The Carolina Quarterly articles from January 2004

The Carolina Quarterly archives from January 2004

The choir director affair (the baby's teeth).(Short Story)
January 1, 2004... This is the baby, and yes, those are teeth. They are not important. Don't think about them. Nothing special, this baby with teeth. Usually it is only a snaggletooth, a single, perfectly formed tooth in the tiny mouth, unlike the full set on...

This Year's Marriage Poem.(Brief Article)(Poem)
January 1, 2004... This Year's Marriage Poem You can find it in the old poems, it's hidden like something golden cloaked in bastard amber-- the unlistened subsong of grackle hatchlings, the trying not yet grown into sound,...

First I Shoot You, Then You Shoot Me.(Excerpt)
January 1, 2004... This is selected from a novel-in-progress set in a fictionalized version of Julia Tutwiler Women's Prison in Wetumpka, Alabama--Ed. They put you in a van to take you to Tutwiler. It's women from all over the state, every one of them named...

Easter and the Change of Life.(Brief Article)(Poem)
January 1, 2004... Easter and the Change of Life Despite myself I buy a basket sturdy and large enough to hold a storefront of chocolates, dozens of eggs, yards of fake grass or a baby. It's a basket for a foundling but I...

A Defining Moment.(Brief Article)(Poem)
January 1, 2004... A Defining Moment Trapped inside the cavity of my body there is only and always twilight; mallee scrub is like the hair that grows externally, and through gravelly soil something like blood runs. Absolute...

The Penguin and Mary Poppins.(Short Story)
January 1, 2004... Before he ever moved to Gotham City, before he grew into the overweight, obsessive sad sack of his later years, The Penguin was a poet and a dandy who lived in London. He wrote complex villanelles and threw lavish dinner parties at which he...

Soreq.(Poem)
January 1, 2004... Soreq My first thought is: it comes as recompense for the acres of austerity above it, as if even the most unlikely stretch of harshness has its necessary ration of flamboyance... but is...

Archaeology.(Poem)
January 1, 2004... Archaeology We're herded through the dig house, lectured to about the labor of archaeology: pottery fixed up with plaster and glue, photoed, drawn, aged by petrography (instruments in the basement). Spanking new...

Belief.(Short Story)
January 1, 2004... It's about eleven at night when I see a shadow slip past my office, I've left the door open because I've become consumed by the fantasy that a willowy sophomore will spot me hard at work and, for no apparent reason, decide to have sex with...

Silence.(Brief Article)(Poem)
January 1, 2004... Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb. --Hopkins Night in the woods, its cool air hunkered down, the vast and magical stillness no longer rent by bucksnort, by the owl's taloned snatch among twig hacks and...

On the Face of It.(Brief Article)(Poem)
January 1, 2004... On the Face of It Our heirloom mantel dock runs fast-- unfixable, we think. We fall behind, forget as minutes hurry past our heirloom mantel dock runs fast: each day feels shorter than the last. Time, lost or...

Princess.(Short Story)
January 1, 2004... Princess came to us the summer everything started driving me crazy. It had blizzarded in late April, as always, but in May snowbanks still hulked, sweating, around the yard, a patina of dirt and smeared grass glistening on their shoulders. I...

Lucky Girls.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger Ecco Press, September 2003 225 pages; $22.95 "Traveling is for people who don't know how to be happy." The statement appears mid-way through Lucky Girls, Nell Freudenberger's quiet and assured first...

Lunch at the Piccadilly.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Lunch at the Piccadilly by Clyde Edgerton Algonquin Books, 2003 264 pages; $23.95 hardcover Starting with the prologue to Lunch at the Piccadilly, a dialogue between a beleaguered caregiver and the financial manager of the Rosehaven...

A Company of Three.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... A Company of Three By Varley O'Connor Algonquin Books, 2003 309 pages; $24.95 hardcover Varley O'Connor sets up the dynamic trio of her second novel in the opening sentence. "Patrick and I had been friends for a year," the narrator tells...

Old School.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Old School By Tobias Wolff Alfred A. Knopt, 2003 195 pages; $22 hardcover Serious writers and readers are so used to admiring Tobias Wolff as the Writer Who's Done It All--with three masterful short story collections, two famous memoirs,...