AGNI
A literary magazine named after the Vedic god of fire
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AGNI 57

Contents
Editor’s NoteFictionEssaysPoetryArt Feature

Editor’s Note

On Becoming an Editor
by Sven Birkerts

Fiction

Stolen Photo
by Lise Haines
The Abandoned Factory
by Wolfgang Hilbig
Translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole
The Usual Human Disabilities
by Nicholas Montemarano
Five Stories
by Rick Moody
The Soul Is Not a Smithy
by David Foster Wallace
To Go
by Paul West

Essays

WB on the Treadmill
by Harvey Blume
Early April
by Sam Pickering
Message from Room 101
by George Scialabba
Lorca
by Maxim D. Shrayer

Poetry

Two Dancers
by Robert Bensen
The Elephant (from Natural History)
by Dan Chiasson
Invocation to the Heart
by Michael Collier
No One Knows What Tomorrow Is Called
by Wyn Cooper
A Scrap of Fabric at Chatham
by Christopher Jane Corkery
Beautiful Treasure
by Christopher Jane Corkery
From the Beginning On
by Chard DeNiord
Altos de Chavon (I)
by Maggie Dietz
Jacopone: On the Cobbles
by David Gewanter
Jacopone: The Scissors
by David Gewanter
I Have Shuttered My Eyes with My Hands
by Melissa Green
Leaving the Farm
by Melissa Green
Letter over a Thousand Years Late
by Debora Greger
Nagasaki, 1600
by Debora Greger
Linked Verses
by Seamus Heaney
Nonce Words
by Seamus Heaney
Pit Stop near Castletown
by Seamus Heaney
The Change
by Tony Hoagland
Survey
by John Kinsella
Sub Rosa
by Lance Larsen
Widows I Have Known
by Lance Larsen
Triplets
by David Lehman
Austerlitz
by William Logan
The Point Beach
by William Logan
Welcome to Paradise
by William Logan
If You Had Come
by Wesley McNair
The 1950s
by Wesley McNair
Zeno’s Paradox, or My Mother’s Forsythia
by Joyce Peseroff
Frogs
by Evan Rail
Fucked
by Stephen Sandy
Stillness
by Stephen Sandy
Lament
by Alan Shapiro
Premonition
by Alan Shapiro
monologue from Rubber
by Tom Sleigh
Static
by Susan Swenson
from Georgic III (lines 72-122)
by Virgil
Translated from the Latin by David Ferry
Eating a Toad
by David Wagoner
For Trakl
by Rosanna Warren
Slate
by Nance Van Winckel

Art Feature

Essays
With How Sad Steps, O Moon
by Christopher Benfey
The Picture House
by Thomas Frick
Vernissage
by Maureen Howard
Eyeless, Headless
by Margot Livesey
Carousel Horse
by Howard Norman
Art Feature
Introduction to the Art Feature
by Jesseca Ferguson
AGNI 57
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New Editor Sven Birkerts’s first issue. Includes work by Seamus Heaney, Maureen Howard, David Foster Wallace, Rosanna Warren, Rick Moody, Margot Livesey, Wesley McNair, Christopher Jane Corkery, Wolfgang Hilbig, David Wagoner, Maggie Dietz, Debora Greger, Nicholas Montemarano, Lise Haines, Lance Larsen, Harvey Blume, and many more. Pinhole photographs (including cover) by Jesseca Ferguson.

Editor
Sven Birkerts
Founding Editor
Askold Melnyczuk
Managing Editor
Eric Grunwald
Associate Fiction Editor
Jennifer Joerg Blum
Associate Poetry Editor
Rachel DeWoskin
Advisory Board
Leslie Epstein, Robert Pinsky, Derek Walcott
Editor Emerita
Sharon Dunn
Editorial Assistants
John Daniels, Elisabeth Donnelly, Adam Fagin, William Giraldi, Heather Heckman-McKenna, Katie Krell, Susanna Lamey, Renée Nichols, Avi Yulish
Contributing Editors
Thomas Bahr, Erin Belieu, 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, Rosanna Warren, Oksana Zabuzhko
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