New England Review

Volume 38 | 2017 | Number 2

SELECTIONS FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE

POETRY

“My Mother Says the Syrian Refugees Look Like Tourists” by Hai-Dang Phan

because she has just finished telling the story of our escape and needs to draw a comparison, return us safely to the present,

December 2015, we’re back at my sister’s childproofed house, keeping warm by winter sun, central heating, and our sweatpants;

because some do: “Ghaith joyfully snapped selfies, the Aegean glimmering in the background. He looked much like a tourist,” . . .

FICTION

“Enough of Billy” by Castle Freeman Jr.

Three of McKinnon’s foreign cows were at the fence when Eli turned off the highway and into McKinnon’s lane. Great red beasts, shambling and shaggy, they looked like ruined carpets. They looked like buffaloes. But they weren’t buffaloes. McKinnon’s buffaloes were in one of his other pastures . . .

FICTION

“Desire Lines” by Laura Spence-Ash

It’s 1975, and he’s sixteen. He feels the cold on his wrists and his ears; drifts of snow rise up behind him to the first floor windows of the high school. She’s across the street. It’s just the two of them, somehow. She’s hopping on one foot and he doesn’t understand why. Seeing him, she smiles, then waves him over, calling his name. He notices her pearl earrings . . .

NONFICTION

“Take Stock” by Clarence Orsi

The stock photo accompanies an article about Germany’s legal recognition of intersex infants. Even though the photo has been chosen to embody the “third gender” mentioned in the headline, we have to begin by calling the figure in this photo a woman, for we cannot see a third gender until we define one of the primary two. The woman has porcelain perfect skin. Hair helmeted in a glossy pixie, she wears a stiff white shirt like a cross . . .

Artwork by Jane Davies

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Filed Under: News & Notes

NER 38.2

 

Our newest issue considers revolutionaries and spring breakers, adopted languages and adopted genders, and hypnotizes us with lilacs and the mysteries of fiction.

Subscribe here for the very best in contemporary literature!

 

 

NONFICTION
Clarence Orsi attempts to step outside of gender
Hannah Arendt investigates how revolutions fail to make us free
Barrett Swanson reports from Florida, birthplace of the American Spring Break
Steven G. Kellman considers the language memoir and Jhumpa Lahiri’s passionate exile from English
Ben Miller buries his nose in the lilacs of poetry, mythology, botany, and his own backyard
Maud Casey is hypnotized by the mystery in fiction
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes home about the Turkish seraglio
Plus a new long poem by Gjertrud Schnackenberg, looking back at Sharbat Gula

FICTION
Steve Almond • Yoon Choi • Castle Freeman Jr. • David Heronry • Ismet Prcic • Laura Spence-Ash

POETRY
Gabrielle Bates • Bruce Beasley • Hugh Behm-Steinberg • Marianne Boruch • Leila Chatti • Geri Doran • James McCorkle • Cheswayo Mphanza • Hai-Dang Phan • Catherine Pierce • Gjertrud Schnackenberg • Alicia Sotelo • Maura Stanton • Noah Stetzer • Chase Twichell

TRANSLATIONS
Jerzy Ficowski
 trans. Jennifer Grotz and Piotr Sommer

COVER ART
Jane Davies

NER Welcomes Midd Alumni

Filed Under: Events

Daniel Robb, Serena Crawford, Henriette Lazaridis, Laurie Patton, James Moore

On June 10, New England Review welcomed four Middlebury College alumni authors back to campus for a reading of poetry and prose, with current College President Laurie L. Patton.

This eighth annual gathering of faculty and alumni authors featured James Moore (2012), Serena Crawford (1992), Daniel Robb (1987), Henriette Lazaridis (1982), and Laurie Patton, who read from new and recently published poetry. Read more about the authors here, and visit our Facebook page for a photo album.

Katy Didden Reads at Bread Loaf

Filed Under: Audio

Katy Didden reads two poems, “Eve of the Ascent” and “Embrace Them All,” at the 2016 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Didden is the author of The Glacier’s Wake, winner of the 2012 Lena Miles Wever–Todd Prize from Pleiades Press, published in 2013. She has an MFA from the University of Maryland, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. A recent Hodder fellow at Princeton University, Katy is currently an assistant professor at Ball State University. She recently traveled to Iceland, where she researched materials for her new manuscript “The Lava on Iceland.”

All Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference readings are available online. To hear more, please visit the Bread Loaf website.

 

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