The Kenyon Review articles from June 2003

The Kenyon Review archives from June 2003

Editor's notes.
June 22, 2003... This special double--truly double!--issue of The Kenyon Review offers an abundance of perspectives, in stories, poems, and essays, from across the globe. Through this work we explore the complicated relationship between culture and place....

Articles of faith.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... Faith moved into the back yard. As broken bits of vodka bottle, as glimmering light amongst the shards, hope set up residence in the sarai next to the fishing rods and burlap sacks of potatoes, behind the shovels and rakes. "Not sarai," Irina...

A Brief Orissa Winter, 2000.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... A BRIEF ORISSA WINTER, 2000 A puddle of fire by the roadside. Warming hands of passersby. Elsewhere, a schoolgirl gets ready for class, flapping her wings like a bird about to take flight. Both people who live...

The city from a distance.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... In the splendor of a summer noon the boat was headed downriver toward San Juan. Along the riverbanks cicadas sang among the poplar and chestnut branches, and the water, a cloudy clay-pink color, folded lazily back over the iridescent wake. In...

Napoleon's roads.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. --R. M. Rilke, "The Panther," trans. Stephen Mitchell At first I thought they were windbreaks to shield the vines and villages from...

Arrival in Rome.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... ARRIVAL IN ROME I. My head aches, and the stale air burns my throat, pricks me into sweat and dream. The train rushes its heavy skeleton, shakes my head side to side in half-paralysis --the nimbus state of...

Field Notes from Mount Bakewell.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... FIELD NOTES FROM MOUNT BAKEWELL For Harold Bloom 1. Bark-stripped upper branches of York gums--olive dugites stretched taut, the dry blue like stark black bitumen, a torn limb from last night's ...

Location Triggers.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... LOCATION TRIGGERS The pillared porch, Corinthian because it's easiest from books, plastered, upholding world's ceiling that goes through to the next story always colder in winter, maybe cooler in summer, airflow...

I Pass the Arctic Circle.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... I PASS THE ARCTIC CIRCLE A man on the train points to the cairn on the mountain. We're passing the Arctic Circle, he says. At first we don't see any difference, to the north the land looks the same, but we know what...

I've Lived Here.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... I'VE LIVED HERE I've lived here more than a generation. Years with wind and stars in the high rigging have sailed by. Trees and birds have settled down here, but I for one have found no peace. Translated from...

Sounds of the Earth Coming Back to Life.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... SOUNDS OF THE EARTH COMING BACK TO LIFE I know the sound of a tree uses every leaf Songs come from the lungs of the earth Look, how beautiful an apple sounds when it drops to the ground by deviating from the throat and...

'And we shall be changed'.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... New York City, September 2001 Friday, September 7 We're at the breakfast table, the cat Leila curled on the chair between us. Donald has almost finished his bagel, but I'm still groggy--the second cup of coffee hasn't yet kicked...

Amar.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... Yesterday Amar ate a half box of raisins, two crusts of bread cemented together with toasted cheese, seven gapes, and three squares broken off a chocolate bar. He didn't even have time to be hungry. Benji required the hours of the moon,...

Soluble culture.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... Flag Fen, on the outskirts of an industrial estate near Peterborough, is a triumph of the invisible. One of the most important Bronze Age sites in Britain, it has neither the dramatic monoliths of Wiltshire or Orkney, nor even a bank, ditch,...

More Facts.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... MORE FACTS 1. She lay clean as the clear sky after the snowfall. Fresh. White. Snow-drifted. Curves rounded, outlined. Each leg with its light weight. Eyelashes glistening crystals. And the hollows,...

Akersbodarna, July 1981.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... AKERSBODARNA, JULY 1981 Like children the trees carry their souls out in the open, strong in their power to stand motionless and listen to the rushing from deep inside. The girls' laughter and the dog's white tail-tip,...

Kafwadala.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... KAFWADALA One morning, Kafwadala opened his eyes And lay down to close them again. People came along the village path To view Kafwadala's body, stretched Lifeless across the sandy path. Kafwadala wore a...

Anger of the Lake.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... ANGER OF THE LAKE The anger of the lake cannot be quenched cannot be calmed. I hurried to rendezvous with the lake goddess at the twirl of eddies. Barefoot I ran gliding over soft sand sliding...

Jungle Eagles.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... JUNGLE EAGLES One by one hordes of jungle eagles Rev up their wings and slowly Levitate on a cushion of air Going round and round the thickets Scouring the countryside for lizards, Rodents and carcasses of game....

