The Kenyon Review articles from September 2004

The Kenyon Review archives from September 2004

Editor's notes.(Editorial)
September 22, 2004... How much is a fine story worth? What monetary value does a superb poem possess? How much--and this is the inexorable point--should authors be paid for their long, solitary work? These are neither new nor simple questions, but they...

My Father in the Wind.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... MY FATHER IN THE WIND Even in the dark the wind blows. I hear it in the high branches of the great cedar humming its one tune. In the small room that is mine the dust grains refuse to speak although they know it all,...

Morning in Liguria.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... MORNING IN LIGURIA Rain seven days without letup. Another dawn, if you can call the gray light of a low sky dawn. The two ancient setters, their ears flattened, moan at the back door. The door stays shut; more...

The Death of Mayakovsky.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... THE DEATH OF MAYAKOVSKY Philadelphia, the historic downtown, April 14, 1930. My father sits down at the little desk in his hotel room overlooking an airshaft to begin a letter home: "Dear Essie," he pens, but...

Balaam and the ass: an excerpt from a new translation of the Five Books of Moses.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2004... Introduction These three chapters from the Book of Numbers reflect a moment in the narrative when the Israelites, after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, am approaching the land of Canaan and facing imminent conflict with the...

The Book of Numbers: Chapter Twenty-two.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2004... 1. And the Israelites journeyed onward, and they camped in the steppes of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho. 2. And Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorite. 3. And Moab was very terrified of the people, for they were...

The Forgotten Traveler.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... THE FORGOTTEN TRAVELER (on a line by Claude Roy) Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker It's life itself that makes us die, you wrote in that poem where everything stays raw, the streetcars' rattling, the nape...

To Cavafy.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... TO CAVAFY Such impatience, and for what, if tomorrow is only a little boat with no sail or oars, a bridge over nothing? Think of the old man of Alexandria, of his treasures squirreled away in a drawer with keys,...

Then.
September 22, 2004... The Maguires' garage was immense, or seemed so, and dimly lit, in such a way that we, the children, cast strange shadows or were in shadow, and you couldn't, as a result, tell how many of us there were. Not many, in truth--fewer than a...

Evening & Utero.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... EVENING & UTERO A mouth opens, A path opens, But you don't open. A flap bends back, A trap door lifts, a crust fractures, An ear hears a gunshot through miles of forest, Eyes recognize the cranes are back,...

Petition.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... PETITION After Brigit Pegeen Kelly This may be my last request. This may be the last morning the mud cups my hoots, and the shoots from the moss send up their red antennae to broadcast what the mud whispers....

Pomme Prisonniere.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... POMME PRISONNIERE Five years to the hour since I was a bride, we eat wood mushrooms from the same damp atmosphere that brought our tongues out of the dark and into each other's mouths. Some nights, my lips are...

Letter to the Unconverted.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... LETTER TO THE UNCONVERTED And what would you say if I told you the deer had spoken? Two animals, we were face to face in the wood And stopped each other dead in the last light Of day, the cold coming down the...

Generations: an excerpt from Novella.(New Voices)(Excerpt)
September 22, 2004... Let me tell you something, Berry Parker." Novella Wheeler took a drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke into his face. "There are two things I'll always have--a man and money." Berry and Novella sat together on her father's porch under...

The task of the translator.
September 22, 2004... Unlike a work of literature, translation does not find itself in the center of the language forest, but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering, aiming at that single spot where echo is able to give, in its...

Seven remedies: positive thinking.
September 22, 2004... There should be more fuss, some bold stroke by which the gods announce their interference. But every day begins the same way. One of the guys on the construction crew rings the bell at 7:30 A.M., when Laurel is still in her robe, and she has...

The photograph.(Short Story)
September 22, 2004... Nguyen Van Manh crept along the border of the Lake of the Restored Sword, where the magic tortoise dwelt. Ever since he'd arrived in Hanoi the night before, a city swept up in rejoicing over the end of the war, Manh had run across thousands...

They Shoot Birds.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... THEY SHOOT BIRDS They shoot birds they do they shoot dead birds they shoot dead birds into the engines of airplanes they shoot dead birds into the engines running at takeoff thrust they do dead birds all kinds all...

The Suthadhar.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... THE SUTHADHAR Narrator of Fragments from Family Sagas On a day like this I do not know Why I suddenly think back on my sister-in-law's wedding. Perhaps it is because I am turning the pages of Kunapipi, Reading about the...

Elephants and Butterflies.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... ELEPHANT AND BUTTERFLIES 1. I'm reading Roman history at dinner: on the highway outside the restaurant, feathers float from a chicken truck, birds blinking in their boxes. A flatbed deadheads along, ...

Blind spot.(Short Story)
September 22, 2004... In the early afternoon sun, Maureen stops raking and looks at her white rooster, Prince Charming. He seems to be surrounded by a glowing halo, like the statue of the Virgin Mary to the right of the church altar. Maureen starts to shake even...

The Middle of Experience.(Poem)
September 22, 2004... THE MIDDLE OF EXPERIENCE My fear and my ambition: that my life Remain the same, unchanging in its versions, Constant as the street I lived on where the Houses bode their dreams beneath a California sky. That place is...

This Morning.(Brief Article)(Poem)
September 22, 2004... To see things as they are is hard, But leaving them alone is harder; Snow in patches in the yard, The vacuum in the sky, and in the soul The movements of temptation and refusal. I felt a day break. Nothing happened....

Sally's Hair.(Brief Article)(Poem)
September 22, 2004... It's like living in a light bulb, with the leaves Like filaments and the sky a shell of thin, transparent glass Enclosing the late heaven of a summer day, a canopy Of incandescent blue above the dappled sunlight golden on the...

'Drawing by Michelangelo, color by Titian': of originality, influence, and the poetry of John Koethe.
September 22, 2004... 1. What is originality? As heirs to the tradition of romantic individualism, we may think of originality in art as the emergence of a style or voice so distinct from its predecessors as to seem previously unheard and unheard of. If we...

On the first Kenyon Review Poetry Prize for Young Writers.(Young Writers Commentary)(Kenyon Review)
September 22, 2004... The Kenyon Review is best known for its contributions to the literary world as a journal. In recent years, however, KR has endeavored to expand its mission by bringing literature into the lives of young people. As part of this effort, we...

A Birth.(Young Writers)(Brief Article)(Poem)
September 22, 2004... A Birth We ran to the barn in the dark, bearing flashlights, beams skimming over mud. Alert with cold and the smells of dirt and grain and peat, we circled the first stall. We were a row of rubber boots...

Art Appreciation.(Young Writers)(Poem)
September 22, 2004... Art Appreciation "It's hard to say how something so obscure Can speak to us in such a pointed way," He remarked, his voice and gesture so pure That I didn't even know what to say. "It could be how the colors set the...

Spilled Rice.(Young Writers)(Poem)
September 22, 2004... Spilled Rice Snow fell yesterday like the bag of white rice I spilled on Grandma's blue carpet and she told me can't-you-ever-be-careful her voice was like gnarled bark and she knelt to pick up rice grain...