"Pulse" by Grete Tartler

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In Athens a woman threw herself
in front of a train
as people were rushing to the Olympics
and all shouted, "No, no!
Couldn't she find a better time?" . . .

This is an excerpt from "Pulse," a poem by Grete Tartler (translated from the Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin and Grete Tartler). It was originally published in The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review (Winter 2010) and reprinted today (Friday, February 4, 2011) at Poetry Daily. The full poem can be found here.

Short fiction by Christopher Boucher

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. . . The van was parked right out front. I could see that the family was of Asian descent. The man was talking on his cell phone. The wife was reading a magazine. The kids—one boy and one girl—were sipping juice boxes in the back seat.

Soon I began seeing that van everywhere: parked outside the organic grocery store where I worked, idling outside the hospital when I went to pick up some test results.

Then the family showed up at Bowling Night, in the lane right next to my team’s. I turned to see the mother writing on the score sheet and the daughter swinging her feet from the chair. I watched the father—a man of about forty, I’d say, with longish black hair—pick up the ball and stare down the lane. I could tell from his delivery that he’d bowled before. Sure enough, he knocked down eight pins.

I was furious—enough was enough. This was a league night! When the man sat down I leaned back and whispered, “Hey.” . . .


"Family," a short story by Christopher Boucher, is continued online in Web Conjunctions.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, a collection of stories edited and introduced by David Sedaris (Simon & Schuster, 2005).

I read this as slowly as I possibly could, hoping that he'd have a new collection of essays out by the time I finished, but no dice.

Some of the stories that really stuck out to me were ones I'd already read (e.g., "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri; "People Like That Are the Only People Here" by Lorrie Moore--who every once in a while has a wonderful, perfect sentence; and "Cosmopolitan" by Akhil Sharma) but this was an interesting collection.

Among others, Sedaris also included "Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired" by Richard Yates, "Gryphon" by Charles Baxter, "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield, "Half a Grapefruit" by Alice Munro, "Applause, Applause" by Jean Thompson, "Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out" by Patricia Highsmith, "Song of the Shirt, 1941" by Dorothy Parker, "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" by Joyce Carol Oates, "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel, "Irish Girl" by Tim Johnston, and "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff.

Side note: Purchase of this book helps support 826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring center in Brooklyn, New York.

"Aboriginal" by Willie Lin

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Like guillotines, every lesson from childhood
taught me about precision and punishment. . . .

"Aboriginal," a poem by Willie Lin, was published on November 16, 2010, and is continued online in Linebreak.

Collections of short stories and novellas, and a poem

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No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July (Scribner, 2007).

(If you visit the website for the book, look for the tiny pink arrows at the bottom right of each page. The site is quirky, just like her writing.)

She does occasionally go off in a direction I don't love, but she's such an interesting writer. A few of my favorites:

"The Man on the Stairs" (originally published in Fence): "The man on the stairs pauses for such incredibly long periods of time, I almost wonder if he is having a problem. Like maybe he's disabled or very old. Or maybe just really tired. Maybe he's already killed everyone else on the block and now he's all worn out." (pp. 36-37)

"Something That Needs Nothing" (published in Bridge, The New Yorker, and My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead, edited by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I blogged about here).

"The Boy from Lam Kien" (published by Cloverfield Press)

"Birthmark" (published in The Paris Review, Spring 2003)

"How to Tell Stories to Children"

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Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror, a collection of three novellas by James Hynes (Picador USA, 1997).
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"Across a Great Wilderness Without You" by Keetje Kuipers, probably my favorite poem from her collection Beautiful in the Mouth (BOA Editions, 2010). "Across a Great Wilderness Without You" first appeared in 42opus and on p. 36 of Beautiful. (I think it goes without saying that I also liked "At Stanfield Reservoir and Wildlife Preserve," which first appeared in the Apple Valley Review and is on pp. 44-45 of the book.)

The Fall 2010 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2010 issue of the journal features poetry by Alana Ruprecht, Laura Merleau, Bernard Henrie, Chris Anderson, Laura Drell, M.J. Iuppa, Karen Schubert, and Margaret Rozga; prose poetry by Sarah Frost; fiction by William Grigg and Kimberly Long Cockroft; and artwork by Mary Erickson.

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.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

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Angela's Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner: New York, 1996).

Wrenching, but also funny and poignant and, at times, quite beautiful.