Poems by David Huddle and Jessica Greenbaum and novels by Jenny Offill and Wioletta Greg

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When her Alzheimer's was just beginning, 
my mother had a suitor, a farmer
whose wife had died after a long illness, . . .  
--From "Aloft," a poem by David Huddle, The Southern Review, Volume 44:4 (Autumn 2008), pp. 780-782.  This poem was later reprinted in Blacksnake at the Family Reunion, a book of poems by David Huddle (LSU Press, 2012).

Driving into my old city yesterday
for the first visit in decades
every street sign whispered a story
from my only great war
my move here as a lone
21-year old, when by day three
my map of the city
lay shredded from reuse
and humidity and from
shaking it in hopes it would
rearrange into something familiar—
--From "Four a.m. and 40 Years Later, from an Eighteenth Floor Balcony, Downtown," a poem by Jessica Greenbaum, Plume, Issue 101 (January 2020).

One day God called the bat to him and gave him a basket to carry to the moon.  The basket was filled with darkness, but God didn't tell him what it was. . . .  The bat grew tired and stopped for a rest.  He put down the basket and went off to find something to eat.  While he was gone, other animals came along. . . .  The dogs and wolves tried to pull [the darkness] out and play with it, but it slipped away between their teeth and slithered off.  Just then, the bat returned.  He opened the basket and found it empty.  The other animals disappeared into the night.  The bat flew off to try to recapture the darkness.  He could see it everywhere, but he couldn't fit it back inside his basket, no matter how hard he tried.  And this is why the bat sleeps all day and flies all night.  He's still trying to catch the dark.
        "Which part of the story was the part about Africa?" I wanted to know.  I had asked my mother to tell me about Africa and instead she had told me about the bat.  "It's all about Africa," my mother said, frowning.  "Everything except the part about God."   
--From Last Things, a novel by Jenny Offill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999; Vintage Books/Random House, 2015).

I am nauseated by the odor of musty rugged jackets, wool, the tonics with which the women spritz their hair.  Sitting on my suitcase I stare out the window, where the sunlight disappears into the poplars like when water closes over a cuttlefish.  
        Suddenly I think I see, standing up near the front of the bus, my old acquaintance Kamil, with whom I fell in love over the summer and then lost contact.  That has to be him, I think, thrilled, squeezing myself and my suitcase towards him.
        "Is it really you?" I ask, excited, grasping his leather jacket.  
        "Course it's me, honeycakes," responds this stranger as he eyes me up and down.
--From Accommodations, a novel by Wioletta Grzegorzewska (writing as Wioletta Greg), translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft (Transit Books, 2019). Originally published as Stancje (W.A.B.: Poland, 2017).  This is a follow-up to Swallowing Mercury, which is a beautiful, poetic little novel, also from Transit Books.

Novels by Wioletta Greg and Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, and three poems from The Southern Review

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A christening shawl decorated with periwinkle and yellowed asparagus fern hung in the window of our stone house for nearly two years.  It tempted me with a little rose tucked in its folds, and I would have used it as a blanket for my dolls, but my mother wouldn't let me go near it.
        "Don't touch the shawl, Loletka.  It's a memento.  We'll take it down when your dad comes back," she'd say.  And when her friend who lived nearby would pop in "for a moment"—meaning two hours—she would repeat the story of how, a month after my father was arrested for deserting from the army and two weeks before her baby was due, she received a summons to start a work placement at Cem-Build.  Together with a dozen other women, she had to make paving slabs as part of the new five-year plan, so that the district government could create new squares in front of office buildings, schools and health centres within the allotted time.  In the end, Mum couldn't take working outside in the freezing weather.  She hid behind a cement mixer, and when her waters broke into a bucket full of lime they drove her to the maternity ward.
        She brought me home in February.  Still bleeding after childbirth, she lay down on the bed, unwrapped my blanket, which reeked of mucus and urine, rubbed the stump of my umbilical cord with gentian violet, tied a red ribbon around my wrist to ward off evil spells and fell asleep for a few hours.  It was the sort of sleep during which a person decides whether to depart or to turn back.
--From Swallowing Mercury, a novel by Wioletta Grzegorzewska (writing as Wioletta Greg), translated from the Polish by Eliza Marciniak (Transit Books, 2017).  Originally published as Guguły, which means "unripe fruit" according to the translator's note at the end of the book (Wydawnictwo Czarne: Wołowcu, Poland, 2014).

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.  
--From "Gift," a poem written and translated from Polish to English by Czeslaw Milosz, reprinted in "Regarding Happiness," an essay by Charles Baxter, The Southern Review, Volume 44:2 (Spring 2008), p. 248.

My old man rings me on my cell.  The garbage can is beside the road
and needs to be rolled back into the carport.  
--From "My Father's Garbage Can," a poem by David Bottoms, The Southern Review, Volume 44:2 (Spring 2008), p. 220.

Water opens without end
At the bow of the ship
--From "Voyage," a poem by Samuel Menashe, reprinted in "No Small Feat" by Robin Ekiss, a review of Samuel Menashe: New and Selected Poems (edited by Christopher Ricks), The Southern Review, Volume 44:2 (Spring 2008), p. 365.

On my way down Skothúsvegur I reflect on how one should go about borrowing a hunting rifle from a neighbour.  Does one borrow a weapon the same way one borrows a hose extension?  What animals are hunted at the beginning of May?  One can't shoot the messenger of spring, the golden plover, who has just returned to the island, or a duck hatching from an egg.  Could I say that I want to shoot a great black-backed gull that keeps me awake in the attic apartment of a residential block in the city centre?  Wouldn't Svanur find it suspicious if I were to suddenly turn into a spokesman for ducklings' rights?  Besides, Svanur knows that I'm no hunter.  
--From Hotel Silence, a novel by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon (Black Cat/Grove Atlantic, 2018).  Published by arrangement with Éditions Zulma, Paris, France.  Originally published as Ör (Scars) (Benedikt Bókaútgáfa: Reykjavík, Iceland, 2016).