AGNI 84
Contents
Editor's Note
Drowning
Fiction
King, Bishop, Queen
by Elvis Bego
Four by Kline Caro
by Tamas Dobozy
The Sacrifice
Where I Was When My Older Brother Died
Emergency Instructions: If an Anaconda Bites Your Hand
by David Macey
The End of the Line
by David Macey
Hypothetical Love Letter Composed on the Occasion of My Twentieth Wedding Anniversary
by Jamie Quatro
Toby
by Elske Rahill
from Le Secret: The Secret Agent’s Story
Translated from the French by Armine Kotin Mortimer
Essays
women’s business here
A Letter to My Daughter about Palindromes
Little Face
by Anna Journey
Mother’s Tears
On the Undiscovered Origins of Everything in Waxahachie, Texas
Poetry
Among Us
by Amy Beeder
from Watering the Plant of Dreaming
Translated from the Italian by Wallis Wilde-Menozzi
Eye
by Bruce Bond
Kid Happens
Telescope
from Yss of Li
The Museum: Ashtray
by Dara Elerath
The Museum: Woman with Apple
by Dara Elerath
Stumbling on Clair de Lune
Measure for Measure
by John Hodgen
Wittgenstein
Blackbirds and Blake’s Illustrations to Dante’s Purgatory, Canto 1
Imagining Marriage, #52
by Laura Kolbe
Officer Crowley
Top Hat, 1935
Maker of Bowls
by Steve Kronen
The Angels
by Steve Kronen
The Horses of Achilles
by Steve Kronen
The Road to Santa Clara
The Four Auricles
by David Naimon
The Summer Peepers Couldn’t Be the Sources of Their Chorus
The Fall
by Jordan Smith
from Lullabies for the Dead
An Apparatus for Receiving or Transmitting
Little Harmonic Labyrinth
Conversazione
from Orbit
Art Feature
Buried Treasure (essay)
What the Eye Fills In and What the World Takes Away
Electric, eclectic—an art portfolio by Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz frames up intimations of danger for an issue international across all three genres. Marilyn Hacker’s versions of Syria poet Golan Haji go side by side with new poems by Cynthia Zarin, John Kinsella, Dara Elerath, Chad Parmenter, and many others. In fiction, Jamie Quatro imagines lovers not taken, Tamas Dobozy proposes a hair-raising retrospective of a scandalous filmmaker’s career, and Elske Rahill gives us a woman whose urge to protect her daughter goes perilously far. Essays by Kim Adrian, Shahnaz Habib, Michael Sheehan, Radhiyah Ayobami, and others explore the legacies of trauma and the uncanny resourcefulness of the survival instinct.
Editor
Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts
Founding Editor
Askold Melnyczuk
Askold Melnyczuk
Senior Editor
William Pierce
William Pierce
Asst. Poetry Editor
Sumita Chakraborty
Sumita Chakraborty
Poetry Editor
Lynne Potts
Lynne Potts
Fiction Editor
William Giraldi
Mary O'Donoghue
William Giraldi, Mary O'Donoghue
Prose Editor
Jennifer Alise Drew
Jennifer Alise Drew
Blog Editor
David Ebenbach
David Ebenbach
Readers
Brian Burt
Erin Trahan
Brian Burt, Erin Trahan
Galley Editors
Lindsay Guth
Beth Romano
Emily Pineau
Lindsay Guth, Beth Romano, Emily Pineau
Social Media
Sumita Chakraborty
Rachel Mennies
Sumita Chakraborty, Rachel Mennies
Marketing
Daniel Pritchard
Steven LaFond
Daniel Pritchard, Steven LaFond
Newsletter Director
Alison Lanier
Alison Lanier
Advisory Board
Leslie Epstein
Robert Pinsky
Derek Walcott
Rosanna Warren
Leslie Epstein, Robert Pinsky, Derek Walcott, Rosanna Warren
Editorial Assistants
Alison Lanier
Yasmine Kaminsky
Christian Wessels
Anna Hundert
Morgan Lehofer
Efpraxia Sapuridis
Alison Lanier, Yasmine Kaminsky, Christian Wessels, Anna Hundert, Morgan Lehofer, Efpraxia Sapuridis
Contributing Editors
Lucie Brock-Broido
John J. Clayton
William Corbett
Stuart Dischell
Sharon Dunn, ed. emerita
Thomas Sayers Ellis
Anne Germanacos
Marie Howe
Diana Der-Hovanessian
Ha Jin
Alex Johnson
Dana Levin
Fred Marchant
Fiona McCrae
Gail Mazur
Dzvinia Orlowsky
Lia Purpura
George Scialabba
Tom Sleigh
Sue Standing
Oksana Zabuzhko
Lucie Brock-Broido, John J. Clayton, William Corbett, Stuart Dischell, Sharon Dunn, ed. emerita, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Anne Germanacos, Marie Howe, Diana Der-Hovanessian, Ha Jin, Alex Johnson, Dana Levin, Fred Marchant, Fiona McCrae, Gail Mazur, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Lia Purpura, George Scialabba, Tom Sleigh, Sue Standing, Oksana Zabuzhko