THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
The Yale Literary Magazine Fall 2011 / Volume XXIII, Issue II
MASTHEAD
Editors-in-Chief
SAMUEL HUBER & ORLANDO HERNANDEZ
Literary Editors
JACQUE FELDMAN
& SARAH MATTHES M Managing Editor
Arts Editor
Designer Publicity & Events
CLAYTON ERWIN
GWENDOLYN HARPER
JULIA LEMLE
ANDREW KAHN & ARIA THAKER
Circulation & Distribution Publisher
PEDRO R0LON
SEBASTIAN CALIRI
Staff
MAYA BINYAM, TESSA BERENSON, PATRICE BOWMAN, KATHRYN A. BROWN, YE SEUL BYEON, CHRIS CAPPIELLO, JORDANA CEPELEWICZ, CHRISTOPHER CLARKE, ABIGAIL DROGE, COURTNEY DUCKWORTH, CAROLINE DURLACHER, GARETH IMPARATO, EMMA JANGER, NINA WATSON JOHNSON, ARIEL KATZ, AVA KOFMAN, DANIEL KOVALCIK, KAROLINA KSIAZEK, TERESA LOGUE, VICTOR MACRINICI, KARL MEDINA, ALEX MEEKS, MARY MUSSMAN, SOPHIA NGUYEN, KIKI OCHIENG, JACOB PETERSON, ANNA RENKEN, ERIC SIRAKIAN, A. GRACE STEIG, SHAUN TAN, & NATHANIEL TOPPELBERG
NOTE FROM THE EDITORS We are very excited to present this issue ofThe Yale Literary Magazine. The student writing featured this semester expresses a range of voices and concerns,from the more lyrical to the more irreverent and experimental.This issue also includes an interview with the illustrious Charles Simic and a conversation with Nate Klug,a younger poet at the Yale Divinity School. We are grateful to our board ofeditors and our stafffor all of their work on the magazine. Special thanks to Charles Simic,Nate Klug,John Crowley,J.D. McClatchy,Carmen Cusmano at Yale Printing & Publishing Services,our student photographers,and our wonderful designer Julia Lemle.
—ORLANDO & SAMUEL
THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
4
Ai r
i; gin., 4, 11 111,1111
\Vt '
..h.,16
V
1,4111,111
11111111111
iii iii
!Mg'
I I
0
\,‘C. 4'11‘ ........
6 FALL 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS POETRY Corollary
STEVEN GARZA
10
1 1/11/10
KATE ORAZEM
12
KENNETH REVEIZ
15
AVA KOFMAN
16
Dube's Cows
JACQUE FELDMAN
23
Vanity Stool
LINDSAY GELLMAN
37
THE
46
[- H T n Ps
53
Poem
111
I Believe(The Musical)
PROSE
INTERVIEWS Questions for Charles Simic A Conversation with Nate Klug
7 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
POETRY
COROLLARY S rEVEN GARZA
He's a day drinker, that one,but that doesn't mean he don't drink night too. No sir, I seen him with both hands taped,one to the sun, and one to the moon, and blinking such fury with those arms. They say he says such things awake,and asleep, such things! Oftiny Haitian women, all mottled and gap-teethed.
10 FALL 2011
AMMI
And remember the dog catching mange? The one we rubbed with hot oil licorice, that died? Not quite anointed, but weren't we glowing as we smeared, breathing so deep that steam off his skin. Didn't we see it rising? That one with ticks blooming out his ears,out his ass. Not very nice, but happy as momma's favorite oughta be. Or that summer every mellow flash ofcotton,denim line, rustled lip was a crawling leg?
11 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
1 1/1 1/10 KATE ORAZEM
We drove out west oftown, past the rows of bright small spears, the last ofthe winter wheat. It was cold but the sun made us peel our sweaters off. Much ofthe land was done,it lay half-frozen in the mounds ofits last tilling. Grain silos rose white and bald. You kept turning up the radio until the car seemed full of men fighting, or declaring everything must go.I'd taken to writing us a dictionary,it said we are young,and have our health, we roll the windows down,we are such wonderful talkers,or were once. We passed a stand ofapples,saw the workers pruning some old trees, cleaving the branches white at the base
12 FALL 2011
and stripping them down,leaving long pale places where the splinters reached back toward their trunk. You told me once they do this so when the wind blows the bad limbs will not split the tree in two. We watched them shake the curling coins ofslick black leaves onto the grass. We watched them do this and the trees do nothing,and I accepted it, and said nice day,because it was my job to name the things ofthe world for us again. We went on past the third-year grove, where the trees turned their topmost whole blind to the falling light.
13 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
14 FALL 2011
1E1
POEM KENNETH REVEIZ
Ze know what it is like to try to shape the cognitive praxis of40 Yalies to boringly most plurality; happilily are ze a mustacheless fascist suicidal after difficult autobiographical phenomena morning crunches for six-pack to be jizzed upon & annotating a French gay history book after the spring. She caress the theoretical model for crowd control til with a shake ofthe dialectic slurpedly dick clears she the bomb forest humorlessly light convention reinventing & all love the poignantest movie with a trans subjectivity; not not allowing anyone's words on his Facebook wall while he can adorn or white door or knobs'coterie. Ze does not Fuck know perceptibly cliff's fall but has imagined it cutting open a thick small black girl intestines is compelling bloodily in imaginatively hand she fetishize pastoral & purity assfucldng the same rank shit spewing unimmortally out ofearshot too tiny crumb tiniest drum distance; he methodothrottle the organ argument ofthe unmarketable organ system.
Prophase anaphase metaphase telophase cytokinesis Another cell A writer cell is talking to another writer cell and says "Yeah... I had my meta phase."
J
I BELIEVE THE MUSICAL AVA KOFMAN
STARRING (Not in order of appearance) Justin Bieber Vanessa Grigoriadis Goethe Mrs. Bieber Tony
Pro-life, 17 Editor, 39 Contributing Rolling Stone Young Fan, 22 Justin's Mother, 34 Justin's Assistant, 31
GOETHE:Age is no second childhood Children we were True children we remain GRIGORIADIS:He walks as quickly as he can through the airport, the feeling of thousands of eyes on him.This is what has given him his life.
