~
Going too fast for myself I missed
more than I think I can remember
almost everything it seems sometimes
and yet there are chances that come back . . .
--From "Turning," a poem by W. S. Merwin, The New Yorker (May 16, 2011), p. 49.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Monday, January 25, 2016
Four poems and two short stories
~
The daughter wakes to a world
encased in ice--
the pine trees stiff with it.
--From "Still," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 85-87.
It is a green landscape, houses stalwart
as circus ponies, American houses, wet
kids moving through them in Spandex bathing suits;
inside, sandwiches with crusts cut off,
windows flung open and striped awnings rolled out;
family portraits on the walls and generic
medicines in the cabinet: the middle classes.
--From "Twenty-first Century Fireworks," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in The Kenyon Review and reprinted in her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 17-18.
Who will remember us
when the light breaks
over the western valley
and the trash stirs,
the flood having come
with its red waters
and washed our graves away?
I was a person,
once, I believe. . . .
--From "Churchyard," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in Tin House (Issue number 49, Fall 2011) and reprinted in her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 45-46.
There was once a young wife, the apple of her husband's eye. She was beautiful and charming and intelligent, and had been to college as well, a rare achievement for women in those days.
--From "The Maid Servant's Story," a short story by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, from her collection Arranged Marriage (Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995), pp. 109-168.
Did you folks have a quarrel, asked the policeman, looking up from his notepad with a frown, and the husband looked directly back into his eyes and said, No, of course we didn't.
--From "The Disappearance," a short story by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, from her collection Arranged Marriage (Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995), pp. 169-181.
I am staying at a house with a screened-in back porch.
--From "This Is Classy Because I Say So," a poem by Meg Johnson, published in Bear Review (Volume 2, Issue 1), p. 10.
The daughter wakes to a world
encased in ice--
the pine trees stiff with it.
--From "Still," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, from her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 85-87.
It is a green landscape, houses stalwart
as circus ponies, American houses, wet
kids moving through them in Spandex bathing suits;
inside, sandwiches with crusts cut off,
windows flung open and striped awnings rolled out;
family portraits on the walls and generic
medicines in the cabinet: the middle classes.
--From "Twenty-first Century Fireworks," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in The Kenyon Review and reprinted in her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 17-18.
Who will remember us
when the light breaks
over the western valley
and the trash stirs,
the flood having come
with its red waters
and washed our graves away?
I was a person,
once, I believe. . . .
--From "Churchyard," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in Tin House (Issue number 49, Fall 2011) and reprinted in her collection Once (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 45-46.
There was once a young wife, the apple of her husband's eye. She was beautiful and charming and intelligent, and had been to college as well, a rare achievement for women in those days.
--From "The Maid Servant's Story," a short story by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, from her collection Arranged Marriage (Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995), pp. 109-168.
Did you folks have a quarrel, asked the policeman, looking up from his notepad with a frown, and the husband looked directly back into his eyes and said, No, of course we didn't.
--From "The Disappearance," a short story by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, from her collection Arranged Marriage (Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995), pp. 169-181.
I am staying at a house with a screened-in back porch.
--From "This Is Classy Because I Say So," a poem by Meg Johnson, published in Bear Review (Volume 2, Issue 1), p. 10.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Books of short stories by Roberto Bolaño and Dan Chaon, and a tragicomic illustrated memoir by Allie Brosh
~
B is in love with X. Unhappily, of course. There was a time in his life when B would have done anything for X, as people generally say and think when they are in love. X breaks up with him. She breaks up with him over the phone.
--From "Phone Calls," one of a series of connected stories by Roberto Bolaño, from his short story collection Last Evenings on Earth, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews (New Directions, 2006). "Phone Calls" first appeared in Grand Street.
O'Sullivan and his older brother, Smokey, have been driving in silence for a long while when the deer steps out of the darkness and into the middle of the road.
For a second, it seems as if the world is paralyzed. They can see the deer with its hoof lifted, taking a delicate step into their path, dreamy as a sleepwalker. They can see the enormous skeletal bouquet of antlers as it turns to face them.
--From "Slowly We Open Our Eyes," a short story by Dan Chaon, from his story collection Stay Awake (Ballantine/Random House, 2012), pp. 172-187.
