The Kenyon Review articles from June 2002

The Kenyon Review archives from June 2002

Editor's notes.
June 22, 2002... Tom Bigelow, managing editor of The Kenyon Review since 1998, died on June 9. He was 47 years old. I sit here using the occasion of these notes merely to give some order to my thoughts--not to make sense of the senseless--as I did last...

The Jewish Time Bomb.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... Translated from Hebrew by Karen Alkalay-Gut THE JEWISH TIME BOMB On my desk is a stone with "Amen" engraved on it, one shard saved from the thousands of broken gravestones in Jewish cemeteries. And I know that all these...

The Splinter Groups of Breakfast.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... THE SPLINTER GROUPS OF BREAKFAST 1. Not even nothing existed yet. Emptiness, even, didn't exist. And He-who-by-definition-precedeth-nothing said--well, you know what He said, in that grandiloquent King...

Hagar to Sarai.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... HAGAR TO SARAI Don't give me nothing in exchange for a beating in my belly, sore nipples way after the sucking is gone. Don't thank me for my body, a fine drinking skin turned inside out for you. Don't...

Eve.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... EVE I never knew what you saw in yourself, but you'd have given yourself lovely notices, counting my ribs to see if one were missing. The hot and bothered noons lure Cuban anoles to the verge--dark, bullet-eyed...

Lake.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... LAKE April. Shadows crimson-edged, tattooed with light, corrupt the visible in sweet intimacy. Nature's tamed backyard with ruined barbecue falls toward the sinkhole lake, cricket frogs creaking through the reeds,...

Paper.
June 22, 2002... In my childhood home, paper, of any kind, was to be touched only by hand. If you stepped on a book by accident, you were to pick it up and raise it respectfully to your forehead. I am not from a culture, although that seems the wrong word...

Now That I'm Back.(Short Story)
June 22, 2002... Mama's always telling people what I can and cannot do. "He can get that for himself, Esme! Leave him be!" she hisses. Me, reaching up for Whirlies on a supermarket shelf. The Cheerios are too high up, so I've plumped for the generics down...

Little Drop of Wickedness.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... LITTLE DROP OF WICKEDNESS Ruckus around the bird feeder--too greedy mockingbirds mugging a cardinal--and a small wind whirling up from the creek beyond the cul-de-sac, but no other disturbance, no ado, no alarm...

Telling the Bees.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... For my father--1910 to 2001 It fell to me to tell the bees, though I had wanted another duty--to be the scribbler at his death, there chart the third day's quickening. But fate said no, it falls to you to tell the bees, the middle...

Fence of Sticks.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... As I was building a fence of sticks, I heard the question, weren't there times worse than this for art? Weren't there those who, rather, bristled were they understood, who worked alone, the manuscripts thrown out or bled beyond the margins. I...

Greeter of Souls.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... GREETER OF SOULS Ponds are spring-fed, lakes run off of rivers. Here souls pass, not one deified, and sometimes this is terrible to know three floors below the street, where light drinks the world, siphoned like...

The Savant of Sunflowers, the Apprentice of Roses.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... THE SAVANT OF SUNFLOWERS, THE APPRENTICE OF ROSES Something in a rose knows to spread its roots into a stable base, how to shimmy up a trellis, graft onto reliable stock, open up rich with scent, and...

Driftwood.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... DRIFTWOOD Have I lied to myself about art? Everything can't be art. Bird not bird but driftwood roughed up by the sea, forgotten, found, by one who desires a gnarled reminder of form, and flight. I consider my...

Gull.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... GULL Every wing, every instant burgeoning with wind has an attendant grace. The sky sweats, copper haze blears the horizon for tomorrow's storm the gulls annunciate. Ah (you say), also consider the flesh of the...

Writing the Real World.
June 22, 2002... I am a writing teacher. I am black. After finishing graduate school, I took a job at a small, private, liberal arts college--as an affirmative action hire, brought in, I believed, to enhance multiculturalism on campus--and what struck me most...

Unfinished Symphony.
June 22, 2002... We were a bad orchestra. Even our repertoire spoke of diminished expectations: Beethoven's First, Excerpts from Bizet's Carmen, Schubert's Unfinished. In the hands of a good orchestra I knew these works shimmered and dazzled, made audiences...

