The Antioch Review back issues from March 2002:
Angels and Devils. (Editorial).
Mar 22, 2002 ... On the surface, this may seem like another of our "special" theme issues, such as the winter number, "Stories and Journeys" or our annual "All-Fiction" issue. Alas, I cannot take credit for thinking about good and evil in advance for this number, since it just grew over time with the ...
Angels and devils: live theater and dead.
Mar 22, 2002; ... Let me begin by recalling my favorite moment of theater. It must have happened in the late fifties because one of my children was six or seven when she took part in this performance, staged by a Unitarian Sunday School to celebrate some holiday, maybe Easter. We sat in a white ...
An incident far from here.
Mar 22, 2002; ... My brother passed away in a death ward for incurable cancer patients on the night the riots broke out after the assassination of Martin Luther King. It was May 26, 1968, and he was twenty-seven years old. It marked the end of an errant, somewhat groping life that puzzled my parents and ...
Sexy and her sisters.
Mar 22, 2002; ... Always one pert and pretty and always one with glasses," wrote Dylan Thomas, noting the curious tendency of girls to come in pairs--the one you looked at, and the other one. I have a confession: the one I had trouble looking at was Marilyn Monroe--a matter of taste. I like my ...
An "imagination of order": the suspicion of structure in anthropology and poetry.
Mar 22, 2002; ... In writing ethnography, anthropologists generally assume they are describing a society and reaching some explanatory conclusions, however tentative. Poets, too, observe and offer explanations for what they see around them. This may include more references to their own "internal" ...
Courage: a mystery or not?
Mar 22, 2002; ... William Ian Miller, author of last year's The Mystery of Courage--a "fascinating meditation," as a Harvard University Press cover blurb accurately notes, on the moral psychology of courage--tends not to write conclusions to his books. Miller's 1993 volume, Humiliation, instead has an ...
The fiddler's prerogative: J.W. Krutch and the "class wars".
Mar 22, 2002; ... Although it is now hard to fathom, the reaction of many Western intellectuals to the Russian Revolution was extremely positive. "I have been over into the future," Lincoln Steffens boasted, "and it works!" The Russian people and their leaders would not, he prophesied, succumb to the ...
Emancipation.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> EMANCIPATION Corncob constellation, oyster shell, drawstring pouch, dry bones. Gris gris in the rafters. Hoodoo in the sleeping nook. Mojo in Linda Brent's crawlspace. Nineteenth-century corncob cosmogram set on the dirt floor, beneath ...
Honey.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> HONEY For Jef Dexter says after Independence they left without teaching the wasps to make honey. We talk about the tree of good and evil, how drink or smoke comes to live inside us, like a duppy. They're hungry so the girls go down beside the cruise ships and give ...
Liberty from Florence.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> LIBERTY FROM FLORENCEI had an outing; I wasn't wild about Florentines; they had furs instead of children. A drunk shouted, I love Skippy-Jonno. I love Skippy-Jonno-- The guy in Harry's Bar, I might have slept with him, taken the bus to Siena, seen angels for a ...
The horizontal line.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> THE HORIZONTAL LINE(Homage to Agnes Martin) It was like a white sail in the early morning It was like a tremulous wind calming itself After a night on the thunderous sea The exhausted lightning lay down on its side And slept on a bed of ...
The Warm Shadow.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... translated by Marilyn Hacker <Pre> THE WARM SHADOW Black with white polka-dots the fabric Of her slacks rides up between her buttocks Which know all the tricks Of warm shadow, they seize it, Grasp it at first from above At the start of their jutting And then ...
Bon Voyage.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> BON VOYAGE Boys are carrying sticks to beat back the rain. Like tiny kings in swollen ditches they smite the great dreamsicle melted in the sky. But I am sly, my love, when it comes to my love. I've tossed the life jackets, bon voyaged all the arks. Let it ...
Annulus.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> ANNULUS Walking, I passed a woman coming from the river with the wash. Later: a farmhouse, tomato vines crushed in the dust, the farmer. Open the woman who has collected her wash in a basket, I shouted to the farmer, and you will find another woman and another basket ....
The Tree.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> THE TREE I saw the sleds converging on his flanks: two boys--the kind he couldn't be-- driving swiftly on their bellies as boys do, and he, sitting upright in the middle-- and, in front of him, the tree. Did I shout out jump!--or steer!-- and if I did, ...