This girl I've been seeing falls out of a tree one June evening. She's . . . a little drunk and a little belligerent. . . . and we've been arguing obliquely all evening.
For example, I just found out that she has an ex-husband who lives in Japan, who technically isn't an ex-husband since they haven't officially divorced.
For example, I didn't know that she thought I was a bad kisser: "Your kisses are unpleasantly moist," she says. "Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Actually, no," I say. "I've always gotten compliments on my kisses."
"Well," she says. "Women very rarely tell the truth."
I smile at her. "You're lying," I say . . .
--From "Shepherdess," a short story by Dan Chaon, first published in Virginia Quarterly Review (Fall 2006) and reprinted in his story collection Stay Awake (Ballantine/Random House, 2012), pp. 188-209.
When I was ten years old, I wrote a letter to my future self and buried it in the backyard. Seventeen years later, I remembered that I was supposed to remember to dig it up two years earlier.
. . . The letter begins thusly:
Dear 25 year old . . .
Do you still like dogs? What is your favorite dog? Do you have
a job tranning dogs? Is Murphy still alive? What is youre favorite
food?? Are mom and dad still alive?
. . . Below [a crayon drawing of] German shepherds, I wrote the three most disturbing words in the entire letter--three words that revealed more about my tenuous grasp on reality than anything else I have uncovered about my childhood. There, at the bottom of the letter, I had taken my crayon stub and used it to craft the following sentence:
Please write back.
--From Hyperbole and a Half, written and illustrated by Allie Brosh (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2013).
B is in love with X. Unhappily, of course. There was a time in his life when B would have done anything for X, as people generally say and think when they are in love. X breaks up with him. She breaks up with him over the phone.
--From "Phone Calls," one of a series of connected stories by Roberto Bolaño, from his short story collection Last Evenings on Earth, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews (New Directions, 2006). "Phone Calls" first appeared in Grand Street.
O'Sullivan and his older brother, Smokey, have been driving in silence for a long while when the deer steps out of the darkness and into the middle of the road.
For a second, it seems as if the world is paralyzed. They can see the deer with its hoof lifted, taking a delicate step into their path, dreamy as a sleepwalker. They can see the enormous skeletal bouquet of antlers as it turns to face them.
--From "Slowly We Open Our Eyes," a short story by Dan Chaon, from his story collection Stay Awake (Ballantine/Random House, 2012), pp. 172-187.
This girl I've been seeing falls out of a tree one June evening. She's . . . a little drunk and a little belligerent. . . . and we've been arguing obliquely all evening.
For example, I just found out that she has an ex-husband who lives in Japan, who technically isn't an ex-husband since they haven't officially divorced.
For example, I didn't know that she thought I was a bad kisser: "Your kisses are unpleasantly moist," she says. "Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Actually, no," I say. "I've always gotten compliments on my kisses."
"Well," she says. "Women very rarely tell the truth."
I smile at her. "You're lying," I say . . .
--From "Shepherdess," a short story by Dan Chaon, first published in Virginia Quarterly Review (Fall 2006) and reprinted in his story collection Stay Awake (Ballantine/Random House, 2012), pp. 188-209.
When I was ten years old, I wrote a letter to my future self and buried it in the backyard. Seventeen years later, I remembered that I was supposed to remember to dig it up two years earlier.
. . . The letter begins thusly:
Dear 25 year old . . .
Do you still like dogs? What is your favorite dog? Do you have
a job tranning dogs? Is Murphy still alive? What is youre favorite
food?? Are mom and dad still alive?
. . . Below [a crayon drawing of] German shepherds, I wrote the three most disturbing words in the entire letter--three words that revealed more about my tenuous grasp on reality than anything else I have uncovered about my childhood. There, at the bottom of the letter, I had taken my crayon stub and used it to craft the following sentence:
Please write back.
--From Hyperbole and a Half, written and illustrated by Allie Brosh (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2013).
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Halflife, a collection of poems by Meghan O'Rourke
~
The blue square of light
in the window across the street
never goes dark--
the cathodes, the cordage, the atoms
working the hem of dusk--
traveling past the cranes and the docks
and the soiled oyster beds,
the trees loaded with radium,
colors like guns,
. . .
I came through the sodium streets
past the diners, a minister idly turning his glass,
service stations, gas, cars sharp in the light.
