Nonfiction
Adrienne Rich. Last Poems: Selected and New, 1971-2012. W. W. Norton.
In her poem “Delta” Adrienne Rich writes, “If you think you can grasp me, think again: / my story flows in more than one direction / a delta springing from the riverbed / with its five fingers spread.” I have always noted those lines as both a warning and an invitation. Her final book, Later …
How to Own a Building
Winner of the 2012 Prairie Schooner Summer Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest, selected by Judge Steven Church (Runners-up: Kirby Wright, “Ladder of Glass,” and Garrett J. Brown, “Galileo in the Uecker Seats”) [New York City] For years, people saw only the ugly rectangular shapes, like two steel pillars hoisting the sky. Too tall, uninventive. Architecture should …
To the Whirlwinds
It was on their second lap around Tsézhinii’áhí when the skies rapidly darkened. Late May and Red Valley hadn’t yet had much rain. But it was always this way. Always dry, even up to the tips of the mountains. Rain, when it does storm, falls so briefly in the valley that within the length of …
CATHY PARK HONG. ENGINE EMPIRE.
The existence of ‘‘smart’’ snow that ‘‘monitors you,’’ staring, watching, studying. Being online constantly, 24/7, and merely having to blink your eyes to go off. Flying aerocabs. Antique ringtones that remind one of a time when it was all so much simpler. Everywhere, a complete erasure of the ‘‘old realism.’’ Cathy Park Hong’s latest collection, …
Anis Shivani. Against the Workshop: Provocations, Polemics, Controversies. Texas Review Press.
Against the Workshop: Provocations, Polemics, Controversies, a book of critical essays by writer Anis Shivani, unabashedly tackles one of the central foundations of contemporary American literature: the creative writing program. Shivani critiques this literary mainstay that has so permeated the life of American writers that at times it seems absolutely unavoidable. Very little criticism exists …
Nick Flynn. The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands. Graywolf Press.
If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred. —Walt Whitman Configurations and reconfigurations of the body permeate Nick Flynn’s newest collection: from the minute components of the individual to the physical circumstances of bodies in conflict, these lyric poems exalt the physicality of our existence in the tradition of Whitman while blurring it …
Lydia Peelle. Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing. Harper Perennial.
In Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, her exceptional first collection of short fiction, Lydia Peelle addresses the consequences of humanity divorcing itself from nature, using the context of the American South losing its rural traditions as an accelerant for her characters’ existential pain. Within her stories, Peelle develops the idea that individuals resemble what …
Ladette Randolph. A Sandhills Ballad. University of New Mexico Press.
It might be easy when describing Ladette Randolph’s first novel, A Sandhills Ballad, to slip into a summary that sounds a little melodramatic. There is death, dismemberment, and divorce. There is rage and despair, determination and triumph, and ultimately (thankfully) a measure of contentment. The plot is, to say the very least, full. But because …
Something to Marvel At
As Beverly and I walked down the sodden creekside trail, sounds of traffic from Interstate 84 behind us became the sound of Latourell Falls ahead of us. The transition was complete when the creek bent east, opening to a sudden view of the falls. We stopped to watch its 250-foot plunge down the north side …