and repressive culture.  In our natural, unspoiled state, we'd be happy and free.

--From The Slow Farm, a memoir by Tarn Wilson (Ovenbird Books Nonfiction Series, 2014). 

 

 

Betsy's boyfriend dumped her this morning

and when she comes to the door

I am in my underpants, unable to console her. 

...

--From "Living Alone with Small Dogs," a poem by Matthew Siegel, Cimarron Review (Issue 181, Fall 2012), p. 14.   

 

 

She used the stadium. I would have
chosen the bridge. We’re not even

 

Division One. Our tailgate crowds
are mostly enthusiastic about beer. 

. . .

--From "Ready Regret," a poem by Lisa Olstein, Linebreak (July 22, 2014). 

Part of a memoir by Maxine Hong Kingston, stories told through papercuts and library cards, three pieces from Far Enough East, and a film

~

The Metropolitan Police, the men, stood
in one-line formation. The women, we,
the demonstrators, drew one another close.
We were a bouquet knot of pink roses.
How can it be that all the cops are men,
and all for Peace women? I can't live
in such a world. I don't want to keep
living out the myth that men fight
and women mother. We regressed—the junior
high dance. One boy crossed
the wide floor, chose one girl,
escorted her back to the other side, where
he arrested her. . . .

--From I Love a Broad Margin to My Life, a memoir in verse by Maxine Hong Kingston (Knopf, 2011).  This segment is from Knopf's Poem-a-Day (April 21, 2012) and is available here on Tumblr. 

"Babcia," a papercut story by Marta Chudolinska, Broken Pencil, Issue 60 (August 27, 2013). 

 

"Due Date," a project by Molly Rideout, Driftwood Press, Volume 1, Issue 2.  This story consists of 36 library cards, each hand-written by a different woman.   

 

"Kumasi," a poem by Patrick Bahls, and "My Mother Had Two Voices," a poem by Steve Klepetar, Far Enough East, Issue 5.   

 

Inside his dream Kit is a child again, tanned and knock-kneed. He is a small boy in a starched cotton shirt and khaki Bermuda shorts. His mouth is flooded with the achingly comforting, artificial sweetness of fifteen-cent fishcake from the primary school tuck-shop. He is standing in a building that looks something like his old school. Paper cranes drip down from mouldy windows. They are folded from beer bottles. The wind moves and makes the trees outside stir and sway. His teeth start dropping out; clattering on his tongue, hard and small and troubling. He wonders if anyone has ever choked to death on his or her own teeth.

--From "Coast," a short story by Sharlene Teo, Far Enough East, Issue 5. 

 

Before Midnight (2013), the third film in the trilogy about Jesse and Celine; directed by Richard Linklater; written by Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy based on characters created by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan; and starring Ethan Hawke as Jesse and Julie Delpy as Celine.

A few stories by Miranda July and Aimee Bender

~
One looked like a woman but was too tall, or maybe it was just that the other one was so small, like a little boy.  I saw them around Portland all the time that summer.  Were they young or old?  Couldn't tell.  Were they from the present, or another era; i.e., time-travellers?  Wasn't sure.  They were in black and white, neckties and knickers.  A little dirty.  Always leaning on each other.   

--From "TV," a story by Miranda July, The New Yorker (June 9, 2014). 

 

I met Arlene in college, in the freshman dorm.  We were not roommates but suite-mates in the corner section of a squat brick house at the center of a small college campus in the middle of Ohio.  We both had moved from opposite coasts with the desire for a personalized liberal-arts college experience and had become friends due to proximity and availability more than compatibility.  For example, we had nothing in common.  She: Blue Ridge Mountain town.  Me: central Californian suburbs. She: declared international-relations major with three eclectic minors.  Me: not yet totally decided.  The men she liked were brutish jocks; I had located within two weeks every single soulful gentleman on campus who wrote poetry.  I found them by the length of their hair or the wear of their jeans.  She liked big-budget romantic movies; I saw every documentary I could find at the library, and if I’d had any retention ability, I would’ve stored a great deal of knowledge about the world.  She had a perpetual perm, because she felt it added volume to the thinness of her hair and gave her a look of energy; I was hard-pressed to use a brush because I preferred a ponytail, and part of trying to attract those poet-men was to look a little like I had wandered onto campus by accident after having spent ten years with the wolves behind some farmhouse, living off scraps and reveling in the pure air like a half-girl Mowgli, half-woman Thoreau. . . .

