Volume 113, Number 3/4
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There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. —Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) FRONT COVER: “Contemplation of Justice,” United States Supreme Court. Photo credit: Architect of the Capitol.
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Editors’ Page
As you climb the Supreme Court’s wide stone steps, you’ll pass James Earle Fraser’s “Contemplation of Justice” statue on your left. This iconic image, featured on our cover, depicts a seated woman in a regal pose. One arm rests on a book of laws, while the other hand grips the diminutive figure of blindfolded “Justice,” who holds a set of scales. These are the symbols of an American ideal: justice for all under the law, justice that is blind to irrelevant distinctions, justice that is measured and measurable.
What does the poetry of our moment have to say on the subject? What can it show us that we can’t find in news reports, commentaries, and non-fiction books? From Tony Hoagland’s “Squad-Car Light” in our opening pages to Jacqueline Allen Trimble’s closing portfolio about the overt and covert forms of racism that still divide us, many poems in this issue enact concerns about fairness—and what a wide array of approaches they employ. In “A Rock and a Hard Place,” Deborah Paredez adopts the structure of dictionary definitions to address the bitter history of relocation and dislocation among Native Americans; Gretchen Primack’s “R.H. in the Waiting Room” evokes the tenderness and fear an incarcerated father feels for his young son within an imagined speech; Jacqueline Balderrama makes ruin vivid in a dreamlike take on Hurricane Maria. Other poets explore more intimate forms of equity, set within the precincts of love and family.
Later in this issue, you’ll find D. Nurkse’s “Poems, Prose Poems, Decoy Selves”—an intriguing look at genre distinctions—and engaging reviews of eight recent collections, some of which (like David Gewanter’s Fort Necessity) address questions of injustice directly.
At the end of “Squad-Car Light,” Hoagland writes: “Remember the ones you let go in your place. / Remember the ones all over the world / who are raising their arms in the air right now, // then putting their wrists behind their backs….” Poetry can insist as well as enchant, reminding us of what we’ve forgotten or refused to see—and perhaps in that way, it serves justice too. Not “poetic justice” with its arch, ironic undertones, but the higher justice of our shared humanity.
Content
Poetry
Tony Hoagland, Squad-Car Light
The Power of Traffic
Damaged Nerves
Myra Sklarew, Playing Ping Pong with Claude Brown at Yaddo
Michael Lauchlan, Denied Entry to a Prison
Gretchen Primack, R.H. in the Waiting Room
Albert Garcia, Basic Biology
E.A. Greenwell, Ursa Major
Peter Leight, Note from the Underground
Interrogation
Michael Minassian, The Rosenbergs Come out to Play?
Deborah Paredez, A Rock and a Hard Place
Holli Carrell, At Dead Horse Bay
Elizabeth O’Brien, Love Poem
Matthew Porto, In Vermont
Jim Daniels, Dirty Laundry
E. Laura Golberg, Dry Cleaning
Kelly Cherry, Life, or Something Like It
Bruce Willard, The Half-Life
Gary Stein, Hindsight
Danny Duffy, Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx
Chelsea Krieg, Everything Is Water
Emily Ransdell, From the Boat
What I Know About Fire
Jess Williard, Instruction
Look
Jacqueline Balderrama, “Alas” translates to “wings”
Hannah Craig, Abandoned House
Gabrielle Claffey, Lines for Summer
John Bargowski, Nowhere
Megan Alpert, Rage as Bird
Rebecca Foust, The Dream of the Rood
Miguel
Joseph Ross, My Brother’s Keeper
Joanne Rocky, Delaplaine Bogotá, 1964
Wale Owoade, Apocalypse
Pablo Medina, Now Night
Eight Men Rowing
Dara Elerath, The Disappointment of the Cantaloupes
Henry Taylor, Two Winter Landscapes
Jan C. Grossman, Too Much Snow
Frannie Lindsay, Refuge
Kevin Casey, Late Winter Rain
Paul Martin, Two Boys on the Ice
James Crews, Light Preserves
Matthew J. Spireng, Morning Fog, Late September
Trophy
Lucy Adkins, White Cat
Grant Clauser, Crime Scene
Daniel Arias-Gomez, We’re Loudest When We’re Quiet
Julie Walls, Three Days Before the March on the Pettus Bridge, 1965
Scott Withiam, Of All Observances
Poets Introducing Poets
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Introduces Jacqueline Allen Trimble
Jacqueline Allen Trimble
How to Survive the Apocalypse
My Son Says the Moon
Landing Was a Lie
Allies
Oh, Say Can You See
Nat Turner Returns for His Stolen
Parts and Finds a Sermon of Rage
Counting Race
Parable
World Economics
“We Was Girls Together”
Essay
D. Nurkse “Prose, Prose Poems, Decoy Selves”
Letter from Twilight
A Secret
The Pass to Domodossola
The Thicket
The Bossy Child
Reviews
Mary-Sherman Willis “Yet Again, the Traditional Charm”
Bye-Bye Land by Christian Barter
Fort Necessity by David Gewanter
Magdalene by Marie Howe
Lee Rossi, “Hillbilly Prodigal”
Was I Asleep: New and Selected Poems by Jackson Wheeler
Anne Harding Woodworth, “Looking for the Light Four Ways”
Haji as Puppet: an Orientalist Burlesque by Roger Sedarat
The Island Kingdom by Pablo Medina
Bloodline by Radha Marcum
The Scientific Method by Kim Roberts
Tribute
Richard Harteis, “Celebrating William Meredith’s Centenary”
Recent & Forthcoming Books by Poet Lore Poets
Contributors