Rebellious Teachers.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... REBELLIOUS TEACHERS In the lush countryside even sun rays dim against strafe of police fire. Flocks of gold flies and hyenas swarm the land in the lull of gunshot sounds when party functionaries move...

The greatest sorrow.
June 22, 2003... Times of Joy Recalled in Wretchedness ... Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi clel tempo felice ne la miseria... ... There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness... --Dante, The Inferno (1) ...

Also known as Alonzo Jones.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... After a while school didn't mean nothing to me but a place to hang out. My mama got worried, but she wasn't asking any questions. Maybe the easiest one. Shakir, honey, how come you don't got no homework?" I wasn't telling her how it was with...

Sane as the mind that makes a nest.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... Crossing a fence, I straightened and came eye to eye with a female robin, who sat on her nest in the crook of a limb. The nest and the feathers of her back were the precise color of the bark of the fir tree where she wove her refuge: slate...

A Flat in Jaipur.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... A FLAT IN JAIPUR A rainbow film glistens on the water standing in a pool dark as engine oil at the mouth of the street. At nightfall anorexic cows, their ribs carved in relief on the dirty marble of their hides,...

Life Cycles.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... LIFE CYCLES In Chattisgarh, near Bilaspur Clouds drift low above the monsoon town: loose wads of wool, not yet spun to yarn, swirling slowly in the wind. The sky drips all day, all night, bringing down a foot of...

Target Practice.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... TARGET PRACTICE Crotophaga ani, local names in the West Indies: Long-Tailed Crow, Tick-Bird, Merle Corbeau, Garrapetero (Trickster), Black Daw (Black Slut), Black Witch, Bouts-Tabac, Bilbitin (Cigarette Butt), Juif or...

Wrought from the Generation of Earth.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... WROUGHT FROM THE GENERATION OF EARTH One boot planted, firm as a trunk, the other shoved down on the shovel, shoving with a human weight that barely dents the crust over the outcrop of flinty veins that plumb through clay...

The Rose.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... THE ROSE Not so long ago, or was it?--the bud was tightly wound and the edge as hard to start as a roll of cellophane tape. (though it wasn't up to you or me to start it) Remember how the "dew and velvet" first caught...

From Masquerade.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... 12. Asleep on the shattered surface of a cinematic, lunar creek, one of us dreamt the silhouette of a dog, yet found upon waking it hadn't strayed. Such were the spells of a landscape that couldn't be trusted although we'd devised it...

Almost like nowhere.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... Lucy Nakahira cannot follow the TV bulletin, there are no graphics or maps, no written hints. The announcer is spearing in staccato. She makes out the word "airplane." She snatches up the phone again. "I can't follow this, my Japanese isn't...

Landscape and imagination.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... It is an ancient and fundamental question, whether a person is shaped most by the iron rails of blood lineage or by the land, and the strong and supple hands of experience. I had never considered such things until I moved to a dark wooded...

From Where the Compass Pointed West.(Excerpt)
June 22, 2003... A chapter from the biography of Herbert Patrick Lee In 1921 the Canadian government decided to make firm its claim on the territories of the Far North against further encroachment from trading companies, both British and foreign, that...

My private Germany.(Short Story)
June 22, 2003... Some are in prison, some are dead; And none has read my books, And yet my droughts turn back to them. --Theodore Roethke, The Chums On a window ledge, above the desk where I grade papers, arrange notes, contend with a phone that does...

Japanese Magnolia.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... JAPANESE MAGNOLIA Its crimson lips open to blush this pure act of defiance against the morning chill, frost a blanket on the grass where spiders have built canopies in pockets everywhere, some among the petals...

Fifteenth of August, 2000.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST, 2000 The day is over. I am anxiously waiting for the news On TV. Anxious, because the extremists Across the border have threatened explosion? Because, I think myself safe? But I wonder,...

The Spring.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... THE SPRING Translated from Chinese by Ouyang Yu The city after the rain is clean, wet like a cold coffin parked in a courtyard The girl next to me said: "someone was hacked three times yesterday and was thrown...

Love in Life and Death.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... LOVE IN LIFE AND DEATH A person's life after death is the memory of him by the living-- A long time after his death the mirror he used opens its mouth and speaks the chair he sat on murmurs even the path misses...

The Plantain-Eaters.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... THE PLANTAIN-EATERS Thirty-five centimeter bird, turaco, nestled, in the leaf sheath with green fruit between the seams at the nape of conical, false trunks. The bird of long tail, bird of short wing upon which...

