New Letters, Volume 69 Number 2-3

New Letters, Volume 69 Number 2-3
7 / Editor's Note, Robert Stewart

E S S A Y S

26 / On Rediscovering Vincent O. Carter, an introduction, Chip Fleischer
55 / Robert Stackhouse: Artist As Shapeshifter, an introduction, Elisabeth Kirsch
73 / Real Words, Paul Zimmer
101 / How Many of You Are There In the Quartet?, Brian Doyle
119 / Alice, Judy Ray
157 / Looking Out, Gary Gildner

P O E T R Y

8 / Six Poems, Naomi Shihab Nye
14 / Four Poems, Quincy Troupe
20 / Two Poems, Marilyn Hacker
93 / Tools, Joseph Millar
94 / Luminous Blue Variables, Michelle Boisseau
133 / When I Left, Vanessa Sooy
136 / On the Holy Friar Crossing a Suspension Bridge to Paradise, Joanna Goodman
138 / We are not Creatures of a Single Day, trans. by David McDuff, Pia Tafdrup
140 / Two Poems, Judith Berke
170 / Looking for the Man in the Moon, Suzanne Rhodenbaugh
210 / The Summer Carnival, Luisa Igloria
212 / Two Poems, Donald Junkins

F I C T I O N

33 / The Song of Evening, Vincent O. Carter
59 / Songs Without Words, Charlotte Holmes
65 / Kismet, Sarah A. Odishoo
79 / Amnesty Barracks, Daniel Woodrell
215 / The Pleasure of Man and Woman Together on Earth, Thomas E. Kennedy

I N T E R V I E W

142 / The Subject is Life, conducted, by Angela Elam, Naomi Shihab Nye

T H E L I T E R A R Y A W A R D S

172 / Awards, an introduction, Aleatha Ezra
173 / Stone or Water, first place, The Alexander Patterson Cappon Award for Fiction, Janet L. Thompson
189 / On the Edge of Ice, first place, The Dorothy Churchill Cappon award for creative nonfiction, Monica Devine
199 / Five Poems, first place, the New Letters poetry award, Ellen Bass

R E V I E W S

241 / H. L. Hix, "Modes of Sacred Speech": A review of poetry books by Grace Schulman, Miranda Field, Natasha Trethewey, Jacqueline Marcus, Linda Gregerson.
253 / Conger Beasley Jr., "Anything Could Occur": A review of Hart Crane: A Life, by Clive Fisher.

A R T W O R K

Robert Stackhouse, drawings, etching, lithographs, front cover & pages, 6, 53, 54, 58, 72, 78, 118, 131, 132, 156, 171, 188, 198, 209, 214. (Introductory essay by Elisabeth Kirsch, page 55.)
258 / Awards Honor Roll
260 / New Programs: New Letters on the Air
260 / Celebrations: News From Our Authors
261 / Visitors' Log: The New Letters Guest Book
262 / NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

S T A F F

Editor: Robert Stewart

Administrative Director: Betsy Beasley

Assistant Managing Editor: Aleatha Ezra

Producer, New Letters on the Air: Angela Elam

Assistant Producer: Leslie Koffler

Readers: James McKinley, Thomas Russell, Karen Subach, William Trowbridge

Student Staff: Valerie Benz, Regan Cochran, Jason Holmes, Adam Kraft, Jannie Morrison, Stuart Smith, 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 2/3

Printed in the United States

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.

How Many of You Are There in the Quartet? (Brian Doyle)

like a cross between David Frost and David Susskind, and that is a cross I cannot bear." His friend Doug Ramsey remembers being on a crowded elevator with him once when a bell rang. "What's that?" asked a startled pas-senger. "E-flat," they said simultaneously, which started a friendship that lasted 20 years.

The same adjectives used to describe his talk - witty, humorous, dry - surface when people try to describe the way in which he played the alto saxophone. It's essentially impossible to accurately describe the tone and style of an instrument being played masterfully, but every jazz writer and many fellow musicians tried with Desmond and his horn: "Profoundly beautiful and lyrical," said the alto saxophonist Julian Adderly, better known as the Cannonball. "Wonderful and lyrical," said the alto saxophonist Jackie McLean. "Exceptionally light in texture and pure in tone, casually luxurious, cerebral, and exquisitely lyrical," said the critic Leonard Feather. "Melodic, organized, and lyrical," says the scholar Ted Gioia. Here's a simple description: "My favorite alto player in the world," said the late Charlie Parker.

"The years have been crammed with more than enough things - funny and otherwise - to fill a fair-sized book, which, if you can hang about for another year or so, I will have finished," wrote Desmond in 1976. The book was to be titled How Many of You Are There in the Quartet?, a question he was asked every day by fans and airline stewardesses, he claimed.

His friends mostly thought he was for real. "He talked a lot about the book he was working on, a book of his memoirs," said Bob Prince, the arranger and conductor who worked with Desmond on the 1961 and 1962 sessions later released as Late Lament. Jim Hall thought he was working on it, although Hall also remembers Desmond telling Gerry Mulligan that the book would never be finished, and that

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