--From "Bad Return," a short story by Aimee Bender, published by One Story (Issue 158, January 2011) and reprinted in her collection The Color Master (Doubleday/Random House/Anchor Books, 2013), trade paperback edition pp. 99-129.  

 

I can't remember the words of things.  The words for words.  I have lost my words.  What's this from?  Is it the Internet?  Texting?  E-mail?  I see it in kids, too; it's not an aging thing.  An aging issue.  I do know that at the supermarket yesterday, I asked the guy where the weighing thing was, the thing that weighs other things, flailing around with my hands, indicating, and he crumpled up his forehead and said, "You mean the scale?"

     "Yes"--I said, beaming, pumping his hand--"the scale!"  As if he was the winner of an SAT prize giveaway.  . . .

--From "Wordkeepers," a short story by Aimee Bender, published by McSweeney's (Issue 41, July 2012) and reprinted in her collection The Color Master (Doubleday/Random House/Anchor Books, 2013),  pp. 153-160.   

 

I was at the Bev with Sylv and we were eating Chinese food takeout from Panda Express . . . she was going on about how she'd checked her messages and Jack hadn't called even though he said he would but maybe he was caught in traffic.  Even though he has a phone?  But I'd never say that out loud.  Sylv's the first friend I've had in a long time who really is way high on the friend pyramid, and the way she dances!  She bops around really energetically but she's also still.  Like she's moving her torso but her feet don't move, and then sometimes she'll take one step, and it feels like a thesis statement.  Like it is a topic sentence about her butt.        

--From "Lemonade," a short story by Aimee Bender, published by Tin House (Issue 33, Fall 2007) and reprinted in her collection The Color Master (Doubleday/Random House/Anchor Books, 2013), pp. 85-97.   

The Poetry Storehouse

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The Poetry Storehouse is a collaborative venture; the goal is to marry poetry and other creative media.  It's fascinating to see how the same poem can be interpreted in such different ways through various readings and remixes.  Here are two of my favorites so far:     

Video remix: 'Weather' by Steve Klepetar from Nic Sebastian on Vimeo. Based on a poem from 'The Poetry Storehouse' (poetrystorehouse.com) - great contemporary poems for creative remix. Original Storehouse post and poem text by Steve Klepetar here: http://bit.ly/Qsw13I. Soundtrack by Setuniman (freesound.org/people/setuniman/).

Still image remix: 'Orchids' by Diane Lockward with art by Adam Martinakis from Nic Sebastian on Vimeo. Based on a poem from 'The Poetry Storehouse' (poetrystorehouse.com) - great contemporary poems for creative remix. Original Storehouse post and poem text by Diane Lockward here: http://bit.ly/1gjDvjV. Art by Adam Martinakis (adamakis.blogspot.com). Process notes here: http://bit.ly/1nVE7QW.

"Mother's Day" by David Young

~
I see her doing something simple, paying bills,

or leafing through a magazine or book,

and wish that I could say, . . .
 --From "Mother's Day," a poem by David Young, continued on the website of the Academy of American Poets, reprinted from Field of Light and Shadow: Selected and New Poems by David Young (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).    

Two novels and an excerpt from a book-length poem

~
        My father has a glum nature.  He retired three years ago, and he doesn't talk much.  Left to himself, he can remain silent for days.  When this happens, he begins brooding, he begins thinking strange thoughts.  Recently he told me that I was selfish, that I had always been selfish, that when I was a baby I would start to cry as soon as he turned on the TV.  I am forty and he is seventy-two.  When he said this, I began tickling him.  I was in my parents' house in New Jersey, on a sofa in their living room.  "Who's the sad baby?" I said.  "Who's the baby that cries all the time?"
        "Get away," he squeaked, as he fell back and tried to wriggle away.  "Stop being a joker.  I'm not kidding." 
--From Family Life, a novel by Akhil Sharma (W.W. Norton, 2014). 