Inner landscapes as sacred landscapes.
June 22, 2003... 1. This essay has its genesis in two events which will frame my discussion. The first occurred in 1978 and the second, twenty years later, in 1998. Both were the occasion of a retrospective exhibit of the work of Mark Rothko: the first...

Borderlands.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... BORDERLANDS For my grandmother Crush my eyes, bitter grapes: wring out the wine of seeing. We tried to escape across the frozen Yalu, to Ch'ientao or Harbin. I saw the Japanese soldiers shoot: I saw men...

The Chasm.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... THE CHASM (August, 1950) In the dream vultures circle above my mother's cousin. Eye the gash blown in his belly by Soviet T-34 tanks or U.S. rocket launchers shooting at each other blind across the Naktong...

Green Grass Trodden by People Coming and Going.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... GREEN GRASS TRODDEN BY PEOPLE COMING AND GOING Translated from Chinese by Ouyang Yu Green grass trodden by people coming and going is part of its ordinary life People who walk on the grass lead an ordinary life, I am...

So Begins the Lasting Silence.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... SO BEGINS THE LASTING SILENCE There is no doubt I will be the last speaker of our dying language. I will know that day has come when I call out across the frozen river from our village to the...

Kaktovik Whale Hunters.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... KAKTOVIK WHALE HUNTERS Barter Island, Alaska, 1981 At the far edge of the known world the ice pack shifts all night, moaning a sad and ancient song I have not heard before, while inside the snow-blasted house...

Mountain Smoke.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... MOUNTAIN SMOKE At the center of Indian country, three miles high, rises Mount Wrangell. Sometimes smoke comes from the mountaintop. Elders believe it is smoke from the campfires of spirits. It is said...

Dghelaay Let.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... DGHELAAY LET (in Ahtna Athabaskan) Ahtna nen niidze taan taa'ki miles caax, K'elt'aeni gge'. Nildentah let tsiniyaa dghelaay tsit'aak'e. Da'atnae ts'elnes let ts'en kon' ce'yiige. Lu denaey t'edyaak,...

How to Conquer the New World.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... HOW TO CONQUER THE NEW WORLD When I was fourteen Sanford Nicolai spoke at a potlatch. He looked around the Great Hall upon many faces from different clans, pointed out the frost-lined window toward...

The Dalai Lama's many Tibetan landscapes.
June 22, 2003... Some Americans have altered their culture. They become interested in Buddhism. Let's say Zen Buddhism. And this is a good thing.... Japanese Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, whatever. Many of them travel to Japan, for example, to learn more. Then...

Quarreling with the Keyboard.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... QUARRELING WITH THE KEYBOARD The Lord is resting on the seventh day. He looks and sees that everything is good. The Luciferian keyboard blocks his way. The world he learns cannot be understood Since each adjacence...

Up Against the Statue.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... UP AGAINST THE STATUE The haze of death which rose from Cannae Field Is two and a half centuries new And we are in this bustling small town, Discovering, as we guessed, the Duomo's closed. A lankly whiskered man...

Pilgrimage to Outeiro.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... PILGRIMAGE TO OUTEIRO Translated from Romanian by Liliana Ursu, Adam J. Sorkin, and Tess Gallagher A flock of sheep drifts lazily down the hill toward the sea. A boy with an angel on his shoulder plays the...

The Wind on the Window.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... THE WIND ON THE WINDOW Translated from Chinese by Ouyang Yu Such a strong wind blows from the opposite mountains but does not break The wind on the window brighter than any autumn I can see the metal...

Perspective with Open Door.(Poem)
June 22, 2003... PERSPECTIVE WITH OPEN DOOR You can walk wheat with me; My fear is like a field mouse. Put its chill, its nose far away, it wills itself into the insulation. Water seeps through the foundation blurring the blue...

The Catskills Reinvented (And Redeemed): Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose.
June 22, 2003... Woody Allen, most especially in his early films, but extending through the middle period of his career (from Annie Hall in 1977 Crimes and Misdemeanors in 1989), fashioned a persona built upon what Vivian Gornick labeled a "rich and potent...

A landscape of variability.
June 22, 2003... Landscape is a medium of exchange between the human and the natural, the self and the other. As such, it is like money: good for nothing in itself, but expressive of a limitless reserve of value. (1) --W. J. T. Mitchell Nietzsche...

Modernizing the national landscape.
June 22, 2003... In the end, landscape turned out to be a concept almost entirely devoid of content. At worst a bad painting, at best a settled area, a stretch of native soil, in which the cooperative farmers movement could mobilize support, or which it could...