AGNI 44
Contents
Fiction
Safe
from A Book of Measure: Fifth Circumference
from Carolina Moon
Essays
Strong Stories
Translating Viet Nam
Shorts for Simic
Living on Top
Poetry, History and the Love of Oranges
On Rereading The Magic Mountain
Epic Temptations
Mandelstam’s Web
A Descriptive Analysis of Bank Notes
by Wulf Rehder
Poetry
Hitchhiking: A Prayer for the End of Time
Translated from the Ukrainian by Anderson Wing
Flying
Pine Tree in Spring
Absinthe
by Nuar Alsadir
Breakfast
by Nuar Alsadir
Man on an Island
by Nuar Alsadir
Donne’s the One
by Linda Bamber
Grief
The Book of the Dead Man
by Marvin Bell
On the Rooftop Students
by David Blair
A Week of Poems at Bennington
by Robert Bly
The Phoenix
by Bruce Bond
from At the Edge of Being: 6, 9, 10
by Teresa Cader
I, I, I
Balloons Drinks at the Frontier Tavern
Field Analyzer
Two Freeze to Death Despite Experience
The Week in Advance
Last Date
Improving the Golden Rule
Drafts of “The Two”
Agnes
by Terri Ford
Street Scenes: Sunday Evening
Twelfth Floor West
Pages
The Midnight Hydroplane Race
by Henry Hart
Matter and Spirit
Beauty
Just Spring
The Wide World
by Steve Kronen
Description of Emily Dickinson
from Byways: III. The Wrong Bed—Moira
Nyctalopia
by Jack Martin
Dear Edward Lear I Love Your Birds
O Crayola!
The Bullfrogs
The Thin Rain
Wieliczka Salt Mine, Southern Poland
Jeffrey on a Leash
From the Devotions
Calypso, Penelope
by Alan Shapiro
All Souls’ Day
by Maurya Simon
Palimpsest
by Sue Standing
True Story
The River
Translated from the Vietnamese by Martha Collins and Nguyen Quang Thieu
Lily
Drafts of “Noon”
Art Pepper
A Photograph I Saw of a Father and Son
Colophon
by Dean Young
Reviews
In Lucrezia Borgia’s Chair
Diana Der-Hovanessian’s Selected Poems
by Ellen Davis
Carl Phillips’s Cortège and Alan Shapiro’s Mixed Company
by Kathy Fagan
The Century as Experiment: Reading Poems for the Millenium
Inclusions
by Thom Gunn
“Here I Am, Lord”
Two Reviews
Poetry by Chinua Achebe, Joyce Carol Oates, Teresa Cader, Jane Hirshfield, Oksana Zabuzhko, Marilyn Hacker, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Claire Malroux, and Tony Hoagland; fiction by Jill McCorkle, Peter Ho Davies; Susanna Kaysen on rereading The Magic Mountain, Martha Collins on translating Viet Nam, and Seamus Heaney on Charles Simic.
Editor
Askold Melnyczuk
Askold Melnyczuk
Managing Editor/Poetry Panel Chair
Erin Belieu
Erin Belieu
Advisory Board
Leslie Epstein
Robert Pinsky
Derek Walcott
Leslie Epstein, Robert Pinsky, Derek Walcott
Poetry Reviews Editor
Joe Osterhaus
Joe Osterhaus
Art Director
Gerry Bergstein
Gerry Bergstein
Editor Emerita
Sharon Dunn
Sharon Dunn
Editorial Assistants
Michal Brownell
Valerie Duff
Gac Kim
Doris Pai
Drew Swinger
Michal Brownell, Valerie Duff, Gac Kim, Doris Pai, Drew Swinger
Contributing Editors
Thomas Bahr
Sven Birkerts
Lucie Brock-Broido
John J. Clayton
William Corbett
Stuart Dischell
Sharon Dunn
Thomas Sayers Ellis
Marie Howe
Diana Der-Hovanessian
Ha Jin
Alex Johnson
Susan Johnson
Fred Marchant
Fiona McCrae
Gail Mazur
Joe Osterhaus
Dzvinia Orlowsky
George Packer
Solomea Pavlychko
Liam Rector
Scott Ruescher
George Scialabba
Tom Sleigh
Sue Standing
Tree Swenson
Rosanna Warren
Oksana Zabuzhko
Thomas Bahr, Sven Birkerts, Lucie Brock-Broido, John J. Clayton, William Corbett, Stuart Dischell, Sharon Dunn, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Marie Howe, Diana Der-Hovanessian, Ha Jin, Alex Johnson, Susan Johnson, Fred Marchant, Fiona McCrae, Gail Mazur, Joe Osterhaus, Dzvinia Orlowsky, George Packer, Solomea Pavlychko, Liam Rector, Scott Ruescher, George Scialabba, Tom Sleigh, Sue Standing, Tree Swenson, Rosanna Warren, Oksana Zabuzhko