16 FALL 2011
JIMEN
These days, they get offabout my presence They bow down Make their presents to it Igive thanks I sing about the unkillable babies I take pride in giving thanks I turn myface to the wall until it's better,faster On the news, a man gets a life sentence labelfor naked pictures ofbirthed children without women to cover them in skin IfI hadn't been born, I would not now be a minor I will not take it out of you otherwise it's like killing a baby It is notgood that man should be alone TONY:Justin is absolutely girl crazy. Not that he goes after tons ofgirls,but ifthere's a girl that he wants to see and he feels that we're not respecting that,he will make our lives hell to see her. Ladies and gentlemen, lam so lucky to be here today I am so blessed Ifeel like I have an obligation to plant little seeds with myfans These bones are mine in you Yourflesh myflesh
17 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
Of my unbornflesh 0I sing to you I make thisforyou I am not ashamed GRIGORIADIS:Today,I'm the luckiest girl in the world. He's only 16,it's true, but half of woman-kind is in love with him. I am not ashamed. I produce, sell, and distribute my songs. I am an Interpol dancer. Only God misquotes us. Sometimes I imagine my one person split intofour parts. An egg, myfuture sey; a molten lead fountain, and my dead body. GOETHE (collapsing to the floor): Make me young again! I signed the contract that says memories exist as long as the visual records are accessed. This goesfor photographs as well. Haveyou ever been curious about what itfeels like to cut offyour ownfinger? That's why I don't give autographs. I hold on tight. Myface is spread upon theface ofearth Wherever people live And creep on all the earth Faceless back to dirt
18 FALL 2011
GRIGORIADIS:Even with braces,Bieber is America's coolest kid as a direct result ofhis superhuman ability to make panties wet. MRS.BIEBER: God,ifyou're real,ifyou've got a better way,show me.... -It was so Ifinished blasting the heavens and the earth I saw the mess I made inside you It was very good And I restedfrom all the work which I had made ... And He did. He gave me a reason to live.
19 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
DUBE'S COWS JALUUL I LLDMAN
We were watching the tide come in around the ankles ofthe cows when Annie first confided in me. We had been sunning and chatting since lunch,and she was making a pyramid ofthe sand between her knees.She pointed to the distant waterfall."James kissed me under the falls," she said."He was my first time. Have you ever been with a man?" Annie would talk that way,sometimes — her childhood had been peopled by books,not playmates.She had no siblings,and though there were children in the village who were her neighbors, she hadn't gone to school with them.Instead,Dube or her mother would drive her forty minutes to the parochial school she attended with other white children in the area. Annie valued imaginary events as real ones,and she liked to tell me the Zulu folktale about talking crocodiles during a drought.Sometimes she would braid my hair as she spoke. It was herjob to watch the cows during the day. When the sun was hottest they liked to have their hooves underwater.So by noon,Annie would be on the beach,and I would join her when I had the chance.She was only eighteen,and I had turned twentytwo,but something wise about Annie equalized us.She taught me to know Dube's cows for Dube's by their brand.
23 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
Lucky Dube was also easy to like, having written in his first e-mail that he "liked people far better than money and horses best ofall." I had been in correspondence with him since April, when I was given his name and e-mail address by a classmate who knew I wanted to live in South Africa after graduation. His real name was Dylan Spear,but even Annie called him Dube when she didn't call him Dad.The three ofthem — Annie,Dube,and Annie's mother — were self-sufficient, but Annie's mother was spending the summer visiting family in England,and they were happy to host me ifI would take on her usual role around the property. Their only source ofrevenue,as far as I could tell, was the tourists who were supposed to pass through every now and again — backpackers who didn't care about electricity or showers —butI saw no tourists that whole summer. And I had trouble imagining anyone stumbling upon that constellation offive huts. Remote,wind-beaten,the Izolo Retreat was a place you found only ifyou were meant to end up there — or if, like Annie,you were born to the two people who had carved it lovingly out of the hillside.
I always prepared dinner in a hurry,so we could eat before the sun went down.If we ate too late,I would need to wash the dishes by headlamp. Most domestic chores fell to me,since I didn't know how to milk or make repairs or hold the trust of animals.I was cutting vegetables when Dube came to the kitchen for a cider, wiped his feet on the mat,and asked me what was for dinner. "Salad and today's crayfish," I told him. We were playing a game.Dube knew what was for dinner. He had bought dinner,as he did every morning,from the fishermen who stopped on their way up to town from the beach.
24 FALL 2011
"Right." He grabbed a Red's and kissed me on the head.I felt the stubble on his chin through my hair."You're a genius. Did you find the squash?" I told him I hadn't and he lumbered over to look in the cupboard. He had told Annie to pick a squash from the garden."But she's a funny girl, my Annie.There are some jobs she's good at,and some jobs you can't trust her to do." He came next to me,and I tried to show that I could be trusted at my job. I was cutting a carrot,and had decided to cut it crosswise, not lengthwise,and was taking care to make the slices even.I could hear Dube breathing. "So you've learned to make the crayfish then," he said. "They'll be like the ones! made the other night." I lifted my head to look in his face. He found a knife and insisted I let him help,using his hip to bump mine out ofthe way so he could use the same cutting board. I told him I had heard that ifyou ran the knife under water first, cutting the onions wouldn't make you cry. He smiled. Did I really think he looked like the kind ofman who cried at Onions?!shrugged and went back to my carrots.I couldn't help comparing our hands: big,small; hairy, bare. "Do you know where I got that?" He waved his knife to indicate the long scar on his finger. I didn't. "A horse. Not one of mine—"He was always very clear on the point ofhis horses'good breeding.They never kicked nor bit nor needed to be broken"— A horse belonging to one ofthe people in the village. It was a sunny day,and I was making the walk into town. I had thoughts ofvisiting with a few ofthe men there. On the way, I saw a horse running,carrying a little girl on its back who was too small for it. Running flat-out, with steam coming out its nostrils." Dube's stories always carried him away. "Horses are big creatures,dear. Don't go close to a horse's
25 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
mouth unless you have to — not ifshe's not your horse. Or else—" and again he waved his knife at his finger. "What was her name?" "The horse?" "The little girl." "Oh,the girl." He stopped cutting for a moment and I looked at him. Without his story and without the rhythm ofour knives, the dusk was very quiet."You know,it's the funniest thing.I can't remember." Annie appeared in the doorway as I was setting down the plates, looking funny and harried,her long hair tangled. Dube asked her where she had been. "Just for a walk.I did some weeding." She pulled out a chair and sat with such force I worried for the books stacked behind her — tattered paperback romances and twelve red volumes ofan encyclopedia,meant for guests passing through. At dinner she was quiet as I showed Dube a party trick I knew,a game to play at the table. You arranged your fork and knife and spoon a certain way, then made him guess which number,one through five,it meant, and continued until he realized the pattern lay not in your fork and knife and spoon but in the number offingers you were resting on the tabletop. "Oh,look at that," said Dube.He had figured it out."You're so clever." He put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed in congratulation. Annie put her glass down hard."Daddy,I lost a cow,"she said. Dube,looking at his daughter,asked me if I would give them a moment alone and I saidyes,ofcourse. His voice was quiet and angry,like something forced through a thin crack. I sat on the porch and wondered what it meant to lose a cow,and how they would find the cow.I imagined a hoary village elder, draped in strings ofshells,listening to Dube's complaint, nodding,and
26 FALL 2011
then with one finger sending a boy to recover the cow.The cow, having been discovered tied by rope to the back ofsomeone's hut;would begin to amble faster as it was led closer to Dube, faster still as it grew surer that Dube was Dube,shaking its head heavily in excitement — Dube had a way with animals. Upon return to Izolo the cow would produce more milk out ofsheer gratefulness. As I watched the sunset,I thought ofquestions for Annie. My hands were messy from the crayfish,so I went down to the water.The tide was high this time ofnight,and the water was rough enough to have reddened,bringing up sediment from the seabed. Little bits of what I imagined to be bark and shell and animal fur made each wave ugly.I waded knee-deep and dropped my hem to free my hands,my white skirt opening into a bell, and walked to a high rock.There was just enough room to sit with my knees pulled up and the whole ocean open before me. I heard my name shouted behind me — Dube's voice — and stood and turned to see him standing halfway up the hill. Another small figure was running to him,only to stop just behind him, stand still for a moment and then turn and walk away.I had the sense that Annie was running away from me. Dube was saying something,but he was too far away for me to hear. I slid offthe rock and took a step closer to him. After another step and the current dragged me underwater. For a long, green moment,I couldn't breathe — and then,I was lifted up by my elbows. "See? Not so deep," Dube said.I spit out some water,breathed deeply,and saw that he was right. Another wave came,throwing us both offbalance,and Dube needed to catch himselfon the rock. "I feel like the girl on the horse," I said,as he righted himself. He had saltwater in his eyes,so he was keeping them closed,cleaning them with his thumbs.He laughed.
