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I return to “Leg,” a short story by Steven Polansky, in large part because I enjoy the way he covers my material—that is to say, the lives of believers in Protestant evangelical communities. This is not to say it isn’t his material, too. We can all write about whatever we want. But I enjoy the…

Well, here we are again, and I’m sorry to say the blog has not been inundated with teachers explaining in great detail what they expect from their poetry writing seminars (looking at you, my people.)  Nor have students written in saying what their own most cherished projected outcomes for such a course might be…though that’s…

The Ice Trilogy Vladimir Sorokin (Translated by Jamey Gambrell) New York Review of Books, March 2011 704 pages $19.95 The Ice Trilogy, a newly translated work of fiction by Vladimir Sorokin, tells the tale of the 20th century’s tragedies and triumphs through the eccentric and abrasive narratives of—to be charitable—a cult of assholes. At the…

In passing with my mind on nothing in the world but the right of way I enjoy on the road by virtue of the law… ––William Carlos Williams, Spring and All, XI There are no more guilt-free Sunday drives, no cleanly joyful joy-rides.  And maybe there never were.  Maybe the true joy-ride – that exhilarating…

We have another great back issue just waiting to be read this week, as a part of our free Ploughshares contest occurring in honor of our upcoming fortieth anniversary. Today, it’s the all-fiction Fall 2004 issue, guest edited by Amy Bloom and featuring stories by Thomas Beller, Debra Spark, and many more. The rules are…

The Stroke of a Pen: Essays on Poetry and Other Provocations Samuel Hazo University of Notre Dame Press, May 2011 136 pages $20.00 In the semi-rural pocket of Pennsylvania where I grew up, poets are a rarity. Last year, as I prepared to uproot my life and move to Boston to pursue a poetry degree,…

I first read The Sun Also Rises in college, in a survey course of the American Novel. I don’t know if such survey courses even exist anymore, or if Hemingway is still taught to our undergraduates. But I took this class during springtime in Kentucky, which is long and warm, and I would read the…

This fall, for the first time in three years, I’ll be teaching an undergraduate poetry writing seminar at my university.  Because it’s been some years, it’s time to rethink that class; it’s also time because, as in most institutions, class sizes are rising, and the good old standby of “on the following twelve dates we’ll…

Blake Butler Harper Perennial, April 2011 416 pages $15.99 Literary experimentation has been successfully blended with genre fiction before; Robert Coover’s Ghost Town used the western, and Paul Auster’s New York Triology, noir. And though Blake Butler may not be the first to try the trick with horror, no one has previously done it as…