a man sitting across from me in a French restaurant in New York City a name is a word is the first form of domestication an explanation of the secret language he spoke with his father in the marketplace in la Villette: lincsé for five francs, larante for forty and the word for money, le…
The sea is clean, unscuffed: it looks convincing, the sun like hearsay slipping into it. Donde están sus padres? a small girl asks me, pink plastic shovel in her fist, the paint of her dress still wet in places. I have no answer, I’m glitter, I’m hardly here. She’s glad and kneels as…
They moved into Silver Glade with a brand new baby, unnamed, although the grandparents had it registered for high school as Clementine Wrentham Farmer. Wrentham was their name and Farmer was the name their daughter, Lina, used when writing the check for the house. Her professional name, to their joy, was still Lina Rose Wrentham….
Paper boat on a dark stream— Put a candle inside the boat and let that stand for woman, and let the water stand for man. Downstream the willow lets down her green tresses. The water sings as it moves, inexorable, past the banks sodden and rank with mud. The candle makes a chapel of light….
The first time she could remember hearing thunder she’d been sitting on her grandma’s lap in the formal parlor of the big old house where she was visiting. She flinched and shuddered. “What’s that, Grandma?” she’d asked. “That is the voice of God,” the old woman said, and then they heard it again rolling out…
I began editing this issue of Ploughshares in the summer of 2004 shortly after my return from Chile, where I was invited, with Yusef Komunyakaa and Nathalie Handal, to participate in the celebration of the Neruda Centenary. We had entered the Republic of Poetry. Restaurants used Neruda’s odes for recipes, and proudly announced this fact…
Cohen Awards Each year, we honor the best poem and short story published in Ploughshares with the Cohen Awards, which are wholly sponsored by our longtime patrons Denise and Mel Cohen. Finalists are nominated by staff editors, and the winners—each of whom receives a cash prize of $600 —are selected by our advisory editors. The…
Mom has already made arrangements for a spot inside the churchyard wall among the old Yankee slates, some fallen, and the granites from foreign places, tilted by frost. A mason sets them straight again each spring. Perennials for the formal beds accepted with gratitude; no other plantings allowed. Cut flowers may be laid on the…
MASTHEAD Guest Editor Martin Espada Editor Don Lee Managing Editor Robert Arnold Poetry Editor David Daniel Associate Fiction Editor Maryanne O"Hara Founding Editor DeWitt Henry Founding Publisher Peter O"Malley Assistant Fiction Editor: Jay Baron Nicorvo. Editorial Assistants: Elizabeth Partfitt and Laura Wareck. Bookshelf Advisors: Fred Leebron and Cate Marvin. Proofreader: Megan Weireter. Poetry Readers: Simeon…
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