27 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
"It's different,love." I thanked him and walked back to the sand. I flopped on my back and after a few moments Dube joined me. "Do you know about the constellations down here?" He meant the Southern Cross,the Milky Way,the different angle on Orion. The stars shone brighter over Izolo than anywhere I had ever seen them.Instead offading into smog at the horizon they continued sharp and clear, presumably over the edge ofthe world. "A little," I said,and he picked up my hand,traced how to find the Southern Cross.This star, this second star, a long line, a line that points to something else, said our hands. "You're a smart girl," he was saying."Do you know that?" "Like Annie," I said. "Different," said Dube.He had picked up a piece of my hair and was wrapping it around his finger, pulling at my scalp. I closed my eyes.The stars were so bright that after-images played inside my eyelids. "Different how." "You're a beautiful girl," he said, after a few seconds. I didn't know what to say,so I asked what happened to the cow. "The cow." He sat up."The cow's gone. We have Annie to thank for that. It's unbelievable the things that can get away when you don't pay attention." "Pay attention?" I sat up to match him. "An animal never does anything you don't expect it to. If it's not where it should be,then some person took it." "You mean stole it?" He gave me a funny look."Might have. We don't really know. What we know is Annie was meant to watch the cows,and now we have one cow gone." "I'm sorry," I said. "It's not your fault," he said. I knew it wasn't my fault. All I meant was that I guessed he felt bad, missing a cow.
28 FALL 2011
He put out his two palms — for me,but I wasn't sure what he wanted me to do with them.I grabbed a fistful ofsand and poured it into his hands,a makeshift hourglass. He laughed,stood,pulled me up,and smoothed a piece ofhair behind my ear. "Can I kiss you?" he asked,and kissed me.When he let me go I kept my eyes closed.I felt him use a hand to tilt up my head. "I'm sorry," he said. I could tell by his voice that his face was still close.I didn't open my eyes,so he kissed me again. We stood looking at each other for a while.Then he nodded and began to walk back to Izolo. Halfway up the hill he turned around:"Don't tell Annie?" Left alone,I sat on the sand and thought about the kiss. After the water calmed,I went for a swim.The pebbles under my feet were rough and closely tiled, and fog was rolling in. I was living in a wild new country now,I thought.I was free to do what I wanted — or,if! didn't know what I wanted,then at least I could do what other people were too scared to do.I put up my feet to make the water lift me and thought some more about the kiss as the ocean drifted inside me.
By night I couldn't see the rocks in the path,and I wished I had worn shoes.Inside our hut Annie had her head under the blankets. I wanted to ask her what she knew about the missing cow.I tried to decide whether she was sleeping.I made small sounds to which someone trying to fall asleep would object:shaking a blanket, dropping shoes.I sneezed to see ifshe would bless me. I had given up and climbed into bed when she spoke. "Would you mind helping me with something?" "Anything,"I said,and I meant,I'm sorry!kissed your father. I began to climb down the side ofthe bunkbed,and she explained that she wanted to get down another blanket,and that she needed me to hold the flashlight. She passed me the flashlight and stood
29 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
on her toes to grab the shelf, her shoulders pushing toward me like wings,yellow where I made them yellow. She asked me if I wanted a blanket and dropped down two. Then we said goodnight and went to sleep,stacked like twins. I dreamed about Annie and James having sex under a waterfall. When I woke,I couldn't remember how that had worked in my dream,how they hadn't fallen into the river and been swept away. The next day Annie ignored me. At least, I thought she was ignoring me. When she did speak to me she was cold —"the fresh bread is in the cupboard,"she said, making clear she cared more about the bread than me.The day was hot and so after Dube and Annie left to do something about the cow,I went around with my shirt unbuttoned. I told myselfthat I was waiting for Dube to come home,that if I had made Annie mad I didn't care.
Over the next two weeks,two more cows went missing. I heard Dube warning Annie to keep better watch. He began to assign shifts of watching cows so that either he or Annie would always have an eye out. When he wasn't watching cows,Dube would tell me stories from his past,so many that I had trouble believing anything he said. One morning,taking me to meet the fishermen, he explained that Dube meant zebra in Zulu,and the Lucky part was because he had once survived being shot by a guy trying to steal his Toyota. He still had the scar, he said. He asked if I wanted to see it. "Where is it?" I asked,as though that would have made a difference. He said it was on his shoulder, well above his heart,thank God, and took off his shirt so I could see a tiny white fist ofscar tissue. I told him I didn't believe it was a bullet. How could he have survived a bullet there?
30 FALL 2011
Alm
IMO!
He said that ifthe cows kept running offlike this, he wouldn't know what to do besides build better fences.Then he fell quiet except to pay the men for the fish. He started a project:four fences,tall as a cow's back,meeting at corners made ofwooden posts. Annie and!could tell the missing cows had worried him,that he wouldn't know what to do next,and we talked nights about searching the village. By day,this planning made our conversations with Dube sound like talk to an invalid — to a listener whose symptoms you pity,from whom you are withholding some fact that(you have decided)he is too fragile to hear. Sometimes,I would see Dube at a distance,on a horse or in his small boat,and at those times, he looked most like someone who could fall in love with me.I couldn't tell Annie what I was thinking, so we talked less often.Soon there were four cows gone,and I was keeping our room clean to apologize to Annie for what I had done with her father. I would pick up her clothes,fold them,put them on her bed. I would shake out the rugs when they got dirty and use a cloth to clean the small things on the shelves.I began to look for the waterfall from Annie's story,but I never found it, and I was too shy to ask for her help, worried that she would ask why and! would accidentally confess my dream ofher and James. At home,people were walking around in winter clothes,but here,Annie and I tanned.I had stopped bringing a towel to the beach,having grown to like the feeling ofsand under my calves and shoulders and spine — I was beginning to think!could stay on that beach forever,instead of moving on to find a job in Capetown or Johannesburg.The sand was damp where we lay at low tide,and our bodies left imprints.I wanted to line mine with cement.Dube never kissed me a second time.
