Volume 47, Issue 1
FRONT COVER: Robert Tobey
Hilary, 2006
PHOTOGRAPH (DETAIL)
THE EDITORS are delighted to announce that the winner of this year’s Anne Halley Poetry Prize is Brian Swann, for his poem “Birds in the Woods,” published in the Winter 2005 issue. By a happy coincidence (I’m not a contest judge), a lifetime ago Brian and I sat across from each other during four- and five-hour graduate seminars conducted by Edward Dudley Hume Johnson, an eminent Victorianist of his day. A vast expanse of polished table wood strewn with leather-bound books and smoking materials stretched out between us—great thoughts transpired between the striking of a match and its application to the tobacco. Like all memories of comparable antiquity, it seems fixed in a kind of amber, yet Brian, Professor of English at the Cooper Union, escaped it to publish voluminously in many genres: fiction, poetry, criticism, translations, and children’s literature. His newest books of poems are Autumn Road, published last year by Ohio State University Press, and Snow House, which won the 2005-06 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize. “Birds in the Woods” can be found on the MR website (http://www.massreview.org/).
The prize celebrates the memory of Anne Halley, poet and MR editor. It is awarded annually to the author of the best poem to appear in each volume of this magazine. This year’s judges were MR poetry editors Ellen Watson and Deborah Gorlin, and James Haug, author of three volumes of poetry, and winner of the Morse Poetry Prize.
David Lenson
for the editors
Table of Contents
Towards a Language of Desire, Fiction by Carolyn Megan
The History of Writing, Poetry by Katherine Sanchez Espano
On Poetics, Poetry by Steve Mueske
Traffic of Our Stage: Boxing as Theater, Non-Fiction by Normand Berlin
First do no harm; Angels of Mercy, Poetry by Bob Hicok, Winner of the 2007 Anne Halley Poetry Prize
Snapper, Fiction by Erica Funkhouser
Redeem/The unread vision in the higher dream, Poetry by Mary Buchinger
She with a Flower in Her Hair, Poetry by Jesse Lichtenstein
Waterloo, Non-Fiction by Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Room, Poetry by Geoffrey Detrani
I Step Outside Myself, Poetry by Ingeborg Bachmann, Translated from the German by Peter Filkins
The Shiva, Fiction by Stephen Schottenfeld
Welcome to Dementia, Poetry by Todd Smith
The Cables, Poetry by T. Zachary Cotler
Set Piece, Drama by Dennis Porter
In Praise of Complaint, Non-Fiction by Rebecca Roberts
Nude Reclining, Poetry by Brad Crenshaw
Ganges Ophelia, Poetry by Carolyn Creedon
The Arch, Fiction by Andy Mozina
The Casualties: Thrombosis, Poetry by Martha Rhodes
Walt Whitman’s Attic, Non-Fiction by Thomas David Lisk
November 11, 1831: Nat Turner, Poetry by Jill McDonough
Variation 18: Baker, Poetry by Alice B Fogel
I Am Thinking of My First Deer, Poetry by Teresa Ballard
The Body of a Cow, Non-Fiction by Sara Levine
Contributors
Ingeborg Bachman, the Austrian poet,
dramatist, and novelist, was born in 1926. She
studied philosophy and law at the universities
of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna, where she
completed her doctoral dissertation in 1950.
Her first collection of poetry, Die gestundete
Zeit (1953), was awarded the Group 47 Prize.
She moved to Italy in 1953 and also spent
some time at Harvard University as a visiting
scholar. At the age of 33, Bachmann became
the first holder of the chair for poetics at
the University of Frankfurt. In 1964, she
received the prestigious Georg Büchner
Prize, and four year later was awarded the
Austrian National Medal. Bachmann died
in Rome on October 17, 1973.
Teresa Ballard is an artist and writer
who lives in the Midwest with her two
daughters. Her work has been published in
Pleiades, Mid-American Review, Cortland
Review, Three Candles, and Tryst.
Normand Berlin is the author of five
books on drama, including The Secret Cause:
A Discussion of Tragedy (UMass Press), Eugene
O’Neill (Macmillan, Grove, St. Martin’s),
and O’Neill’s Shakespeare (Michigan). He is
the theater editor of the Massachusetts Review.
Lisa Brennan-Jobs is a nonfiction writer
who grew up in California and graduated
from Harvard in 2000.
Mary Buchinger holds a PhD in Applied
Linguistics and is Assistant Professor of
English at the Massachusetts College of
Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston.
Her poems are published in Yale Journal for
Humanities in Medicine, Theology Today, Facets,
and Heart City Review.
T. Zachary Cotler‘s poems and stories
have been published in the U.S. and Ireland,
most recently in the Southern Review, Electric
Acorn, Witness, Folio, and Denver Quarterly.