        He is twenty-six, and for as long as he's lived in the north there has been only the Aleut woman. 
        Several evenings a week he comes to her door with a duck or a rabbit and she asks him in.  Not asks, exactly.  She opens the door and steps aside so he can enter.
        She lives in a frame house hammered together fast out of boards and tar paper, a house like all the others in Anchorage, except it isn't on First or Fourth or even Ninth Street; instead it is off to the east, marooned on the mud flats.  But she has things in it, like anyone else, a table and two chairs, flour and tea on a shelf, a hat hanging from a peg.  She wears a dress with buttons and she cooks at a stove, and the two of them eat before, and then after she sits cross-legged in the tub and smokes her pipe. 
--From The Seal Wife, a novel by Kathryn Harrison (Random House, 2002). 

Come, it's time to set the table,
dusk is bruised with rain, the water is alive
under the wind, evening is
upon us.  Outside, the animals make their
accommodation, the lake loses its reflection,
settles deeper.  Set down the brush
on the saucer, leave off the book,
open, with its words against the pillow. . . . 
--From Correspondences, a collaboration by poet Anne Michaels and artist Bernice Eisenstein (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).  An excerpt from the book-length poem was included in Knopf's Poem-a-Day newsletter, in honor of Poetry Month, on April 26, 2014.  The excerpted material is also available online as a printable  broadside.   

The Bridegroom by Ha Jin

~
The Bridegroom, a collection of short stories by Ha Jin (Pantheon, 2000).

. . . Tong Guhan was a simple man, not very interested in power.  But recently he realized that if he were the vice director, he could have moved into a new apartment long ago and said to his son, "Prepare for the wedding!" and he could also have written to his daughter, "Forget veterinary medicine and come back home.  I'll get you a residence card and find you a good job here."  Obviously the solutions to both problems depended on whether his promotion would materialize in time.  These days he became anxious.  Every morning, when watering the violets, cannas, roses, and cyclamen in his tiny backyard, he'd pray in silence that today he'd be officially notified of the promotion. . . . 
--From "Alive," pp. 17-42, originally published in AGNI, Number 45 (1997). 

 

A letter was lying on Nimei's desk.  She was puzzled because the envelope did not give a return address.  The postmark showed the letter came from Harbin, but she knew nobody in that city. 

--From "Flame," pp. 126-141, originally published in The Missouri Review, Issue 20.3 (Fall 1997).  

A poem by R.S. Thomas from The Writer's Chronicle and three poems by Keetje Kuipers from her book The Keys to the Jail

~

To all light things

I compared her; to

a snowflake, a feather. . . .
 --From "Comparisons," a poem by R.S. Thomas, from Collected Later Poems 1988-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2004), reprinted in The Writer's Chronicle (October/November 2013), p. 56.  

 

It was the season of dead moles,

black silken pelts like evening purses

abandoned along the forest path. . . . 

--From "Our Last Vacation," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by Connotation Press, Volume 5, Issue 8 (April 2014) and reprinted in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 15.    

 

 

What if I came here with some idea

of this place, of who I could be when I'm

 

in it: Learned the names for every clouded

body of water. . . .  

--From "Dog Gun Lake," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by Lo-Ball and reprinted in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 59.  

 

 

It was a beautiful night for the rodeo. 

Rain all day and then a sheen of evening

sun.  I went to the grocery store, bought

someone else's bread, some else's

milk. . . .    

--From "A Beautiful Night for the Rodeo," a poem by Keetje Kuipers, published by American Poetry Review (May/June 2013) and reprinted in Poetry Daily and in her collection The Keys to the Jail (BOA Editions, 2014), p. 81.   

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

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Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, a collection of sixteen short animal-themed stories by David Sedaris, illustrated by Ian Falconer (Little, Brown and Company, 2010). 

This book is not for everyone, and although I suppose the same could be said for all of his collections, this one seems even more in need of a little warning label.  It's illustrated (by an author/illustrator of books for children); it's a collection of, essentially, fables; and the protagonists are animals.  Some of the stories have violent twists or other unsavory elements, though, and there is often accompanying artwork.  With that caveat, these were my favorites:

The squirrel and the chipmunk had been dating for two weeks when they ran out of things to talk about. 
--From "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk," pp. 14-21, which was originally broadcast in a slightly different form on Public Radio International's This American Life with host Ira Glass (February 10, 2006). 

 

Plenty of animals had pets, but few were more devoted than the mouse, who owned a baby corn snake—"A rescue snake," she'd be quick to inform you.  This made it sound like he'd been snatched from the jaws of a raccoon, but what she'd really rescued him from was a life without her love.  And what sort of a life would that have been?