31 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
One day I asked Annie why her father didn't just go and get the cows back from the village,ifthey had been stolen. "I don't know,there are rules." "Well,what rules?" I wasn't such an outsider anymore, I thought. "I can understand." "Just like the way you talk to people about your things,and their things." She had an arm flopped over her eyes to protect them from the sun,and she was making small circles with that hand:you know,you know,you know what I mean. We were at the top ofthe hill, closest to the sun. Annie was getting a good tan."We don't even know for sure ifthe cows are being stolen." I stood and collected a few seashells."Do you know anyone in the village?" "Not that well," she said. "What will your mom say about the cows when she gets home?" "Oh,she won't care. She'll have presents to give me,things from England." "What's she like?" I imagined a woman striding down the dirt road,hair streaming behind her,arms weighed down by suitcases, eyes promising to fix Izolo and fill it with cows. "I don't know.She's just my mom." Annie still had her arm over her face.I was wondering if her mother would like me,fingering the shells I'd found,and looking out along the beach — and then I saw the boys around the cow. From here,their heads were pebbles:small,black,round.Six of them were stealing one ofDube's cows.I told Annie to look.There was an older boy directing them,but the rest were very young boys — I pegged them as third-graders,though I wasn't sure whether the village school counted years in grades,or whether that was just another American measure,like degrees Fahrenheit,that I hadn't stopped thinking in. "Why don't you stop them?"I asked Annie.She wouldn't answer, and the boys receded out ofsight, behind the line oftrees at the
32 FALL 2011
iMluir
other end ofthe beach,leading the cow on a long rope,the smallest boy using a stick. When I looked back at Annie she had tears in her eyes.She made me promise not to tell Dube.After that, we rarely talked, but I kept her secret,and no more cows went missing.
The afternoon Sadie returned,Dube told me,"Sadie's coming back," and asked me to double the size ofwhatever I was making for dinner. And to make it a bit nicer,ifI could. Sadie greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and over lasagna she described London. She had news ofher sister and her sister's husband.She had seen the changing ofthe guards and visited a few museums.After dinner she insisted on taking a long walk with Annie,who,I guessed, would no longer need me to hear about James. Late,cleaning the kitchen,I heard Sadie and Dube talking on the porch. "Good dinner?" I heard him say,and after a moment,both of them laughed softly."It's good to have you back," he said. "It's good to be back,"she said. I was staying very quiet. I had put down the pan I was cleaning. "There's no place like yours, Dylan,"she said."I missed this place." No one called him Dylan.I didn't call him Dylan. "My Sadie," he said."We missedyou." I felt sure I heard them kiss, over the surf. I didn't want to hear any more.I left the kitchen,took a flashlight, and walked up the path to the village. The village was round thatch-roofed huts painted pink or blue, clustered two or three together along the path,goats and dogs in theiryards. At this hour,the huts slept.I heard only some chickens moving nearby and,somewhere,a baby crying.I kept walking,and the village rose and fell with the hills. After a longtime,from the
33 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
top ofa hill,I saw four cows in the distance,tied behind someone's house.They had spots like Dube's cows,and there was a path leading to them.IfI wanted,I could get close and check their brands,to see ifthey were Dube's. Sadie had called this Dube's place,and it was — Dube's and hers and Annie's.The problem ofthe disappearing cows was theirs.I was just passing through.Instead ofchecking the brands on the cows,I stopped and took a minute to breathe in the foreign air, which was growing cold,and then walked back to Izolo.It was late. The next day,I decided to leave for Capetown,even though I had two weeks left in my contract. When I went to pack, Annie was sitting up in bed.I waited for her to ask why I had taken out my suitcase,but she stayed quiet,so I decided not to say anything at all. Finally, when there was no more room in my suitcase,I asked Annie ifshe wanted a few ofthe shirts I liked least. They were only stained T-shirts,but I had bought them,and I didn't want to throw them out. "No,thank you," said Annie.She got up and walked out ofthe hut.I thought offollowing her,but instead I finished packing alone and then talked to Dube about a ride to the bus stop. He would take me at dawn,he said,and there was no need to worry about our contract,now that Sadie was back.He thanked me for my help. I had been appreciated,he said.That night,lying in bed,I waited a long time to cry — I felt I needed to cry at that ending — and to sleep,but neither came.In the morning,I went out to Dube's car and was surprised to find Sadie waiting there to see me off. I stood near her and commented on the beauty ofthe sunrise. We had nothing to say to each other. After a few minutes,she broke the silence: "Thank you for taking care ofthem." "No,thankyou," I said,but I didn't mean it.
34 FALL 2011
When I think ofthat summer!think ofthat last morning,and I wonder whether Sadie was really grateful.I wonder whether she knew what I felt for Dube. And then I wonder whether Annie knew,and then I wonder whether Dube knew how I felt, and that summer begins to seem like a long stretch ofdays laid endto-end and empty.I went on to spend six months waitressing in Capetown,and when that lost its excitement I went home.I had planned to spend two years.I was back early. When my family asked if! hadn't liked South Africa as much as I thought I would, I said they were right,I hadn't,because it was easier than explaining,though I still have some shells from that beach.
35 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
VANITY STOOL LINDSAY C_;ELLMAN
This morning I fell backwards off my rolling vanity stool. Upended.I had just finished my lips, which is quite an elaborate process with the deep red lip liner around the edges,and then the filling in ofthe lips with the dark red lipstick,lips smacking together,then neatly pressing a folded Kleenex from both sides. So my lips were done. I have very fine bone structure,and look quite young for a woman of my age.The other women are jealous of my looks. I can just sense it. My golden bob, my figure, my nice things. There really aren't too many men down here,and the women get so nasty. Once,Phyllis Engelwood saw me sitting next to Harold at the bar,and called me on the phone the next morning to say she'd appreciate ifin the future I would include her in my plans with her husband. I pushed backwards from my vanity table and the thing just tipped and shot out from under me!And I was on my back,wincing and dizzy on the cold marble tile. My spine felt bruised. My breath came in wheezes.My body felt like it was carved from heavy stone,and I couldn't move.Like one ofthose stone sarcophagi in a museum.
