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  • About Chase Twichell: A Profile

    Chase Twichell grew up in two geographies: One was New Haven, Connecticut, which she says had little effect on her, except perhaps to put the second in relief. The other was Keene, New York, in the heart of the high hills of the Adirondacks, “a rocky, rough, mountains-and-valleys, fast cold water, lakes-in-the-middle-of-nowhere place” her family…

  • Mornings

    To every morning reach for the wire whisk, the yellow bag of sugar above her head on the top shelf next to dried beans. And the eggs of Rhode Island Reds that maybe were how she felt mornings before putting on her face. She was someone else making pancakes blank and plain who could crack…

  • Red Under the Skin

    Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees. —Paul Valéry   The hatred goes back for centuries, everyone says,        a tradition as old                     as making wine, weaving rugs, playing flutes.          My father remarks              he would have expected it from the Croats                     who colluded with Hitler,        but…

  • Jessica Treadway, Zacharis Award

    Zacharis Award  Ploughshares and Emerson College are proud to announce that Jessica Treadway has been named the 1993 recipient of the John C. Zacharis First Book Award for her short story collection, Absent Without Leave and Other Stories. The annual $1,500 award — which is sponsored by Emerson College and named after its former president,…

  • Lot’s Wife

    after Akhmatova They had no time—the just man hurried across the bridge, followed God’s magistrate along the black ridge. His grieving wife lagged behind as if she had no will, arms heavy with useless things, heart heavier still. She couldn’t recall if she’d shut the door, turned off the iron; worse guilt, she’d left behind…

  • The Quiet Americans

    for To Nhuan Vy We hold our glasses out, then drink. Two years since the American soldier returned, told how he’d turned his Claymores facing up that night: so the warning, “This side to the enemy,” pointed to the sky. His one small act of protest in the war. He never knew at midnight, a…

  • Introduction

    Twenty-five years ago a poet from Ireland came to the University of Montana to replace Richard Hugo for a year. Hugo had a Rockefeller and he was going to spend a year in Italy to work on a book of poems based on his World War ii experience as a bombardier, flying missions out of…

  • Milk

    How many nurses cared for her needs? The first dressed Bea’s wound, a puckered red mouth silenced with staples. A second nurse brought her a cup of chilled juice to wash away the sour taste in her mouth. A third nurse, a man, massaged her sore back. Then a fourth nurse came in, a small,…