--From "The Mouse and the Snake," pp. 40-49.  

. . . "They are too your children," [my wife had] said, referring to her last litter, a party of four that looked no more like me than that ---- of a raccoon.  I knew they were fathered by the English bull terrier across the street, but what are you going to do?  Everyone's entitled to one mistake, aren't they?  
--From "The Faithful Setter," pp. 60-73. 

Waiting by Ha Jin

~
Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.  Together they had appeared at the courthouse in Wujia Town many times, but she had always changed her mind at the last moment when the judge asked if she would accept a divorce.  Year after year, they went to Wujia Town and came back with the same marriage license issued to them by the county's registry office twenty years before.  
        This summer Lin Kong returned with a new letter of recommendation for the divorce, which had been provided for him by the army hospital in Muji City, where he served as a doctor.  Once more he planned to take his wife to the courthouse and end their marriage.  Before he left for home, he had promised Manna Wu, his girlfriend at the hospital, that this time he would try his best to make Shuyu stick to her word after she agreed to a divorce.  
        As an officer, he had a twelve-day leave each year. . . but by now a whole week had passed and he had not yet mentioned a word to his wife about the divorce.  Whenever the subject came to his tongue, he postponed it for another day. . . .   

--From Waiting, a novel by Ha Jin (Vintage, 1999).  The book was a National Book Award winner, a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, and the winner of the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award. 

"Your Sick" by Kelly Magee and Carol Guess

~
. . .
          When I got to the hotel I tried to page you. I repeated your name over and over. No one at the hotel had ever heard of you. I paced the lobby, trying to decide what to do.
           I decided to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant. The waiter sat me near the kitchen, which bothered me until I realized I could see everyone in the room: suits and soldiers, families and prostitutes. At first I didn’t notice you in a chair by the window. Lipstick, and you’d dyed your hair. You were talking to a very beautiful woman. The wine was the wine you’d sent to my room.
           I finished my dinner. As I left the restaurant I dropped my check on your table and smiled at your date. You wore a nametag, but it wasn’t your name. You looked up at me and your eyes glazed with panic.
           Later that night you knocked on my door. Just to be sure it was you I called out your old name and your new name, both.
           It’s me, you said. I wasn’t sure which me you meant, which name to use, but it didn’t matter. You ran your fingers through my hair. You pressed me up against the sink and things happened which weren’t supposed to happen, now that we weren’t together. . . .
  
--From "Your Sick," a short story by Kelly Magee and Carol Guess, Anomalous, Issue 11, pp. 28-33.

The Spring 2014 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2014 issue of the journal features prose poetry by W.J. Preston and Kelly Scarff; poetry by Robert Lavett Smith, Louisa Howerow, Gail Peck, Abby Rosenthal, Roger Pfingston, and P. Ivan Young; an essay by Vivian Wagner; short fiction by Dave Patterson, Beth Konkoski, and Jennifer Stern; and oil and paper collage by cover artist Ann Marshall. 

The Fall 2013 issue, which was published in October of 2013 and is now available in the archive, features short fiction by Robert Radin and Inderjeet Mani; an essay by Sue Fagalde Lick; poetry by Judith Waller Carroll, Danusha V. Goska, José Angel Araguz, Nandini Dhar, Richard Spilman, Sandra Kohler, and Eric Nelson; and pastel on archival board by cover artist Mary Aslin.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

Three pieces I heard at AWP Seattle, plus a pre-conference memoir and a post-conference story collection

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"Rollerskating, Barking," a short story by Meg Pokrass, storySouth, Issue 34 (Fall 2012). 

 

"Heat," a short story by Grant Faulkner, Word Riot (November 2010).  

 

"Poem for the Breasts," a poem by Sharon Olds, from her collection Stag's Leap (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013, pp. 21-22), and originally published in Ploughshares (Spring 1999).  I mentioned the book in an earlier post, but I didn't fully appreciate this particular poem until I heard her read it out loud. 

 

Joseph Anton, a memoir by Salman Rushdie (Random House, 2012).     

 

The Progress of Love, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro (Alfred A. Knopf, 1986).  My favorite was probably "Monsieur les Deux Chapeaux" (pp. 56-83), which was originally published in Grand Street (Vol. 4, No. 3, Spring 1985, pp. 7-33).

