New Letters, Volume 69 Number 1

New Letters Archive Table of Contents

New Letters, Volume 69 Number 1

E S S A Y S

6 / Editor's Commentary: On Being A Managing Editor, Robert Stewart
27 / Introduction: The Drawings of Laurie Lipton, Janet Burroway
75 / A brief history of hair:, Alyce Miller

F I C T I O N

11 / Family, Frances Sherwood
31 / Bobbing, Helen Barolini
57 / The Birthday, Harry Mark Petrakis
89 / Say When, Roderick Townley
101 / Pine Cones, Scott Ely
119 / Handel's Father, Bill Oliver
139 / Mistrals, Stephen Ausherman
167 / The Bombing of Tripoli, William McCauley

P O E T R Y

41 / Christmas 2001, Tim Seibles
44 / Five Poems, Nance Van Winckel
49 / What the Body Knows, Alison Townsend
52 / Two Poems, Eric Pankey
93 / Hostage, Roberta Swann
95 / The Black Hole, David Ray
96 / In a Season of Absence, Maryfrances Wagner
97 / Some Boys are Born to Wander, Walt McDonald
98 / At Sybaris, Francis Blessington
99 / Spring Fires in Livingston Parish, Alison Pelegrin
148 / Three Poems, Regan Good
154 / The Bar Mitzvah, Alex Horne
155 / The Letter Walter Bargen
156 / The Skeleton of Roaring Camp Might be a Woman, David Citino
157 / Georgia, Susan Whitmore
158 / Water, Greg Field
160 / On the Undying Political Influence of Frank O'Hara, Saul Bennett
163 / The Swing, Miriam Poeter-Miller
164 / The Race, Kurt Brown

A R T W O R K

Laurie Lipton, drawings, front cover, pages 5, 10, 25, 26, 30, 39, 40, 56, 74, 100, 118, 138, 147, 162, 166. (Introductory essay by Janet Burroway, page 27.)
Roger Pfingston, photographic portfolio, pages 81-88.
Kathrin Perutz, photograph, "One Year Later," page 94.
175 / Notes On Contributors
180 / New Programs: New Letters on the Air
181 / Visitors' Log: The New Letters Guest Book
182 / Celebrations: News From Our Authors


S T A F F

Editor: Robert Stewart

Editorial Advisor: James McKinley

Administrative Director: Betsy Beasley

Assistant Managing Editor: Aleatha Ezra

Producer, New Letters on the Air: Angela Elam

Assistant Producer: Leslie Koffler

Readers: Thomas Russell, Karen Subach

Student Staff: Jason Holmes, Adam Kraft, Jannie Morrison, Amy Thomas

Past Editors: Alexander Cappon, David Ray, James McKinley

New Letters website: umkc.edu/newletters. Webmaster: Joe Short

New Letters (ISSN 0146-4930) is published quarterly by the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Subscriptions for individuals are: 1 year $17; 2 years $28; 5 years $55. Library Rates are: 1 year $20; 2 years $34; 5 years $65. Larger donations from Patrons can be tax deductions. Cassettes of New Letters on the Air programs are available for $10 each.

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NEW LETTERS (ISSN 0146-4930)

Copyright 2002. The Curators of the University of Missouri.

VOLUME 69 NUMBER 1



Electronic edition published by Cultural Heritage Langauge Technologies and funded by the National Science Foundation International Digital Library Program. This text has been proofread to a high degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using typesetters source files.

   

Five Poems (Nance Van Winckel)

Retrograde: Echoes from a Previous Chapter


If only the third wish hadn't been squandered on more wine
for the village feast, or the second on scarlet plumes
for the black-eyed dray. Surely this life's tasks
meet a good end when the next life's begin.

Best wish, first wish: for a cold to crack the gallows
with a weight of ice. At rope's end, the corpse,
like a plucked goose, ticks by slow degrees toward dawn.

She watched the gibbet snap in a red rim of light. No
further grantings. Morning's too-lateness. Her pipe empty,
and no smoke to warn the villagers of her dreams' demise.

If only she could set back the hours, the days. Before
The Feast. Before Adam and Eve, before love and animals
and small green lands spit up by the sea.

Without one's wishes a dangling man reverts to plain
type. Pages flutter and whisk him away. In the chill
of his shadow came a wind and the pendulum's tick . . .
tick - that word again. We scorn redundancy.

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