The Spring 2021 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2021 issue of the Apple Valley Review features short fiction by Michael Beadle and Mary Gulino; an essay by Carl Schiffman; poetry by Linda K. Sienkiewicz, Giovanni Raboni (translated from the Italian by Zack Rogow), Joseph Fasano, James P. Cooper, Katherine Fallon, Barbara Daniels, and Mark Belair; and a cover painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. 

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. 

A few poems by Grady Chambers, Dorianne Laux, Mary Oliver, Tina Chang, and Beth Ann Fennelly for Poetry Month

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You could smell the day’s heat even before the day began. 

Constant trickle, endless green trees flanking the highway: 

summer had come back. . . . 

—From "A Known Fact," a poem by Grady Chambers (Quarterly West, Issue 96).

It’s the best part of the day, morning light sliding

down rooftops, treetops, the birds pulling themselves

up out of whatever stupor darkened their wings, . . . 

—From "I Never Wanted to Die," a poem by Dorianne Laux (Poem-a-Day, April 16, 2021, Academy of American Poets).

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
—From "Wild Geese," a poem by Mary Oliver. 

Up ahead it’s white. Snow animal,

I’m running at your back. I’ve failed to tell you
I’ve been hungry all this time, . . . 

—From "Color," a poem by Tina Chang (Hybrida: Poems, W. W. Norton, 2019).

Today is the day the first bare-chested
          runners appear, coursing down College Hill
                      as I drive to campus to teach, . . . 
—From "First Warm Day in a College Town," a poem by Beth Ann Fennelly (Unmentionables, W. W. Norton, 2008).

Poetry by Katherine Fallon, flash fiction by Jason Heroux and Dorthe Nors, a novel by Eshkol Nevo, and an illustrated story by Olga Tokarczuk

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Stone father, I did touch you. First your folded hands, 
which straightened the frothy lace of my childhood 

party dresses . . .  

—From Demoted Planet, a chapbook of poems by Katherine Fallon (Headmistress Press, 2021). This segment is from "Viewing," p. 2. My other favorites from the collection were "Early Adopter" (p. 4, first published in The Shore) and "Otherwise" (p. 21). "Elegy for My Father" (p. 5) first appeared in the Apple Valley Review.

The tour guide showed our group the local sights. He pointed to himself. "I am the tour guide." He pointed overhead. "This is the sky." 
—From "The Tour Guide," published along with "The Snow Removal Truck," two pieces of flash fiction by Jason Heroux, Gone Lawn, Issue 40 (Spring 2021). 

There's a stubble field in front of the rented house. Over by the side of the small wood is the country fairground, trampled and singed. A fox might make its rounds there, but otherwise it's deserted. Her bare feet are stuffed into the clogs she found in the closet.  

—From Wild Swims, a collection of short stories by Dorthe Nors, translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra (Graywolf Press, 2021). Originally published in Danish as Kort Over Canada (Copenhagen, Denmark: Gyldendal, 2018). First published in English by Pushkin Press (2020). This segment is from "The Fairground," pp. 47-53.

What I'm trying to tell you is that underneath the surprise, there was something else that Ayelet and I didn't dare talk about, that in the back of our minds we knew—okay, I knew—that it could happen. The signs were there the whole time but we chose to ignore them. What could be more convenient than next-door neighbors who watch your kids for you? Think about it. 

—From Three Floors Up, a novel by Eshkol Nevo, translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston (Other Press, 2017). Originally published in Hebrew as Shalosh Komot (Tel Aviv, Israel: Kinneret Zmora-Bitan, 2015).

If someone could look down on us from above, they'd see that the world is full of people running about in a hurry, sweating and very tired, and their lost souls . . .  

—From The Lost Soul, an illustrated story by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and illustrated by Joanna Concejo (Seven Stories Press, 2021). Originally published in Polish as Zgubiona dusza (Wrocław, Poland: Wydawnictwo Format, 2017).