37 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
So I lay there as the beige,suede rolling stool thudded into the wall underneath the vanity and the wheels squeaked to a halt. What would they say? What would they say when they came, when they found me,rouged,dead,wasting away on the bathroom floor? When they found Harriet Goldstein,78,of Scarsdale,NY there in a powder room in—in Florida! In—Palm Beach!"I have fallen and I can't get up." I would never live it down. It gets chilly on a bathroom floor for a person like me,with my arthritis,and the metal hip. Sofia came just in time.Sofia is utterly, unme for saying this from Poland,and is believably ugly!She looks like a cross between a rhinoceros and that new dyke on the Supreme Court.And smells like orange rind. A bloated face and purple lips with closely cropped graying hair. But she set down the wine bottle and gave me her hand. And I just popped right back up!Kagan,is who it is. But it wasn't looking too good there for a minute or so for poor petrified Harriet. Sofia combed the back of my hair in the region most directly affected by the tumble,and I uncorked the bottle and poured us each a little glass. I can't reach the back of my head because of my shoulder.The wine was just the perfect antidote for the fall. Thick and sweet. And it always helps my medications go down more easily. I laughed and said,"Elena, we should probably go down to lunch before I get too stiff and numb!" And she said something like "It's a good thing for the Life Alert!" To which I replied,"But I did not use my Life Alert!" And she showed me the call from them on her cellular phone,which must be a techno-glitch because I never wear my Life Alert,and would never.I don't need it, and she just came in time,is all. We left the bottle behind,which was a mistake.I forgot they have a new rule in the Main Dining Room—it's quite rude,actually, and does Devonshire,which is otherwise very chic,a disservice—that residents can only have one drink per meal.I don't
38 FALL 2011
L
really drink,you know.But once in a while,I like to have a glass of merlot. And I see them serving the other women second rounds. I know this because I watch carefully,but then they tell me about this"rule"they have that I certainly never signed up for when I paid my $500 million deposit to live at Devonshire.It's news to me,this rule. I'm twenty-one-plus years old,aren't I? And this place really is the nicest.Jerry Seinfeld's mother lives here.I said as much to Elena at the breakfast table, who said it was actually $500 thousand. My goodness,is she homely. All right,so $500 thousand.Still. Anyway,last year Betty Seinfeld invited me to a screening of A Bee Movie starring her son,Jerry Seinfeld,and the screening was in the Grand Ballroom,which has high ceilings and a beautiful crystal chandelier.The movie was a cartoon,some silly childish crap and I left halfway through because I really don't have the time or the patience for that anymore,and the sound really wasn't loud enough. Len probably would have enjoyed the film screening—he was always ready to laugh along with something stupid. He dragged his heels before every production at the Kravitz Center,every continuing education class at that community college in Jupiter, but that bumbling film would have made him cluck.I have no memory ofLen's funeral,but I know it must have happened.And here I am, a lonely widow. Also,I can't believe this:they try to tell me I had six plastic surgeries but,I say, how could that possibly be true when I haven't even had one? A facelift, or anything. At one point they had to fix my deviated septum;it was a medical emergency.They just can't believe!look so young for my age—that has to be it. And ofcourse,Harriet remembers all her grandchildren's birthdays: August 28,August 3,October 31,March 8,April 4,June 19, November 3. But,and I'll be frank here,I don't always know what day today is, but who does,really, although I usually know which birthday is which,and have it written down in my address book.
39 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
--••••••..zi
I mail them $100 checks because I don't know what they like anymore in terms ofan actual present, and!usually explain this to them on the card and add Love,Grandma. The first present Len ever gave me was a piece ofkosher salami. We were counselors at the same summer camp.Len was sitting in the shade under a tree,leaning back against the trunk,eating salty pink slices with his hands out of waxy paper.I walked by, my hair in yellow pigtail braids."Want some?" he asked,and I did. So there Elena and I are in the lobby when I start shaking. My nerves do get the better of me sometimes.I am also sensitive to light.I often need to wear dark glasses indoors,but I have to take them offto read the menus.Elena turns her rhinoceros face to me and says,"Harriet,it looks like you could use a drink," which is really not a bad thing once in a while,and it's usually at her prompting,you see,and also I had fallen backwards earlier,so we sit on the sticky plastic-covered couches in the lobby, we sit there until the lounge opened at 4 o'clock, with me shaking like that. At least they play Edith Piafin the lobby. Now that was a wonderful film,really lovely,the cinematography,the writing.I say hello to Barbara and Gail, who pass by in matching knee-length khaki shorts,and often come offas quite stuck up,especially when they partner in bridge.Their shorts offend me,to be quite honest. Shorts in the gym,by the pool area, perhaps,but in the main lobby? What is this,some Mexican beach club? I can't tell you how it just agitates me to no end when people don't know how to dress properly.I made this very clear to Elena early on,when it was decided I should have a companion after Len passed. Ofcourse Seth and Lynn said"Mom,please move up North so you can be near us," and!don't remember what Brian said,but I didn't want to trouble anyone,and to be honest,as long as they came down to visit I'd rather be down here anyway since I already had my heart set on Devonshire.The grounds here are lovely,they do such a nice job with the manicuring ofthe
40 FALL 2011
flowerbeds,the landscaping. And a person like me has to be careful with the cold,and those winters. And I am not a stupid woman.Yes, Elena dresses in khaki pants, not shorts, pants. And a navy polo top, and sensible shoes. I am afirst-generation American.My grandchildren are thirdgeneration Americans,very unusual these days.The worst fauxpas ever was that one time when my mother came to pick me up from grade school,and she was early that day. And there came my mother with her thick,ugly Polish accent, her head covered in a faded orange kerchief,yelling"HAYGELA,HAAAAYYYYGELA," though the halls,that's what she called me,Haygela,for Harriet. She,fat,foreign, with her orange kerchief,exploding through the halls like a ballooning fool.Screaming!Just—screaming!It embarrassed me so! And I think the other children called me Haygela from then on.It was awful. I would never embarrass my own children that way.I did everything to protect them,from the minute they were born. Seth was colicky and a crier. I would hear his high-pitched screams in the night and roll away from a snoring Len to lift Seth from his crib. And I would sit on the loveseat in the upstairs sitting room in Scarsdale and hold Seth,and rock him,and bounce him on my knee,and he might settle down,and inevitably I'd get tired. I was substitute-teaching at the time.So I would prop up Seth against the armrest and drag all the upholstered chairs in the sitting room towards the loveseat until they were touching and I covered them with pillows,a pillow moat around the loveseat is really what I made,and I would put my feet up on an ottoman and doze off with Seth in my lap.The pillow moat was in case Seth rolled off. More than once I woke up alone inside the pillow moat to find that Len had already taken Seth back to the crib. Now,here in the lounge,Harriet doesn't share the bottle of wine with Egela because she needs all ofit for her nerves. Egela usually brings Harriet a bottle in the morning,and it's that and
41 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
41.