The Insomnia of Murasaki Shikibu.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... THE INSOMNIA OF MURASAKI SHIKIBU Dew that hides In the plumes of autumn grass, Why do you thus Refuse to leave The withered fields? --Murasaki Shikibu, b. circa 978 The sheer divestment of a tonsured moon, a...

Pieces of Eight.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... PIECES OF EIGHT So often treasure is tiny coins sayings with a petit range hardly worth recording. Break down a big task into bits like food chewed slowly. Be constant to a tiny timetable no one else...

Variation on Basho's Snow Party.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... VARIATION ON BASHO'S SNOW PARTY Could we not have an air party taking tea at the window then, sinuses prepared, walking gathering lungfuls, the way leaves are swept into wide open-necked sacks and afterwards...

Late Summer Dew.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... LATE SUMMER DEW Some measure whose meaning we defer something passing between sky and grass like a hand pressing lightly on a head of hair some love or liking daffy growing more definite the drenched grass silver...

Professor.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... PROFESSOR In my study of female circumcision amongst the Sudanese tribes, it has been interesting to note that the procedure has no noticeable effect on subsequent marriage and childbearing, and that few side...

Why is the Edge Always Windy?(Poem)
June 22, 2002... WHY IS THE EDGE ALWAYS WINDY? at Phromthep Cape, the edge of the world, my dress unloosened--wind ripped along the coast drove along until it lifted & we drove on jeep around the roar's extremities the Thai...

The Music Room.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... THE MUSIC ROOM All poems translated from French by Marilyn Hacker As for the parquet, it's in a fishbone pattern: Each square made of four other Squares whose planks seem to pursue Each other, and the walls are...

The Waterfall.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... HE WATERFALL The grouch abstracts himself from what he's reading To contemplate a waterfall which hollows Its way towards the simple depths Of the world. As it passes, it bathes A woman's breasts, and the areolas ...

The Doctor.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... THE DOCTOR In the circular courtyard, trees Turn yellow, a madwoman in restraints Watches them; all at once she starts to speak As if nothing were out of the ordinary And the next day she dies Of tuberculosis,...

Truth.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... TRUTH A taste of honeyed apples, and of something Slightly acid escorts the heavy tears Of wine, and its green-reflected amber Speaks of long-past autumns. The debate Between nature and time has been Reopened...

Country boy.(Short Story)
June 22, 2002... Translated from Burmese by Anna Allott and Khin Thant Han The boy had never slept under anything but thatch, and he was startled by the drumming of rain on the corrugated iron roof. At this point, just when he'd been overwhelmed by a...

Deadpan Huck.(Critical Essay)
June 22, 2002... Or, What's Funny about Interpretation "I am never serious [said K.], and therefore I have to make jokes do duty for both jest and earnest. But I was arrested in earnest." --Franz Kafka, deleted fragment from The Trial It is a...

The Pleasure of Your Company.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY Let us go to Tuckahoe. Let us meet at the duckpond, let us spread a quilt of white eyelet. Let us throw our shoes at the cygnets. Let us see big things--and us so small. O breezy decibels. O vin mousseux....

The Flat Tire.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... THE FLAT TIRE The moon was lacquered, more than snide, and far from round. The asphalt grew uncivilized and soon unwound, the critters filibustering with clicking sound. Instead of facile...

Spring at Black River.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... SPRING AT BLACK RIVER The dog is punctilious racing after the ball. It pains him to bring it back. Though we pride ourselves on our power to love, how to be loved is a mystery. Once we were creel and...

Home.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... HOME 1. You winced in the rocking chair, waiting for your water to break. I paced the outer edge of the raffia carpet. A radio was playing, as if there were still news, traffic, war, sports,...

Cat's-Eye.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... CAT'S-EYE My father waved good-bye. I didn't wave back, scared I might drop my new cold smoky marble. At the core a spiral glinted and coiled like a small windy flame turning in on itself. ...

Infidelity.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... INFIDELITY The sun hovering a mile above the edge of the Pacific, the wind rifling through the sea grass... Early evening of the longest day of your life. Vast is this water, vast and incapable of solace. Beside...

