Response to “Small Complications”
“Small Complications” is a simple and direct poem that takes simplicity and directness as one of its subjects, and yet it is also surprisingly nuanced and self-conscious. From the beginning, the poemthrowsout
Takes
Response to “Francesca”
My favorite part of this story is a little line in the middle, when Francesca is about to truly attach herself to the goofy yet heartbreaking Norm, her closest friend. She is away at college, and he has driven seven… Continue Reading
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Response to “Vampire Deer on Jekyll Island”
The idea of vampire deer. The image of a grown man staring at the stars with his hands “pleated” over his eyes. Timothy’s phrase, “they’re lost in the headlights of your gaze.” These are the things that stayed with me… Continue Reading
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Response to “Well-Wrought”
A poem doesn’t exist solely on the page. It projects from the paper onto the world. Think of it as a recipe. If it is poorly done, you start off wanting to make eggplant parmesan and wind up with pizza… Continue Reading
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Response to “Actæon”
After reading Luke’s retelling of the story of Actæon, I sought another, more ancient source than Bullfinch: the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Even Ovid draws attention to the ambiguity that surrounds this episode, as if it is a tabloid-reported story discussed… Continue Reading
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Response to “Degree of Life”
I hate talking when I leave a movie. My friends know this, and for the most part, they let me be. When the lights come back on, I don’t want to tell anyone if I liked it, or how good… Continue Reading
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Response to “Revival Bin Blues”
Leigh’s essay on the nostalgia industry can’t help but take us on some nostalgia trips of our own. The grammar of the piece subordinates “nostalgia” (for Leigh, the cynical effort to turn childhood icons into formulae for commercial success) to… Continue Reading
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Response to “Jeremiah Burkhart’s 116th Dream”
“I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else,” a character says in the closing lines of Todd Hayne’s pitch-perfect Bob Dylan film, I’m Not There.“ I don’t
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Response to “Ainsworth Gym”
Even if we couldn’t name five horror movies, let alone one horror novel, we still know horror when we see it: its tropes are alleys in our cultural city, and in the course of our travels, we pass themwhetheror
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Editors’ Note
Dear Reader: Growing up is hard—all our stories tell us so. From “Little Red Riding Hood” to Toy Story 3, we’re always retelling, revising, and reinventing tales about the perils and possibilities of childhood, the awkward camaraderie of adolescence, the… Continue Reading
Issue 2 Takes
Response to “Song of Roland”
In the medieval French epic La Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne’s Christian Franks battle Marsile’s pagan Saracens in Spain. The latter have feigned defeat to trick the invaders into leaving; the formermustnow
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Response to “Hours and Days”
Where does the mind go when we take a walk? Does it extend to touch the land, or play off corners of a new room? Do my thoughts intersect in the space between me and a car moving toward us,… Continue Reading
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A Letter From Jerusalem
To The Editors, I was praying in Jerusalem the other day and I thought of The Bad Version. Perhaps a circuit lit up in the mind of God that let these very letters flow—through my hand, out my pen, onto… Continue Reading
Issue 2 Takes
Response to “The World Islands”
If the ultimate homecoming of death happens when you’re far from home—on vacation, or on business, or while in some distant and dissociated emotional state—your whole life must suddenly become fraught
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Response to “New Found Land”
About halfway through Katherine’s essay, she relates the story of the madwoman who maltreats her boys, locking away the sugar, feeding them raw food until they are sick, denying them access to medical care. The