How long will the light go on?
Longer than you. Still you ought to live like a city,
rich and fierce at the center.
--From "Halflife," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in the magazine Poetry (September 2005) and reprinted in her collection Halflife (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), pp. 23-24.
The blue square of light
in the window across the street
never goes dark--
the cathodes, the cordage, the atoms
working the hem of dusk--
traveling past the cranes and the docks
and the soiled oyster beds,
the trees loaded with radium,
colors like guns,
. . .
I came through the sodium streets
past the diners, a minister idly turning his glass,
service stations, gas, cars sharp in the light.
How long will the light go on?
Longer than you. Still you ought to live like a city,
rich and fierce at the center.
--From "Halflife," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in the magazine Poetry (September 2005) and reprinted in her collection Halflife (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), pp. 23-24.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Two reports on true crime, and then some less-serious short stories
~
Vincent Smothers thought that it would be a job like any other. In the summer of 2007, he told me, his friend Marzell Black asked him for a gun for his mother's boyfriend. Smothers didn't sell guns, and he told him so. A few months later, Marzell amended his request, saying, "That dude who was looking for a gun? He asked me how much he would have to pay to kill somebody." A murder Smothers could handle. "Marzell wasn't the killing type," he said. "I told him, 'That's not something for you to do. I'll talk to him and see what this is all about.'"
--From "The Hit Man's Tale," nonfiction by Nadya Labi, The New Yorker (October 15, 2012), pp. 58-67.
Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, sat down at the conference table just moments before the faculty meeting began. It was three o'clock on February 12, 2010, and thirteen professors and staff members in the biology department had crowded into a windowless conference room on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.
--From "A Loaded Gun," nonfiction by Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker (February 11 & 18, 2013), pp. 70-87.
Boog is very good at making words. For example, last week he showed off his new picture at the Main Cave. Everyone was expecting it to be a horse or a bear (all his pictures so far have been horses, bears, or a mix of horses and bears). But this picture was not of any animal. It was just a bunch of red streaks. People were angry.
"I wanted animals," the Old Person said. "Where are the animals?"
It was bad situation. I thought that Boog would lose his job or maybe be killed by stones. But then Boog stood on a rock and spoke.
--From "I Love Girl," a story by Simon Rich from the Shouts & Murmurs column, The New Yorker (December 17, 2012), pp. 43-45.
The summer school assignment, the fucking fucking summer school third paper of ten, and if you didn't get at least a C on the first nine, you had to write eleven papers, the fucking teacher wadding up her big fat lips so they looked like a carnation, her lips that she'd use to pout at your inadequacy . . . this paper, to hold their interest, was supposed to be about Magical Realism, and although you didn't have to read all of the Márquez book the teacher sooooooo loved, she had distributed several paragraphs from the book in which weird things happened, and your paper was supposed to go on forever, like the writer, then have the clouds howl, or something.
Vincent Smothers thought that it would be a job like any other. In the summer of 2007, he told me, his friend Marzell Black asked him for a gun for his mother's boyfriend. Smothers didn't sell guns, and he told him so. A few months later, Marzell amended his request, saying, "That dude who was looking for a gun? He asked me how much he would have to pay to kill somebody." A murder Smothers could handle. "Marzell wasn't the killing type," he said. "I told him, 'That's not something for you to do. I'll talk to him and see what this is all about.'"
--From "The Hit Man's Tale," nonfiction by Nadya Labi, The New Yorker (October 15, 2012), pp. 58-67.
Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, sat down at the conference table just moments before the faculty meeting began. It was three o'clock on February 12, 2010, and thirteen professors and staff members in the biology department had crowded into a windowless conference room on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.
--From "A Loaded Gun," nonfiction by Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker (February 11 & 18, 2013), pp. 70-87.
Boog is very good at making words. For example, last week he showed off his new picture at the Main Cave. Everyone was expecting it to be a horse or a bear (all his pictures so far have been horses, bears, or a mix of horses and bears). But this picture was not of any animal. It was just a bunch of red streaks. People were angry.
"I wanted animals," the Old Person said. "Where are the animals?"
It was bad situation. I thought that Boog would lose his job or maybe be killed by stones. But then Boog stood on a rock and spoke.
