August 2013

How Does Two Years to Write, Read, and Teach Sound? Apply For a KR Fellowship!

On September 1, The Kenyon Review will begin accepting applications for its KR Fellowships. These two-year post-graduate positions are intended for creative writers who have already completed the MFA or PhD degree and are seeking time to develop as writers, teachers, and editors. Two fellows, a poet and a prose writer, will arrive in Gambier, Ohio in August 2014. Applications will be accepted through October 1st.

Why We Chose It

By Geeta Kothari, Nonfiction Editor

“Covers,” Peter Trachtenberg writes in his wonderful, multi-layered essay “Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” “connect us with our past selves, the selves we outgrew and discarded, the selves we abandoned in shame, the selves we betrayed.”

At first, the essay appears to be the origin story of a song, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” which spawned fifty-seven covers. But after this brief history, Trachtenberg reveals the true nature of this investigation. “At issue is what we mean by the original of any song, or at least any pop song, and who can truly be called its creator.”

Kenyon Review Young Writers: Reveling in Messiness

By Celeste Lipkes, Teaching Fellow, Kenyon Review Young Writers

It’s 9AM on a Monday morning, and a dozen teenagers are wrapping up a debate that bounced effortlessly from the merits of Thomas Pynchon to the poetics of thermodynamics to the ethics of hosting house parties. For the third day in a row, I regret not drinking a second cup of coffee.

KR Welcomes New Bloggers!

Have you checked out the KR Blog recently? Join us in welcoming KR’s new bloggers: Cody Walker, Brian Michael Murphy, Pablo Tanguay, and Solmaz Sharif. See below for a recent post by Brian Michael Murphy.

Ohio in August: we are lost among the towering corn. It’s a month of waiting, the days ticking slowly past, a month spent dreaming of harvests and crisp evenings.

The Kenyon Review, New Series, Summer/Fall 2000, Vol. XXII, No. 3-4

The Crossing

I wake to the small applause
of rain, then sleep again

and somewhere between dusk
and dawn a curtain falls and rises.

Comment Thread in Response to “100 Best Flowers of the Year”

How is hollyhock
better than Delphinium, better than the ruby chandelier
of a Spider lily?

        I agree. Delphiniums rule: blue lace, say a whole
        meadow, thousands
        swaying in Wyoming, say midmorning, lit in that
        champagne light, it doesn’t
        get any better.

Click here to finish reading this poem.
KROnline is the online complement of The Kenyon Review. New fiction, essays, poetry, and reviews are published on a biweekly basis. Check back often to read some of the most cutting-edge material you’ll find anywhere on the web. Click here to see our latest offering.

What should a writer read? Or rather, when should a writer surrender to the recognition that there are simply too many great books to read them all? This month, two of our bloggers meditated on this troubling question of the books we know we should read but never get around to picking up. Consider what follows a discussion of our flawed humanity, a search for consolation for all that we’ll never know, and a “must read” for any writer who hungers for more than s/he can ever digest.

On Recommended Books

July 5, 2013 — Brian Michael Murphy

I’ve just returned from The Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth College, where I met wonderfully interesting people, received helpful feedback on my writing, and, as happens at such gatherings, added more book recommendations to my “One Day I Will Read These” list than I will ever be able to read.

“Deeply and Irreverently”: How and What to Read

July 6, 2013 — Amit Majmudar

One of the usual defenses of reading widely in the Western tradition (or, say, in 20th century poetry) is that it improves your writing—that it’s the legwork necessary for the great flights. Being well-versed, and widely conversant, with the literature of the past is a crucial part of a writer’s education.

A Micro-Interview with Rachel Zucker

Zucker’s poems appeared in the Summer 2013 issue of The Kenyon Review.

Is there a story behind your KR poems? What was the hardest part about writing them?

The three poems in KR are all part of my upcoming book, The Pedestrians, which will be published by Wave in 2014. After my book Museum of Accidents was published I really had a clean slate which was exciting and terrifying. I just knew I wanted to try new things in my writing and explore the boundaries of what I thought made a poem a poem.

Contents Aug. 2013
KR Fellowships
Why We Chose It
Young Writers
New KR Bloggers
From the Archives
From KROnline
From the Blog
KR Conversations

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