--......
whatever poor Harriet can convince them to serve her at meals. Sometimes Harriet stays in bed into the late morning,while Egela, khalded,watches a Discovery Channel program about praying mantises from the plastic-covered couch in the dark sitting area. And maybe Seth calls, or Harriet calls Seth at work,and she complains from bed ofthe loneliness and the humidity,and Seth says he was just there visiting her two weeks ago and she seemed good,doesn't she think so,and what about Egela. Seth tried to commit Harriet once after Len passed but she screamed and the veins stood out of her throat so he frowned and hired Egela. And God knows Len tried too,or seemed to try,only half-heartedly though,and gave up.There was that night in the apartment in New York when Len said,Harriet,you're drunk,Harriet,I found your hidden bottles, Harriet,you need help,but she didn't,she was fine, he was always just trying to lock her away,to protect his precious money so she couldn't spend it or even know how much was there, and Madoffa crook himself—Len had had no idea. Would never know.But now Harriet knew.Len,dead,killed by pneumonia a year before Madoffwas caught. And those fuckers would reclaim it over Harriet's dead body! Married 53 years,and now a widow! So Harriet took a stack often beautiful china dinner plates, but probably not the wedding china,and slammed the stack against the counter in the tiny New York City kitchen,teeth clenched,elbows slightly bent, until every single plate broke,from the bottom of the stack upwards.Shattered. And Len watched. When she was done shattering,he walked over to the kitchen phone mounted on the wall and dialed 911 to take her away.But before he could tell them,Harriet shoved her manicured fist into his right eye socket, which he wasn't expecting,and tore the receiver away,telling them about his abuse,his threats, his stupidity. He spent the night in jail with the hoodlums,which is what they do with all domestic abuse complaints in New York City, which Harriet didn't realize when
42 FALL 2011
she complained about him on the phone,and in the morning,Seth bailed him out and made them erase it. The next day,Harriet and Len attended a granddaughter's somethingorother, Grandpa Len applying cold compresses to his eye in the men's room during the 15-minute intermission. Now,in the afternoons,Harriet and Egela wait in the lobby for the lounge to open at 4 o'clock. And every night, Seth rolls away into the softness. And each morning,the vanity stool rolls out from underneath Harriet.
43 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
Ih.-_
11••••ft,
QUESTIONS FOR
CHARLES SIMIC Charles Simic is a poet,essayist,and translator currently teaching in New York University's Creative Writing Program. He has published more than twenty collections and won numerous awards for his poetry. Mr.Simic was born in Yugoslavia in 1938 and emigrated to the United States in 1954,where he began writing poetry in English,which has remained his primary language. In 2007 Mr.Simic was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library ofCongress,and he is a regular contributor to The New York Review ofBooks. After a briefseries ofemails, Mr.Simic agreed to answer the following questions,composed with the input ofthe staff. The entire interview was conducted in a single email exchange. Mr. Simic's answers,like much ofhis poetry,are succinct,humorous, and often strange in their profundity.
—SAMUEL HUBER
46 FALL 2011
YALE LIT: You've worked in
manyforms throughoutyour career as a poet, essayist, and translator. How doesyour approach differfor each? Doesyour awareness ofan intended audience affectyour writing process or the voice you assume? Another way ofasking this might be whetheryou think ofall ofyour work as expressions ofa single authorial identity, or doyou have different writerly selves that correspond to these differentforms and outlets? written poems since the age ofsixteen and prose only after I was fifty,so they come from two different selves, one in which my deepest psychic life is involved and the other in which everything I learned about literature, history, philosophy and the arts comes into play. Thus,the answer is most likely that they are two ways ofexpressing a single authorial identity. As for intended audience,I keep one in mind only when I write reviews and envision an intelligent, attentive reader on the other side willing to hear what I have say about a particular book. CHARLES SIMIC: I've
yt:How doyou consider the poems in one ofyour collections to relate to one another?Is each intended to stand alone as a complete product unto itself, or are they meant to be in dialogue with each other? cs:They are written one by and by one without a thought ofthe others,so when it comes to put together a book,I try to find some sort ofsequence among them that would hint at a common theme, a bit of movement,drama,or whatever appears likely. However, this is a completely intuitive process on my part.I don't do an exegesis ofeach individual poem and then decide where to put them. I shuffle the poems like tarot cards and see what comes out. YL: How does writing in a non-native language affectyour use ofmetaphor and idiom? Are they toolsyou've had to consciously learn or assume?
47 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
cs:There was nothing deliberate. I've been speaking English for fifty-eight years now,so my native language is only a ghostly presence,and has been for many decades. I never wrote poems in it and today would have a very hard time even writing a letter. 11: The poem "Evening Talk"from the collection The Book of Gods and Devils begins,"Everything you didn't understand / Madeyou whatyou are." Your poems are often preoccupied with scenes watchedfrom the outside, with oblique or impenetrable comments and images, things weighted with a meaning about which both the poet and the reader seem excluded. What isyour relationship with the unknown? Doyou have some goal or concern in your engagement with it beyondfascination? cs:The world has always been a mysterious place to me,both in the countryside and the cities. Even the most familiar meadow or street can assume that otherworldly,inexplicable quality. I'm describing moments all of us have, when we are struck by the strangeness that the world exists. Obviously,I expect the reader to know what I'm talking about and to use their imagination. It would make me very unhappy ifthe reader felt excluded. YL: Death comes up a lot in your poems. What are your thoughts on death? Does itfunction more as a personal question or as a literary trope?
cs:I grew up during the Second World War and saw a lot of death, and since then,of course,there have been more wars and more deaths,and then, when you get older like me,your friends start to die offone by one,so the subject is inevitable. As for my thoughts, I'm mostly concerned in my poems with taking the life ofinnocents. How many millions did we kill in Vietnam? How many hundreds ofthousands in Iraq? There's a lot ofthat kind of killing in the twentieth century,so I'm shocked when I hear the figures, and then some aspect of it inevitably gets into my poems.
48 FALL 2011
YL:In your interview with The Paris Review,you said,"A 'truth'detached and purified ofthe pleasures ofordinary lye is not worth a damn in my view." Would you characterizeyourseyas an Epicurean? Doyou think this philosophy marksyour poetry? Foryou,is the act ofwriting a poem a small (or large)pleasure? cs:Epicurus was a materialist who believed that pleasure is the greatest good and fought against superstition,in other words people like me who believe in gods and devils and the mystical properties ofa glass ofred wine and a few slices ofIberian ham and sheep cheese from Andalusia. How does teaching affectyour work, both in terms ofprocess and output? What doyou consideryour role as teacher to consist of,given your assertion in The Paris Review that "There's no preparationfor poetry"? cs:I like teaching because it forces me to think about what I've learned reading and writing poetry. Otherwise,I wouldn't. I like demonstrating to wary students, not only the greatness ofsome poem,but how much it has to do with all their lives. When I spoke ofno preparation for poetry,I had in my mind sitting down to scribble verses. n:Are there anyyoung,contemporary poets about whose work you are particularly excited? How concerned areyou about "the state ofpoetry"? Hasyour awareness ofand engagement with questions ofreadership and visibility changed since serving as Poet Laureate? cs:There are a lot offirst-rate younger poets in United States.I like Tracy D.Smith,Matthew Zapruder,and a bunch ofothers,so I'm not much concerned about"the state of poetry."I knew about all that before I became a poet laureate,since I've given hundreds of poetry readings all over this country,but that knowledge was
49 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
reinforced by meeting even more people who truly seemed to love reading and hearing about poetry. It's one ofthe few optimistic things one can say about the United States today. n:You've had a long and incredibly prolific career. Doyou think you're still evolving as a poet? How do you think your work has changed recently, and where do you see it going in thefuture? cs: I hope this old dog can learn a few more tricks, but ... it's hard to answer that question with any certainty, which strikes me as an ideal situation. It may be a long shot,but I got my locomotive puffing smoke and am speeding with full confidence into the next tunnel.
