Last Rights

by Julia Slavin

Originally published on February 1, 2001

     ‘Last Rights’ – by Julia Slavin Hammy came home. Late that afternoon, I watched our handsome brother step out of the Mt. Shasta blue Merkur he rented at the airport. I ran down the steps of the porch. “You look beautiful.” I threw my arms around his neck. Hammy and I looked exactly alike. [...]

Morning in Chinatown

by Suzanne Burns

Originally published on February 1, 2001

Vendors slice the skin of brown boxes, Releasing the vegetable blood Of green beans strung like beads, Closed fists of cauliflower, Sleepy leaves of bok choy. Pastries gilled like fishes Swim in metal bins heavy With plums and brown mushrooms Curved like noses and toes. Movement ensues As tourists photograph The lions at the gate, [...]

Long Night at the Parsippany Hotel

by Peter Murphy

Originally published on February 1, 2001

In this room where the toilet is wrapped with a ribbon, where the refrigerator clears its throat and hums, where the television clarifies the wallpaper, the song of maids making beds lingers into the evening, its refrain all linen and vacuums. I move a chair to the window and watch stars turn over their engines, [...]

Posted Land

by Ernest O'Brien

Originally published on February 1, 2001

On days as slick as this, holstered on my hip, I need a sign. The deer are lying low in the hazel thickets, eyes as bright as oiled bolts, lying low on folded legs on a mucilage of leaves, lying close to the earth they resemble, beings long evolved who know what’s good for them, [...]

Noah’s Blessing for the Third Dove

by Holly Frances Pettit

Originally published on February 1, 2001

All of the first day and second, most of the third I, crippled with cold, froth water and rot hardly kept Japheth in the gray light of this upper world. Once the spirit took him and I, drowsing, barely caught his sash and after many hard minutes wrenched him back, writhing from empty air and [...]

Between Storms

by R.G. Evans

Originally published on February 1, 2001

All stills in the crush of swollen air. Tendrils and leaves pull green secrets into themselves. Things have found the lowest places and rest there waiting still. The storm drain knows, thatch-choked by clipped brown grass. All along this baked tar road heat-blown tires lie in strips as colorful and layered as the plumes of [...]

sy’mbolon

by Ted Warnell

Originally published on February 1, 2001

sy’mbolon is panel two from The Pi Process by Ted Warnell – © 2001 Share the Love:Bookmark on DeliciousDigg this postRecommend on Facebookshare via RedditShare with StumblersTweet about itTell a friend

The Determined Days

reviewed by Rachel Barenblat

Originally published on February 1, 2001

Any book praised by Anthony Hecht and John Hollander is likely to be two things: fine tuned and formal. Philip Stephens’ The Determined Days is both. By “formal,” I mean that Stephens’ verse takes shape in specific and rule-bound ways, not that it is fussy or fancy. I’m not sure I can think of a [...]

The Years with Laura Díaz

reviewed by Emily Banner

Originally published on February 1, 2001

Not long after the publication of her novel The Years, Virginia Woolf attempted to explain the book to a friend. “[W]hat I meant,” she wrote, “was to give a picture of society as a whole; give characters from every side; turn them towards society, not private life; exhibit the effect of ceremonies; keep one toe [...]

Still Life With Oysters and Lemon

reviewed by Rachel Barenblat

Originally published on February 1, 2001

A sharp cracking cold day, the air of the Upper East Side full of rising plumes of smoke from furnaces and steaming laundries, exhaust from the tailpipes of idling taxis, flapping banners, gangs of pigeons. Here on the museum steps a flock suddenly chooses to take flight. I have a backache, I’m weary, and it [...]