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…
beth alvarado‘s story "Just Family" is from her collection, Not a Matter of Love, which won the MVP award from New Rivers Press and will be published in fall 2006. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Calyx, Northwest Review, Spork, and Cue, a journal of prose poetry. She is a lecturer at the…
What is essential as breath reduced to a squabble about moral parity to hold a brief for the party that orders death. Moral parody: ours is but to cook, serve, clear, speak when spoken to. * We will not swell the glory chorus, slaughter calling to slaughter like lovers possessed. Nor will we turn away….
Rachel was the one who delivered the message. In the middle of dinner, she remembered the phone call, stood up, tossed her braid over her shoulder, and dug in her pocket for a scrap of paper. "Mom," then she looked warily at her father, "Dad, the prison called again today." She squinted at her eight-year-old…
rolled through the city. Whoever has an answer won’t last. Traffic muscles through. Whole families lazing on steps eating grapes. “No I’m not,” says the youngest to her canary. “You grew into your legs, Tall One, didn’t you.” Then no one. Loosed papers flatten the fences. Bits of glass rest there and burn. This part…
This is a story about not doing; this is a story about everything else. The trouble with writing is that it’s too easy not to do. Imagine if eating chocolate was as easy not to do as writing. Or paying your mortgage. Or making an eight o’clock class. Imagine if you were firmly convinced that…
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