He has been awarded the Amy Clampitt
Fellowship for 2006.
Carolyn Creedon is returning to school
under the poet Eleanor Wilner’s guidance
after thirteen years of waiting tables.
Brad Crenshaw is a neuropsychologist
practicing at Baystate Medical Center in
Western Massachusetts. He has received a
PhD in English from the University of
California, Irvine, and taught literature and
philosophy at a Franciscan seminary in
Massachusetts.
Geoffrey Detrani is a visual artist and
writer whose work has appeared in the New
Orleans Review, Crowd, Columbia Poetry
Review, Fence, and Drunken Boat. His art
work has been exhibited in New York and
Los Angeles. He was an artist in residence at
the former World Trade Center in New York,
where he had a studio on the 91st floor.
Katherine Sánchez Espano‘s poems
appear in Sycamore Review, Spoon River
Poetry Review, The Bitter Oleander, Louisiana
Literature, and elsewhere. She teaches
English and creative writing at the
University of North Florida.
Peter Filkins is the author of two books
of poems and the translator of Ingeborg
Bachmann’s collected poems, Darkness
Spoken (Zephyr Press, 2005). He teaches at
Simon’s Rock College of Bard in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts.
Alice B. Fogel‘s books are Elemental and I
Love this Dark World. Recipient of an NEA
fellowship and other awards, her work has
appeared in the Best American Poetry series
as well as many other anthologies and
journals. She teaches writing and other arts and
designs custom clothing. She lives with her
family, off the grid in New Hampshire.
Erica Funkhouser has published four
books of poetry, most recently Pursuit
(Houghton Mifflin, 2002). She teaches
poetry writing workshops at MIT.
Bob Hicok‘s fifth book, This Clumsy Living,
will be published by Pitt in 2007.
Sara Levine is a veterinarian who is
pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Lesley
University. Her writing has appeared in the
Health and Science section of the Boston
Globe. She lives in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, with her daughter.
Jesse Lichtenstein is a director of the
Loggernaut Reading Series. His prose and
poetry appear in the New Yorker, Boston
Review, Agni Online, and Beloit Poetry Journal.
He lives in Oregon.
Thomas David Lisk is Professor of English
at North Carolina State University. His
work on Whitman has appeared in Walt
Whitman Quarterly, Mickle Street Review, and
American Letters and Commentary.
Jill McDonough‘s poems have appeared
in Poetry, ThreePenny Review, and Slate. A
lecturer in Boston University’s Prison
Education Program, she is the recipient of
fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center,
the National Endowment for the Arts, and
the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
for Scholars and Writers at the New York
Public Library.
Carolyn Megan‘s work has appeared in
the Kenyon Review, South Dakota Quarterly,
Ms., and Boston College Magazine. She is
working on her first book, Sifting the Layers.
Andy Mozina has published stories in Tin
House, Mississippi Review, Fence, Alaska
Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He is at
work on a novel and teaches literature and
creative writing at Kalamazoo College.
Steve Mueske, MFA, Hamline University,
has had poems published recently in Water
Stone, 88, The American Poetry Journal,
Fulcrum, and elsewhere. He is the author of
the chapbook Whatever the Story Requires
and lives in the Midwest, where he edits
the journal three candles and directs three
candles press.
Dennis Porter is a reformed academic
who lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is
the author of books on U.S. and European
literature and culture (The Pursuit of Crime,
Haunted Journeys, Rousseau’s Legacy), and his
plays have received several major awards
and productions. His most recent works
include A Tiger in Your Pooch and Crime
Scene.
Martha Rhodes is the author of three
poetry collections, most recently, Mother
Quiet (Zoo Press). She teaches at the Warren
Wilson College MFA Program for Writers
and at Sarah Lawrence College. She’s the
director of Four Way Books.
Rebecca Emlinger Roberts is a visual
artist and writer whose work is published in
various journals including the Georgia
Review, Controlled Burn, and the Antioch
Review. This is her third appearance in the
Massachusetts Review.
Stephen Schottenfeld‘s stories appear
in Tri Quarterly, Story Quarterly, the Virginia
Quarterly Review, New England Review, and
elsewhere. He is an assistant professor of
English at Rliodes College.
Todd Smith is a graduate of the Iowa
Writers’ Workshop, an actuary by profession,
and father of three young children. His
poems have appeared in the Yale Review, the
North American Review, Mid-American
Review, Green Mountains Review, and Verse.
He lives in Mount Vernon, Iowa.
Robert Tobey has been a photojournalist
and art photographer for 33 years, and has
been published and shown widely. He lives
in Western Massachusetts with his wife and
two daughters.