--From "I Love Girl," a story by Simon Rich from the Shouts & Murmurs column, The New Yorker (December 17, 2012), pp. 43-45.
The summer school assignment, the fucking fucking summer school third paper of ten, and if you didn't get at least a C on the first nine, you had to write eleven papers, the fucking teacher wadding up her big fat lips so they looked like a carnation, her lips that she'd use to pout at your inadequacy . . . this paper, to hold their interest, was supposed to be about Magical Realism, and although you didn't have to read all of the Márquez book the teacher sooooooo loved, she had distributed several paragraphs from the book in which weird things happened, and your paper was supposed to go on forever, like the writer, then have the clouds howl, or something.
Monday, October 12, 2015
The Fall 2015 issue of the Apple Valley Review
~
The Fall 2015 issue of the journal features short fiction by Sue Hyon Bae and Seyed Ali Shojaei; essays by Megan Taylor; poetry by Bethany Bowman, Arfah Daud, Marianne Koluda Hansen, Benny Andersen, Knud Sørensen, Darren C. Demaree, Danielle Hanson, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens, Richard Stolorow, José Angel Araguz, Carl Boon, Laura Lee Washburn, David Antonio Moody, Priscilla Atkins, Calvin Ahlgren, and Jack Cooper; and a cover photograph from the Westbury Court Garden by Pauline Eccles.
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.
The Fall 2015 issue of the journal features short fiction by Sue Hyon Bae and Seyed Ali Shojaei; essays by Megan Taylor; poetry by Bethany Bowman, Arfah Daud, Marianne Koluda Hansen, Benny Andersen, Knud Sørensen, Darren C. Demaree, Danielle Hanson, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens, Richard Stolorow, José Angel Araguz, Carl Boon, Laura Lee Washburn, David Antonio Moody, Priscilla Atkins, Calvin Ahlgren, and Jack Cooper; and a cover photograph from the Westbury Court Garden by Pauline Eccles.
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.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
An essay, three short stories, and a poem
~
Does there come a day in every man's life when he looks around and says to himself, "I've got to weed out some of these owls"?
--From "Understanding Owls," a reflection by David Sedaris, The New Yorker (October 22, 2012), pp. 40-43. (In a different form, this piece was later reprinted in Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls.)
Driving across the Utah desert on I-70, James hit a butterfly with his car.
--From "Mayfly," a short story by Kevin Canty, The New Yorker (January 28, 2013), pp. 64-69.
It was at the tube station that he met the Angolans who would arrange his marriage, exactly two years and three days after he had arrived in England; he kept count.
--From "Checking Out," a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), pp. 66-73.
I was grown up now, married, with a family of my own, but still the Ormsons wanted to see me, just like always.
--From "Here's a Little Something to Remember Me By," a short story by Dan Chaon, first published in Other Voices and reprinted in his story collection Among the Missing (Ballantine/Random House, 2001), p. 160-186.
The dove brought news
of the end of the flood, an olive leaf
in her mouth, like a man holding a letter . . .
--From "The Dove," a poem by Yehuda Amichai, translated from the Hebrew by Bernard Horn, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), p. 63.
Does there come a day in every man's life when he looks around and says to himself, "I've got to weed out some of these owls"?
--From "Understanding Owls," a reflection by David Sedaris, The New Yorker (October 22, 2012), pp. 40-43. (In a different form, this piece was later reprinted in Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls.)
Driving across the Utah desert on I-70, James hit a butterfly with his car.
--From "Mayfly," a short story by Kevin Canty, The New Yorker (January 28, 2013), pp. 64-69.
It was at the tube station that he met the Angolans who would arrange his marriage, exactly two years and three days after he had arrived in England; he kept count.
--From "Checking Out," a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), pp. 66-73.
I was grown up now, married, with a family of my own, but still the Ormsons wanted to see me, just like always.
--From "Here's a Little Something to Remember Me By," a short story by Dan Chaon, first published in Other Voices and reprinted in his story collection Among the Missing (Ballantine/Random House, 2001), p. 160-186.
The dove brought news
of the end of the flood, an olive leaf
in her mouth, like a man holding a letter . . .
--From "The Dove," a poem by Yehuda Amichai, translated from the Hebrew by Bernard Horn, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), p. 63.
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