Small-Town Lawyer, on Hearing the People of Carter County, Kentucky, have Voted not to Open a Library.(Poem)
Mar 22, 2002; ... <Pre> SMALL-TOWN LAWYER, ON HEARING THE PEOPLE OF CARTER COUNTY, KENTUCKY, HAVE VOTED NOT TO OPEN A LIBRARY Roy Seagraves swears he's fine in the factory, says, "Us rural people out here would benefit very little from it. We pay plenty taxes already." Roy left eighth ...
The deep red cremation of isaac and grace.(Short Story)
Mar 22, 2002; ... 1. Whoops! He agreed that she was beautiful and she agreed that he was beautiful, although her agreement came after his, which was immediate. They had the same SAT score! Very high in both cases! This made them respect each other. He asked questions and she answered and he ...
Delfigo street.(Short Story)
Mar 22, 2002; ... It took ten-pence pieces: a gray-bellied, ravenous meter in the sorry kitchenette. At any other time of year I needn't have bothered. The windows in the place were wide, suggesting that the builder had solved a shortage of bricks by tacking them in; the curtains were thin as muslin. Day or ...
To my former mother, Mrs. Callahan.(Short Story)
Mar 22, 2002; ... after Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O." I cannot explain how annoyed and mortitied I was to have you waking me up yesterday with that loud rapping, only to open my door and find you standing there with a vase full of carnations--green, no less, and how appropriate in a way ...
My fabulous Baku fortune.
Mar 22, 2002; ... At first, at least, it was not an every time occurrence, one or two of my visits might pass without the topic coming up, but pretty soon even the lapses felt like missed beats in a persisting rhythm. My mother and I would go out to lunch, or we would stroll up Riverside Drive, or, later, ...
Letter from London.(author Christopher Logue)(Critical Essay)
Mar 22, 2002; ... There is a long workbench in Christopher Logue's study, in addition to the desk, and pegs on the wall on which hang scissors, knives, and various kinds of tape. For more than forty years he has been engaged intermittently on War Music, an idiosyncratic account of Homer's Iliad, that he ...
Aiding and Abetting. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark. Doubleday, 166 pp., $21.00. To aid and abet, aiding and abetting, aiders and abetters: not only the act of material succor is central in this elegant tale, but also the nurturing of certain behaviors and attitudes. Aiding and abetting is more than an ...
Antarctica. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Antarctica by Claire Keegan. Atlantic Monthly Press, 207 pp., $23.00. This book of short stories does not read like a debut work. Keegan writes confidently and with great insight and has produced a livewire collection that is alternatingly terrifying and endearing. Irish-born Keegan sets ...
The Concise Book of Lying & The Liar's Tale: A History of Falsehood. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... The Concise Book of Lying by Evelin Sullivan. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 334 pp., $25.00. The Liar's Tale: A History of Falsehood by Jeremy Campbell. W.W. Norton, 362 pp., $26.95. Most people would agree with Ms. Sullivan in condemning the lie when it is used to further personal interests to ...
Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery & Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery by Sander L. Gilman. Duke University Press, 179 pp., $21.95 (paper). Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery by Sander L. Gilman. Princeton University Press, 396 pp., $16.95 ...
The Feast of the Goat. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, tr. Edith Grossman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 432 pp., $25.00. Full of the tremendous power of the Latin American epic, Vargas Llosa once again delivers a sweeping statement about the turbulent history of Latin America. Here he explores the final ...
Hoop Roots. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Hoop Roots by John Edgar Wideman. Houghton Mifflin, 242 pp., $24.00. Those familiar with Wideman know to expect more than a sports book, and he exceeds these expectations. His formative experience of playground basketball becomes a reference point for a penetrating memoir with freewheeling ...
Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth-Century Paris by Celeste Mogador, tr. Monique Fleury Nagem. University of Nebraska Press, 330 pp., $55.00 ($24.95 paper). For years, the fiction of such celebrated authors as Baudelaire and Zola has sparked lasting intrigue with depictions of the seamy ...
The Poets' Dante: Twentieth-Century Responses. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... The Poets' Dante: Twentieth-Century Responses, ed. Peter S. Hawkins and Rachel Jacoff. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 403 pp., $30.00. Dante was the first poet to explore the self in conflict, and it is certainly one reason these 28 classic and commissioned essays by modern and contemporary ...