After the Quake

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After the Quake, a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).

...the letter his wife left for him when she vanished five days after the earthquake was different: I am never coming back, she had written, then went on to explain, simply but clearly, why she no longer wanted to live with him.  
--From "UFO in Kushiro," pp. 3-28, originally published as "U.F.O. in Koshiro" in The New Yorker. 

 

..."So Masakichi the Bear went to town and found a spot for himself in the square.  He put up a sign: Deeelicious Honey.  All Natural.  One Cup ¥ 200." 

"Can bears write?"

"No, of course not," Junpei said.  "There was a nice old man with a pencil sitting next to him, and he asked him to write it."

--From "Honey Pie," pp. 141-181, originally published in The New Yorker (August 20, 2001).  

A Night in Brooklyn (the collection and the poem)

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A Night in Brooklyn, a collection of poetry by D. Nurkse (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).

...she was washing
at the cold tap, she was binding
back her copper hair...
--From "Red Antares in a Blue Mirror," p. 9, originally published in Harvard Review (Issue 41, Winter 2011). 

 

...

always I teetered on that high stool

while the Schlitz globe revolved so slowly,

disclosing Africa, Asia, Antarctica...
 --From "The Bars," p. 16, originally published in The New Yorker (October 31, 2011, p. 84).  

We undid a button,

turned out the light,

and in that narrow bed

we built a great city...  
--From "A Night in Brooklyn," p. 49, originally published in Poetry (January 2008).

We have to bomb the rebel cities
from a great height, find shelter
for the refugees, carry a sick kitten
to the shade of a blighted elm,
fall in love, walk by the breakwater...

--From "There Is No Time, She Writes," p. 73, originally published in The New Yorker (August 6, 2007).

...

they had not imagined the pain

of dressing, sorting clothes

back into male and female...

--From "Return to the Capital," p. 82, originally published as "A Night in the Capital" in The Manhattan Review (Volume 13, Number 2; Fall/Winter 2008-2009). 

Frost in the Low Areas

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Frost in the Low Areas, a collection of poetry by Karen Skolfield (Zone 3 Press, 2013). 

They've turned back to the food, what's left

of the warm brie.  These are not the people

you want between you and the lifeboats.
--From "Where Babies Come From," p. 3, originally published in Zone 3.

 

Mistake one: driving by two cemeteries when the kids

are tired.  Mistake two: saying only some people get

buried.  Where are the others, my son asks.   
--From "Rumors of Her Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated," p. 31, originally published in BOXCAR Poetry Review (Spring 2011) and later in the 2011 Best of the Net Anthology.  

..the students act as if they were being pressed

to death.  As if the rest of their lives were cheery

and full of volunteer work and perfect omelettes.  
--From "Sturm und Drang," p. 34, originally published in Conte (Volume 7, Issue 1). 

The note said that my pea seeds

are infected with pea weevils, many

apologies, here's a refund...

They're next to a big hunk

of meat and every time I open the freezer

I startle, like the time my daughter

froze her toys, the eyes

of a baby doll staring, rime-rimmed. 
--From "Disposal," pp. 63-64, originally published in Used Furniture Review (September 5, 2012). 

D. Nurkse's "The Bars," two other poems, short stories, and an essay

~
"The Bars," a poem by D. Nurkse, reprinted in Knopf's Poem-a-Day series on April 4, 2013, from his collection A Night in Brooklyn (Knopf, 2012), and originally published in The New Yorker (October 31, 2011, p. 84).  

"Is This Part of the Love Ritual?," a short story by Jenny Bitner, PANK, Volume 5, Number 9 (September 2010). 

 

"Eleanor Writes She's Reading Rimbaud," a poem by Susan Aizenberg, Blackbird, Volume 12, Number 2 (Fall 2013). 

 

"Many Houses, Many Windows," a poem by Donna Vorreyer, from her collection A House of Many Windows (Sundress, 2013, p. 69), and originally published in Wicked Alice (October 11, 2012).

 

The Moons of Jupiter, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro (Viking Penguin, 1977).
 

"The Divine Auditor," an essay by Sarah Valentine, Prairie Schooner, Volume 87, Issue 2 (Summer 2013).