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.

Address communications to: The Editor, New Letters, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 5101 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Mo. 64110. Opinions expressed in New Letters are not necessarily those of the editor or of the University. Second-class postage paid at Kansas City, Missouri.

New Letters is typeset in 11 point Leawood for body text, with Chelmsford heads, and printed on 60-pound recycled, acid-free Cougar paper by Printing Services, University of Missouri.

INDEXED in Abstracts of English Studies, American Humanities Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Current Contents, Index of American Periodical Verse, Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities, Periodicals Contents Index.

POSTMASTER: Changes of address should be sent to New Letters, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 5101 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Mo. 64110.

Manuscripts submitted to New Letters must be original typescript or clear photo-copies, and will be returned only if a stamped, self-addressed envelope is provided. Manuscripts received between May 1 and October 1 will be returned unread.

Financial assistance for New Letters and New Letters on the Air is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

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.
   

On Being a Managing Editor. (Robert Stewart)


The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more . . .
-"Come In," Robert Frost

For the past couple of decades, more or less, I have been trying to figure out what my job is. I have been a managing editor. If this were a weekly or daily newspaper, the title would be better defined; but this is a literary periodical, which resists certainty and seeks, as art attempts to seek, the unknown. Out in the world, I knew, others like me existed, though also hidden. I came to see us as a shadowy band, a literary special forces, toughened in the jungles of typographic specifications, grant-data forms, distributor print allotments. We snip the trip wires that lead to typos and make sure these periodic, literary gems come to light well designed, on time, reassuringly announcing that the literary life has at least one song more.

Sometimes, I sought my comrades at conferences, on the dance floor, or, randomly, at the occasional Kansas City jazz club. I speak of friends Megan Sexton at Five Points and the late Tom Bigelow at Kenyon Review and Greg Michalson, formerly and famously at The Missouri Review.

A year or so ago, I visited the offices of The Georgia Review, where managing editor Annette Hatton dazzled me with her new software for tracking manuscripts and described how

 Image Size: 240x320 480x640 
960x1280 1440x1920 1920x2560