New Letters, Volume 69 Number 1

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

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NEW LETTERS (ISSN 0146-4930)

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)

she meets each new shipment of the magazine at the Greyhound Bus depot, all with excitement and passion for the magazine and great writing.

No one asks me what an editor does. Many have asked what a managing editor does. We sweep up, I say. The floors of our offices are littered with commas. Into this title, I have known managing editors fold the jobs of art editor, advertising director, copy editor, distribution director, grant writer, and, at times, copyright consultant. They heft boxes and stand on street corners handing out free copies to reporters covering national events (once, I met Pierre Salinger on the corner of 12th and McGee streets in Kansas City, and he actually had read the magazine).

The work goes on by obscure and well-known editors (whether in-chief or managing) around the country. Why do it? As Willis Barnstone translates from the Gospel of Luke, "No one lights a lamp and puts it in a hidden place." Literature promotes human empathy. It acquaints readers with the particular details of the lives of others. It is always new. It is our job - both writers and editors - to see that the human race does not look away. In its fearless, eccentric, vivid and personal way, great writing promotes world peace.

Over the years, friends in their sweetness - most often this magazine's outgoing editor, James McKinley - would exclaim that the managing editor does all the work, while the editor takes the credit. I sipped on that brew a bit, unable to resist. Yet I would not let it go to my head. As Jim has withdrawn recently, retiring from the University, my sense of that statement's falseness has been utterly confirmed. I liked having the word "managing" in my title, though, because it suggests control. Yet the word is a misnomer. The job is more supportive, undercover, even clandestine. If a reader complains about some breach of propriety, it is the editor who will take the bullet.

At the time James McKinley became editor-in-chief of New Letters, in 1985, I had spent three years prior happily starving as a free-lance writer, renting a wood-rotten

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