August 2018

Why We Chose It

BY NATALIE SHAPERO, EDITOR AT LARGE

“Obit,” by Victoria Chang, appears in the July/Aug 2018 issue of KROnline.

These six meticulously crafted prose poems are exemplars of the possibilities and promises of refraction. Each titled Obit, the poems purport to eulogize not a loved one, but concepts and objects: Friendships, Optimism, The Clock, Affection, and Clothes, and The Ocean. Yet, through this constellation of unlikely remembrances, the poems come together to memorialize, celebrate, and mourn a mother and ruminate on intimate loss. Read the rest of “Why We Chose It.”

Congratulations and Thanks to the 2018 Peter Taylor Fellows

Every year, the Kenyon Review awards Peter Taylor Fellowships to a select group of outstanding writers. These individuals attend our generative Writers Workshops as both participants and teaching assistants. This year’s group brought great talent and inexhaustible energy. Congratulations to all of you, and thank you for making this summer’s writers workshops a tremendous success. Click here to see a list of the 2018 Peter Taylor Fellows.

New in KR Podcasts

Phillip B. Williams speaks with KR Editor at Large Andrew Grace about poetry vs. capitalism, poets vs. celebrities, and why he is not writing any poems in 2018. Listen to it!

From KROnline: “A House That Does Bad Things to Me”

BY SADDIQ DZUKOGI

The universe grinds my body into a white horse,
mushrooms down my throat, hands
heavy on the door, through which
same world came to be. I am inside
the fire, big as floodwater . . .
Read the poem.

From the KR Blog: “‘The Little Song Pulsing’: An Interview with Oliver de la Paz”

BY DORA MALECH

July 25, 2018

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about innovative sonnets, so I’m now seeing them everywhere. This may just be a case of seeing what I want to see, but do you think there’s something about our aesthetic, cultural, or even political moment that’s inspiring poets to engage with and subvert traditional forms?

This goes with my idea of challenging the safety of the sonnet. The perception of tradition—that we can all live nicely within a tradition—is a perception that’s in flux…. [T]raditional modes are being challenged and many are adapting to fit a more contemporary consciousness…. I think we’re seeing [that] a number of writers are recognizing the familiarity of the pattern-making found in many of these traditional forms and [are] utilizing those remnant traits in a mode that’s efficient and artful for their idiomatic expression in the present moment. I also think that there’s an expediency that’s taking place with the language that is reflective of a particular political climate…. There’s a directness that a sonnet provides based on its rhetorical structure that’s fitting for political commentary…. Read the entire interview.

A Micro-Conversation with Natalie Scenters-Zapico

Scenters-Zapico’s poems, “Receta en el cajón” and “Macho::Hembra” appear in the July/Aug 2018 issue of the Kenyon Review.

Some of the ingredients in your poem “Receta en el cajón” are not items of food—Ladle and Stars, for instance—but nevertheless are well-incorporated into the poem and the dish. How do you feel these things coexist with the food and the experience, are consumed, and or operate in a way that complicates a reader’s ability to see this as a general recipe?

Truthfully, this is based on the way the women in my family have given recipes to me over time. Often, the ingredients that they give me are more than what needs to be thrown into the pot—the time of day you start and finish can be important; the way you care for the house impacts the flavor. I also started writing recipes given to me by hand, which often bleeds into other stories, and those stories are as much a part of the recipe to me as making the dish itself…. When I make the dishes given to me by the women in my family, I am also engaging in a process of feeding their traumas, and in a sense, feeding my own. Each time I make a dish I am eating from the same ritual that women have been using for centuries to keep themselves and their families alive. Read the rest of the interview.

AUGUST 2018
CONTENTS
Why We Chose It
Peter Taylor Fellows
KR Podcast
From KROnline
From the Blog
KR Conversations

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