Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

Read
Kenyon Review logo

William Heyen

Poetry

Fall 2007

Publicity

By William Heyen

I'm telling you it warms the heart the way our local fast-food places came together & opened their doors to serve as make-shift morgues to receive bodies from the city, […]

Poetry

Fall 2007

Anthem

By William Heyen

Well we knew about mules as they're called who swallow & smuggle dope into whatever country, there was even a flick Maria Full of Grace who maybe died when bags […]

Poetry

Winter 2002

Auschwitz Reich Disfigured Haiku Sequence

By William Heyen

the 2-yr-old twin boys? injection of chloroform into their hearts            the doctor's dissect-            ing table—polished marble            w drainage channel heterochromes: different-colored irises: cut out twins' eyes,                           float them in formaldehyde, […]

Poetry

Winter 2002

The Annunciation

By William Heyen

Munich's Odeonplatz, August 2, 1914. Stone lions stare out across the square. In the crowd of thousands— a photograph exists— one young man appears in a state of ecstasy, mouth […]

Poetry

Winter 2002

Roof

By William Heyen

In a photograph in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, prisoners in striped uniforms, during the winter of 1942-43, work on the roof of the underground undressing room of Crematorium II. We […]