50 FALL 2011
51 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
A CONVERSATION WITH
NATE KLUG Nate Klug was born in 1985.He is in his third year at the Yale Divinity School,in the Master of Divinity program.In 2010, he was one offive poets to win the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He has poems forthcoming in Poetry and The Threepenny Review. I had the opportunity to talk with Nate about his writing, writing at Yale,and poetry and poetics more generally. We had the conversation at Wall Street Pizza;I ate a slice of pizza,and we each drank a cup ofcoffee. Later,I organized the conversation into what follows.
—ORLANDO HERNANDEZ
53 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
YALE LIT: How important is it to be immersed in a community of writers? NATE KLUG:I think it is important. I think it really depends on the
personality ofthe poet, where he or she gets energy from.I mean, poets tend to be more introverted, more comfortable being alone. We were talking about the New York School—and from what I know about them,going to bars, and talking with painters,that kind ofthing was crucial for someone like O'Hara,for his poetry. I can't imagine O'Hara working out on a farm in New England like Frost. For me,it's always been important to have people to show my work to. But they didn't have to be in the same place as me because ofemail. YL:Is this a necessary critical distance that it's hard
to have on your own writing, especially after working on somethingfor a while? Can you imagine, at a certain point, not needing this because you had honed your own sense enough? NK: I think I
would always want it. I feel like I've gotten to a point where I can send a poem to someone,and someone will say something,and maybe I'll say,"I see that, but I actually don't agree." Whereas before,ifsomeone said something,I felt that I better change it. Not that I'm totally right and they're totally wrong,just going for a different account or different value. But I think,at the end ofthe day,I would always want people to have that critical approach to my writing. There are ups and downs to a community.I think a danger would be losing one's own sense oftaste,and passions,and reason for writing. Who are you writing for? YL: Is there a community of writers at the Div School?
54 FALL 2011
NK:There are definitely a lot of people interested in writing,and poetry,at the Div School.But in terms ofwhat people are into,it goes all over the board,from slam poetry to more popular poetry that's not thought oftoo highly in the academy.I guess I'm just interested in poetry for different reasons.There are different kinds of poetry for different views ofwhat poetry is,and what a life of writing is. Really different views. But I think it's cool that there are a lot ofwriters there.I admire anyone who can do it on the side,in addition to a degree or intellectual program.
Yu It seems like one ofthe special things about being around a university like this is to have access to readings, and classes, and working groups, that drawfrom a range ofengagements with writing.(I've heard you read at the Graduate Poets Reading Series, seen you at the Working Group in Contemporary Poetics, etc.)Doyoufeel pressure from these various outlets? NK:They're there ifI want them,but they're not something I try to conform myselfto.I think everybody,at the end ofthe day, needs to figure out what they want to take and what they want to leave from any community.It's like reading a book—you figure out which poems ofStevens you like, and which ones you don't, and the ones that you like will shape how you want to write your own poems.Because I think the end goal should always be the writing ofpoems,which in some ways gets lost in poetics discussions.That tends to be one of my resistances,is that we can talk a lot about a poetics and lose the sense that good poems should hopefully inspire more good poems.That's what I like in the end: poems,and not expressions of poetics.
YL:Ifeel that too; there's something in that emphasis on poems aspoems. Not in a totally isolated way, but that there's an integrity ofa poem,and this integrity is what is essentially beautiful about it.
55 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
li....._
....., -.....
I think this relates to some questions about lyric poetry that I wanted to ask you.Doyou everfeel the need to problematize this integrity or unity of lyric perceiver, ofclosure in the poem? Doyou identify as a lyric poet?Do youfeel the need to say,"I am a lyric poet!"? NK:I would say definitely a lyric poet.That's the way I experience
my own writing,the finality ofform ofeach poem.I don't think of myselfas writing a project,or a book;when I write,I'm trying to write a poem.But there are all sorts ofsmart poets who are thinking about those kinds of problems.It hasn't been something I've focused on yet.I don't know if!ever will.The thing!love about poetry is the poems. And it doesn't mean they need to be short. Something like Basil Bunting's Briggflatts — that poem is long,but it's its own thing,to me.It has a finality ofform;that's how I think about it. I don't think it came from this sort of meta thinking about poetics,even though a lot ofthe poem is about poetry writing. I think now more experimental stuff has filtered into the mainstream.So there's an interesting mix going on,poets like Ben Lerner, Michael Palmer,Peter Gizzi.I like his stuffa lot. More experimental than what I write. He's someone doing interesting things with the questions we're discussing. YL:In your interview with TriQuarterly Online,you say that in order to articulate "the larger social or political responsibilities ofthe poet,"you would need "a longer-term and more imaginative notion ofjustice than I have now." Can you talk a bit about this? NK:I think,in one sense,every poet who's able to keep writing— for the course ofa career,or book—has to find some way of justifying the writing of poetry as a worthwhile activity in the world.So I think,in that sense,people come to their own views
56 FALL 2011
ofhow poetry fits in. But on the other hand,I don't think great poets necessarily ever achieve a complete or final sense ofjustice. Like Pound,for instance—at the end ofhis life, he expressed tremendous regret over his political vision. rt.: So it's not like one implies the other. But the ability to sustain your writing means thatyou've been askingyourselfthose questions ... NK:But that doesn't mean it has to be made explicit in the writing, or even in the poet's self-reflections. I think a lot ofthings are implicit, psychological.The poet doesn't have to write a political manifesto of poetry,or something like that. I think for greater, mature poets,the answers would be in the poems,maybe,ifanywhere. n:Someone like Oppen —hispoemsfeel to me like moral acts. The writing ofthe poemfeels like an expression ofa moral worldview.I think part of this has to do with the investigation oflanguage,and it's also something tonalfor him.(I also have a soft spotfor poets that I think are kind.) NK:I think for him the ethics are always foregrounded.There's that great part from "OfBeing Numerous,"I think it's Section 22;it's a comment on writing poetry,and he says,"Clarity in the sense of silence." This holds poetry to very high ethical stakes about what is okay to be said. And I think for him,it related to how he wanted society to be shaped,how language is related to the way social order is formed. The modesty and self-reflection and high ethical standards that you feel in his poems are a social pressure too. But I think it ranges so much for different poets. For Robert Duncan—well,Denise Levertov and he were both out in California. And she wanted him to be protesting the Vietnam War.He and his
