Nonfiction | December 01, 1996
Drummer Man
Jeffrey Hammond
This essay is not currently available online.
It’s late afternoon on a hot Friday in early June, and I’m sitting in a plaza in a close-in suburb of Washington, D.C. I’m working, without much energy, on a typical summer project for an English profesor: a study of the funeral elegies of Puritan New England. I always write my scholarship in public places like this. Writing is lonely work, even when your subject isn’t seventeenth-century funerary poems, and it’s a comfort to look up and see people going about their business.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Nonfiction
Oct 07 2026
Perkoff Prize Winner: A House in the Woods
A House in the Woods Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 2013 Little house in the woods. The phrase is so pastoral it almost yawns. But that’s what it turns out to be: two… read more
Nonfiction
Oct 07 2026
No Anguish in This House
No Anguish in This House I found Glen on a dating site called Green Singles. It was 2002 and Green Singles was one of the first dating sites that appeared… read more
Nonfiction
Oct 07 2026
My Search for Life
My Search for Life In a giant metal tank colder than nightfall on the moon, the seeds of human life lie in wait. Liquid nitrogen keeps them frozen in time.… read more