An introduction to a previously unpublished James Dickey essay, from the 100th issue.
In “The Kingdom of the Other,” an essay adapted from a manuscript titled “Under the Social Surface,” written in the 1950s, Dickey says that our written words, meaning our take on everything from abstractions to the glint of a new pocketknife’s blade, are formed from our memories, those shape-shifting resources that turn into people and forests, train stations and the ruminations of characters. (I was very young—twenty-one—when I took Dickey’s class, and I needed to hear that something inside me could be fascinating to a reader.)
Poems from the Spring 2018 issue.
One white anemone,
the year’s first flower,
saves the world.
A poem from the Spring 2018 issue.
I know we are happy
To hold them in our arms
Watching
Them squizzle
Although the journey of this book is more fraught than a cloud forest, it is more magical, too. The games we play become the way the poems tell their stories, the way they love and grieve. These games help reader and poet get to know each other, while also introducing other urgent relationships between country and self, mother and son, the living and the dead.
Three poems from our Kentucky Music Issue.
His lidless eyes are open targets—
Where sudden night flings in her quiet spear.
A poem from the Fall 2017 issue.
I have tried to carry a persimmon home,
to share one fruit. I passed the tree running,
a pursuit which allows no pockets, no bags.
Needs no equipment. No team.
A poem from the Fall 2017 issue.
with the river to teach me
its long and winding vowels.
In exchange I taught it
swear words, how to play games.
A poem from the Fall 2017 issue.
in Indy than Virginia, fewer mountains,
less green for our eyes, and our cat
wasn’t born there, she was born here,
under the house, and if nothing
A poem from the Fall 2017 issue.
Always smoked so many seeds.
You will find yourself dragging
a live rabbit
by one foot, the other kicking.
A poem from the Fall 2017 issue.
sucking pinches of moss like
cough drops stuffing tiny pink
cheeks with breadcrumbs would
that make you love me more