57 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
partner just wore black armbands,as their own protest.That was what he determined was the valid political response:to wear black armbands,and go on writing poems. And Denise Levertov was like,"That does nothing.You need to go to the protests. And you need to write poems that directly address slaughter in Vietnam." And he said that doing that was just another form of war,another form ofviolence,that it was perpetuating the American government's violence. There is a way that political poetry can become voyeuristic, that the political urgency of writing the poem drowns out whatever the poem itselfcan do.So it can be a tricky thing. I don't know ... I haven't tried to write that many directly political poems. A lot of people think poets should be writing more. YL:I've heard you talk a lot about the sonic pleasure ofpoetry, using some of yourfavorite poets as examples: Crane, Bunting, Dickinson, Creeley. Do you see their "music"as inextricably related to their concerns?(This may be the same idea thatyou can't take the words apartfrom what they're saying, or the sound apartfrom what it's doing intellectually or emotionally ...) NK:I would say you can't really talk about a poem
without talking about its music.In some ofthe classes I've taken,I've been frustrated because there is that attempt to talk about a poem without enough attention paid to the sound,and the form,and the way it moves.To paraphrase it is to change it out ofthe realm of poetry. n:Sometimes,for me,it seems like getting better at writing is a matter of cultivatingyour inner ear, the way you hearyourself, the ability to tell if somethingfeels right or not. The act ofwriting becomes a kind oflistening. NK:Yeah.I think that's great,that's definitely what it's been like for
me too. What sounds right? And the poems that I love, what about
58 FALL 2011
_.1
their sounds ... and more generally,the syntax,the form ... what do I particularly like about that? I guess that's how I've tried to train my eaf. Looked at in that way,you sort ofapprentice yourselfto these great poems. And you can learn directly from them,from the sounds. yi.: I'm wondering about the relationship between writer and reader, specifically as it relates to questions oftheology in poetry. Someone like Donne,in his Divine Sonnets— there is a process ofquestioning that the poemsgo through, and bring the reader through. Dickinson too. There's a movement through the poem that is notjust an expression ofa thought; there's a way that the thoughts or arguments push each other. It's doing something to the reader. Itforces, or invites, the reader into a process. NK:If! were to do a dissertation,I would want to talk about this. Because I really think poetry does theology in a unique way that systematic theology,the stuffthat is taught at the Div School,can't do. And!think it relates to what you're saying,the way thought moves in a poem. And for me,reading a poem by Dickinson or Donne,the sounds and the form make me feel certain things.I think that's true.The feeling comes from the way the sounds are arranged together. And thinking ofit in a theological context,the way that a poem can explore a doctrine—like Donne exploring the resurrection, or Dickinson exploring a Calvinist idea of predestination or eternal damnation.
Yu And is that exploration in the act ofreading, or writing? or both? NK:Probably both. We're probably never quite getting the sense of it as the writer would feel for herselfor himself. Geoffrey Hill said that it's our fate to misread each other. But we can get close to that.
59 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
It's hard to say the ideal relationship between a reader and a writer.But I think it is a powerful relationship. It is its own form ofcommunity. n:What other poets doyoufind relevant to this discussion? NK: Certainly all my favorite poets. Donne,Herbert, Milton, Hopkins,Dickinson; maybe Thomas Hardy too—he has some poems like that,though they're maybe not his best poems;in the twentieth century,Geoffrey Hill,Fanny Howe.In terms ofusing poetry to get at theological questions,to explore faith and doubt. Most ofthe systematic theologians at the Div School would say that Dickinson doesn't give us very much theological value because they have a different sense ofwhat good theology is. It has to be argued within a context of Christian thought,dating back to the Fathers. So it's just different standards I guess. But for me,it's always been inspiring for my poetry to read theology and think about it. For me it's always connected to the act of writing; when a poem comes to me,how does that relate to my faith?
Yu Shifting gears a little bit ... I know you like beer. Doyou think beer and poetry have anything to do with each other? Doyou have anyfavorite beers? NK:When we lived out in the Midwest,I liked it better;there's
more variety,different microbrews.I like Victory a lot,from Pennsylvania. I think one similarity is that there are so many interesting,small poetry presses out now,and so many small breweries. And the audiences are small,but very committed and lively. Did I tell you about my idea oftrying to start a poetry press that's also a microbrewery?
60 FALL 2011
n:Wow.That would be awesome. NK:I think the audiences do overlap. Some sort ofthing where you
subscribe to the press andyou get a crate ofbeer every month. Or a poem attached to a six-pack.
61 THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE
II\
ART IN THIS ISSUE LAUREN CHAPMAN PRESIDENT'S ISLAND (2011)
3
VINAY PRASAD NEW HAVEN BUS STOP (2011)
4
LAUREN CHAPMAN UNTITLED (2011)
6
TOM STOKES UNTITLED (2011)
14
JULIET LIU UNTITLED (2011)
22
LAUREN CHAPMAN UNTITLED (2011)
36
JULIET LIU UNTITLED (2011)
51
TOM STOKES UNTITLED (2011)
52
JULIET LIU UNTITLED (2011)
61
COLOPHON Three typefaces were used in this publication.The cover,section headers,and titles were set in Univers 57 Condensed,a realist sans-serif designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954.The authors' names,footers,and page numbers were set in Verlag,a modernist sans-serif designed by Hoefler & Frere-Jones in 1996.The body text was set in DTL Dorian,a quirky serif designed by Elmo van Slingerland in 1997.It was printed on 30% recycled paper. Many thanks to Alice Chung,whose typographical guidance both in and out ofthe classroom made this publication possible; and to Rachel Kauder-Nalebuff,the illustrious former Lit designer who both set an impossibly high precedent and provided the emotional support necessary to approach such a task.
_....1._
PRIZES The Frances Bergen Memorial Prize for Poetry was awarded to Kate Orazem for'11/11/10.'The Frances Bergen Memorial Prize for Fiction was awarded to Jacque Feldman for'Dube's Cows.' Poetry was judged by J.D. McClatchy. Prose was judged by John Crowley.
SUBSCRIPTIONS Please visit our website at www.yale.edu/ylit or write to: The Yale Literary Magazine P.O. Box 209087 New Haven,CT 06520-9087
CONTRIBUTIONS Are welcome and tax-deductible.Please make all checks payable to: The YLM Publishing Fund
THE CONTENTS OF THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE ARE COPYRIGHT 2012. NO PORTIONS OF THE CONTENTS MAY BE REPRINTED WITHOUT PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUE NUMBER 7-19853-4.
FALL 2011 / VOLUME XXIII, ISSUE II LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUE # 7-19853-4