My People.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... MY PEOPLE Initially, I too appeared between the legs of a woman in considerable discomfort. A rather grisly scene but fairly common among my kind. Those early days, I must admit: a bit of a blur but generally I...

Republican Victory.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... REPUBLICAN VICTORY In the field, the complex snowmen have been kicked apart. Some had used the familiar scarecrow matrix, others were dead inside, cloned like modern clocks. Someone has squeezed the tube out....

Where the Arrows Fell.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... WHERE THE ARROWS FELL "Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain." --Philip Larkin At the upturns of your grin, the red beard this year's begun threading itself with white. "Each aged hair a gift"--kiss--"from you." ...

As a Blow, from the West.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... AS A BLOW, FROM THE WEST Names for the moon: Harvest; and Blue; and Don't Touch Me-- and Do. I dreamed I had made a home on the side of a vast, live volcano, that the rest was water, that I was...

Cold Pastoral.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... COLD PASTORAL Lee May's Weeds in April's Attache starting with jimson and green dragon in isolated studies cast, Caravaggio-like, against black space or high white hint-of-blue, pictures of parts of the plant...

Bill's Hangover.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... BILL'S HANGOVER First thing in the morning first things: first light, first sober notes of pigeons and some traffic, first grays and pinnate shadows, first last blossoms of ice just visible on glass, the window somehow...

Falling.
June 22, 2002... Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing. --Helen Keller I'm ridin' high, but I've got a feelin' I'm fallin', fallin' for nobody else but you. --Fats Waller One of the first stories I remember my mother telling me...

Public Dreaming.(Interview With David Malouf)(Interview)
June 22, 2002... An Interview With David Malouf. David Malouf was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1934, the descendant of Lebanese and English grandparents. In 1970, he established himself as a poet with Bicycle and Other Poems (published in America as...

Fast-Food America.
June 22, 2002... When writers claim to avoid interstates and fast-food restaurants in order to find the real America, get set for foolishness about old-time dialects, country crafts, and characters of the sort they don't make anymore. Or so the writer will...

When I Taught Mary to Eat Avocado.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... WHEN I TAUGHT MARY TO EAT AVOCADO She didn't understand. You couldn't cut straight through with the big knife because of the pit, or heart, or stone. We gave it many names, and when it was revealed,...

Otto Bar.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... OTTO BAR You must understand. The drink tasted of blood because of the cap's mineral tang, because of the salt of the hand that served, because the singer in your band had just let go of her lover's cells and was...

Reentering Atmosphere.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... REENTERING ATMOSPHERE Evening's laddered with ash, jet-line of pale unraveling silk: primitive web, all axis and latitude. There's democracy in entropy. Which is why there are so many flights all ending in...

Morning on Despina.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... MORNING ON DESPINA Lioness morning falls on Despina. The island shrinks in the heat. Warmed, the caterpillars in green heaps uncurl, disengage, take up their threads and file back to their round. And round and...

Neoteny.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... NEOTENY Unlike tadpoles, big-eyed and wiggly, or bat babies with snub puppy faces and skins of helpless velvet, the island was born red-faced and belching, hunchbacked, shifty, sharp and hot all over. ...

As Far as I Could Tell.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... AS FAR AS I COULD TELL After they pulled my wisdom tooth both eyeballs ached into their moorings. Something with spurs had lodged behind my eardrum. Dawn came, vague with codeine and the sound of rain, sheets drenched. ...

Across the River.(Poem)
June 22, 2002... ACROSS THE RIVER a bull moose waits (for something) to cross the fiver. Finally it crosses. You want to link the moose to the pain in your chest but to compare a moose's efforts to ascend a riverbank ...

Scrupulous Amedee.(Short Story)
June 22, 2002... 1. Night Thoughts Clear midnight, calm sea. From his lighthouse on the islet Le Galiton, Amedee Conti sees an Arab crescent among quieter celestial lights. As white, reflections of his propane beacon shimmer on near dark waves. Low to...

A Way to frame the Truth.(The Tether)(Book Review)
June 22, 2002... The Tether. By Carl Phillips. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. 83 pp. $22.00 cloth. In "Recumbent," a central poem in Carl Phillips's fifth collection, The Tether, the speaker utters a miniature catalog that encapsulates the...