ISSUES | fall 1991
14.2 (Fall 1991): "Travel"
Featuring work by Walter Bargen, Kathryn Burak, Jean L. Clemens, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Peter Ford, Nancy Kincaid, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kevin McDermott, Lynne Butler Oaks, Judy Ruis, James Solheim, Roger Weingarten, Kate Wheeler, David Wojahn… and an interview with Thomas Sanchez.
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CONTENT FROM THIS ISSUE
Fiction
Sep 01 1991
The Phenomenology of Shame
When she passes you in the hall, try to meet her eyes. Look away. Watch her smooth progress reflected in the window. She has not looked at you either. You notice her bruise-coolored shoes. The soft soles. How thin her ankles are. Back the surgery station, pretend to ignore the whispers. Check charts. Note alterations of the vital signs. Don’t participate by asking questions. You will learn enough to make a rough sketch of the facts…
Nonfiction
Sep 01 1991
Lilly, My Sweet
Found Text
Sep 01 1991
Found Text Series: Jean L. Clemens
Diary of Jean L. Clemens — New York, October 1900
Fiction
Sep 01 1991
Aki
Aki leans over the steaming bowl. The dashi is the color of tea. She watches several oil blobs float on the surface, gently change shape, combine, as she stirs the soup, as she touches her spoon to the tiny circles of green onion taht float to the top. The steam smells like nothing but heat. She sips fromt he spoon. It is without much flavor, but warm, and has an edge of smoke and metal. The taste after fish. She stares off, distracted by a sudden movement in the yellow leaves outside the kitchen window. They will be off the trees soon, she knows.
Fiction
Sep 01 1991
Magic and Hidden Things
The part of his job Creech used to like least was having to visiit Port-au-Prince. Four hours from New York, it may as well have been the dark side of the moon. Approaching the airport the plane would cruise low along the coast, over the pale eroded mountains and silted rivers. The jungle that once covered the country was nearly all gone. A few palm trees waved and nodded on the fringe around the runway of the airport, and above a nearby cluster of small cinderblock houses painted pink and lavender.
Poetry
Sep 01 1991
Poetry Feature: David Wojahn
“Eggplants”
“A Map”
“Late Empire”
Fiction
Sep 01 1991
Improving My Average
The prop plane labored up the Andes’ blue and white spine, at the mercy of blasts and vacuums. My scrambled eggs jittered in their dish, like the coarse yellow foam that storms leave on a beach. I had no intention of eating them: I was counting cities on my fingers, dividing in my head. After calculating backwards twice, I’d just gotten it straight. Being twelve years old, having lived in eight places, I’d inhabited each location of my childhood for on and four-eighths years, eighteen months, too long.
Fiction
Sep 01 1991
Past Useless
After the night the sheriff came ang got old Alfonso it was like he vanished from earth. Melvina didn’t seem like she missed him, and never mentioned his name except when me and Roy said, “Tell us about the time old Alfonso got after you with that knife, Melvina. Tell us about him Busting the door down with the axe. Tell about when he tried to choke you with a piece of clothesline. Tell about when ya’ll tied him to that chair in the yard. Tell…”
Poetry
Sep 01 1991
Poetry Feature: James Solheim
“The Fear-of-Toadstools Lady”
“On the Logic and Radiation of Our Love”
“Against Biography”
“Return of the Fear-of-Toadstools Lady”
Poetry
Sep 01 1991
Poetry Feature: Walter Bargen
“Reporting in the Off Season”
“Walking on Air”
“Transmissions”
“Birding in Costa Rica”
“Zeno’s Cinema”
“At A Glance”
Foreword
Sep 01 1991
Foreword
Many of the contributors to this issure are travellers. Their journeys may take them a modest distance or a long way, to destinations exotic or commonplace, desirable or less than desirable. Some of their journeys are not taken entirely by choice. All of them, though, are full of discoveries.
Interviews
Sep 01 1991
An Interview with Thomas Sanchez
Nonfiction
Sep 01 1991
From Around the Edge
Poetry
Sep 01 1991
Poetry Feature: Roger Weingarten
“Jungle Gliders”
“Stomping the Beaver Palace”
“Dear Mike”
Fiction
Sep 01 1991
Geezers
The idea of driving over to the coast for the weekend came to him as a revelation–what his English professor used to call an epiphany. Actually it came to him from Debi, his personal secretary. “You look so tired, Warren,” she said. “Last weekend, I left the kids with Pat and went over to Lincoln City and found a motel, and went to bed at nine, and in the morning I had this long walk on the beach. I must of gone a mile. It made all the difference. In case you noticed how cheerful and brilliant I’ve been all week.” Although he did not always get the details, he generally listened to Debi; and this time what she had said, even the words, came to him, as an epiphany, while he was driving home.
Nonfiction
Sep 01 1991
Advanced Biology
As I lay out my clothes for the trip to Miami to do a reading from my revently published novel, then on to Puerto Rico to see my mother, I take a close look at my wardrobe–the tailored skirts in basic colors easily coordinated with my silk blouses–I have to smile to myself remembering what my mother had said about my conservative outfits when I visited her the last time–that I looked like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who went from door to door in her pueblo trying to sell ticketrs to heaven to the die-hard Catholics…