ISSUES | spring 2020
43.1 (Spring 2020) “Elemental Force”
Inside: The 2019 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize winners, and Stephanie Carpenter on Little Women and Louisa May Alcott. Featuring John Balaban, Nathan Greenberg, Daniel Hornsby, Melissa Studdard, Diana Xin, Javier Zamora, and many more.
CONTENT FROM THIS ISSUE
Foreword
Jun 19 2020
Foreword: Elemental Force
I happen to have discovered a direct relation between magnetism and light, also electricity and light, and the field it opens is so large and I think rich. —Letter to… read more
Poetry
Jun 19 2020
Poems: Javier Zamora
[ Immigration Headline ] [ byline ] PUERTO BARRIOS, GT—She knew where power came from. How the chord made it bright once plugged into her wall. If she really… read more
Poetry
Jun 19 2020
Poems: Melissa Studdard
Because Deathbolts Illuminate the Wonderstorm Cruel, the highway that took the dogs. I’ve seen its shoulders convulse gently in the crying of nightfall the way a teenaged… read more
Fiction
Jun 19 2020
Joy Comes in the Morning
I went over to Rosalind’s house because the Sunday Sisters had gathered to pray for me. I told them I didn’t believe in God but attended services with my mother… read more
Fiction
Jun 19 2020
O’Herlihy (Née Noonan)
On the second of April 1923 she was born in the main bedroom of the family home, in Drumcondra. Her colour was deep blue. The thundery richness of this blue,… read more
Fiction
Jun 19 2020
Purple Knot
My mother’s birdwatching mania began with my fourteenth birthday, when she gave me a pair of exorbitantly priced binoculars she’d bought from an enthusiast in Lexington, Kentucky. They weighed as… read more
Fiction
Jun 19 2020
Neighbor Angel
When we first moved into the Golden River Mountain Apartments, we felt we’d been misled. They were indeed apartments, but that was as far as they lived up to their… read more
Art
Jun 19 2020
Neo Rococo: The Work of Nine Contemporary Artists
“We must begin by saying to ourselves that we have nothing else to do in the world but seek pleasant sensations and feelings.” —Madame du Châtelet, natural philosopher, mathematician, and… read more
Interviews
Jun 19 2020
Interview: A Conversation with John Balaban
John Balaban is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including four volumes that together have won the Academy of American Poets’ Lamont prize, a National Poetry Series… read more
Reviews
Jun 19 2020
Review: Marching On: Rereading Little Women and Louisa May Alcott
You likely know the plot of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868-9 novel, Little Women. Whether you’ve read the book or seen one of its adaptations to film or screen, you probably… read more
Curio Cabinet
Jun 19 2020
The Glass Artists: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls
A lamp may be as much an object of art as a painting or a piece of statuary. In fact, it should be. —Tiffany Studios, a company advertisement In 1903… read more
Editors' Prize Winner
Jun 19 2020
The Trailer
Sometime in late March the camper trailer appears: fifteen feet long with a crude black-and-green paint job, discarded on our property behind Starbucks, Little Caesars, and the AT&T store. It… read more
Editor's Prize Winner
Jun 19 2020
Poems: The Lucie Odes
The Lucie Odes For Lucie Nell Beaudet (1960-2018) I. I’d known you six years before you told me how your first husband pimped you out— used the cash to buy… read more
Editors' Prize Winner
Jun 19 2020
Trezzo
Mr. Hyde wrote digestive system on the board and Ronny Trezzo’s hand shot up. Hyde turned to face the class, then froze when he saw Ronny already had a question.… read more