"The Regulations of Robbers": Legal Fictions of Slavery and Resistance. (Books).
Mar 22, 2002; ... "The Regulations of Robbers": Legal Fictions of Slavery and Resistance by Christina Accomando. Ohio State University, 257 pp., $22.95. Enslavement in U.S. history has been rationalized through complex narratives. In her examination of legal, political, and literary discourses of slavery ...
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Daniel Mark Epstein. Henry Holt, 300 pp., $26.00. The excitement Epstein felt gaining access to the unpublished diaries, journals, and letters that landed unprocessed in the Library of Congress, read by ...
Wild Life. (Books).
Mar 22, 2002; ... Wild Life by Molly Gloss. Houghton Mifflin, 255 pp., $13.00. Gloss's most recent book is like an exquisitely crafted, if obviously replica, patchwork quilt. Her prologue introduces a drawerful of writer Charlotte Bridger Drummond's papers from a granddaughter's point of view: leavings from ...
House of Poured-Out Waters. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... House of Poured-Out Waters by Jane Mead. University of Illinois Press, 115 pp., $14.95. Mead's first collection, The Lord and the General Din of the World (selected by Philip Levine for the 1995 Kathryn Morton Prize), brought its rough stories forth into a pale and dignified light so that ...
The Tether. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... The Tether by Carl Phillips. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 80 pp., $22.00. The elusiveness at the heart of the poems in Phillips' new book, while an element of their beauty, is not, I believe, primarily due to their intentionally artificial syntax--an obsessiveness with prepositions, for ...
Errors in the Script. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Errors in the Script by Greg Williamson. Overlook Press, Sewanee Writers Series, 94 pp., $23.95. Winner of the 1995 Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize for a first collection, Williamson's The Silent Partner made a compelling debut with its fusion of traditional forms and careful observation ...
Felt. (Books).
Mar 22, 2002; ... Felt by Alice Fulton. W.W. Norton, 96 pp., $22.00. Fulton's poetry has long been the deft handiwork of a writer who delights in the interplay of order and chaos, and for whom artifice and actuality are warp and woof of a tensile fabric. Felt, Fulton's newest collection, is no exception; ...
God. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Ned Balbo God by Debora Greger. Penguin, 96 pp., $16.00. To frame a poetic sequence with God as your main character is no small ambition, but as Debora Greger's God confirms, the challenge, in the right hands, makes for memorable reading. Wry humor and verbal agility are ...
Life on Earth. (Books).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002; ... Life on Earth by Frederick Seidel. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 68 pp., $22.00. The second book in Seidel's The Cosmos Poems, a trilogy-in-progress, Life on Earth sustains a unique voice--sardonic, sexually charged, syntactically condensed--throughout its vision of that middle ground between ...
The Kennedy Men, 1901-1963. (Noted by the Editors).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002 ... The Kennedy Men, 1901-1963 by Laurence Leamer. William Morrow, 882 pp., $35.00. The Kennedy family continues to fascinate the American reading public and the publishers that serve that readership. Leamer's vast history is distinguished chiefly by its focus on the life of Joseph P. Kennedy ...
The Pig and the Skyscraper. (Noted by the Editors).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002 ... The Pig and the Skyscraper by Marco d'Eramo. Verso Press, 460 pp., $30.00. Marco d'Eramo, a physicist by original training and later educated by Pierre Bourdieu in Paris, explores Chicago with the detachment of a scientist, the fascination of a sociologist, and the sensibility of a ...
Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels: Metaphors Men Live By. (Noted by the Editors).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002 ... Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels: Metaphors Men Live By by Peter F. Murphy. University of Wisconsin Press, 167 Pp., $19.95. As intelligent as provocative, Murphy's study of the expressions from ordinary daily life points out some of the ways in which the mundane and casual language ...
Whispers on the Color Line. (Noted by the Editors).(Brief Article)
Mar 22, 2002 ... Whispers on the Color Line by Gary Alan Fine and Patricia A. Turner. University of California Press, 260 pp., $27.50. Following Turner's excellent work, I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1993), Fine and Turner combine academic specialties (sociology and folklore) to explore the prevalence ...