January 2012

Why We Chose It

By Anna Duke Reach, Director of Programs

One of the most common questions we get here at KR is how we choose our evocative cover art. While some define photography as simply “taking pictures,” at The Kenyon Review, we believe it is more about “making pictures.” As I research cover subjects, I look for photographs that transform a moment in time into the realm of story.

KR Announces New Workshop in Novel Writing

This year, KR will extend its summer fiction workshop with a newly conceived 3½ day workshop on novel writing from Sunday, June 23 through Wednesday, June 27, 2012. Team-taught by KR Fiction Editor Geeta Kothari and former KR Fiction Editor Nancy Zafris, this workshop will be open to current or former Kenyon Review Fiction Workshop participants.

The Kenyon Review will begin accepting submissions for the fifth annual Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest on February 1, 2012. The contest is open to all writers who have not yet published a book of fiction. Submissions must be 1,200 words or less to qualify for the contest. Nancy Zafris, former KR Fiction Editor and currently editor of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction book series, will be the final judge.

Apply Now for the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop!

Online applications are now available for the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, an intensely creative week-long series of writing workshops held June 16-23, 2012 on the campus of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

Apply Now for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop!

The Kenyon Review is now accepting applications for its Young Writers Workshop, a creative writing adventure for 16-18-year-olds in Gambier, Ohio. Two sessions will be offered this summer: June 24-July 7 and July 15-28, 2012. Young Writers is an intensive two-week workshop for intellectually curious high-school students who value writing. KR’s goal is to help students develop their creative and critical abilities with language—to become better writers and more insightful thinkers.

Given our current cover, “Washington Square, Winter, 1954,” by photographer André Kertész, what could be more appropriate than this poem by John Frederick Nims from KR’s Winter, 1950 issue. Nims was the author of seven books of poetry, along with translations of Euripides, St. John of the Cross, Michaelangelo, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He served as editor of Poetry magazine from 1978-1984 and edited the widely used textbook Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry.

The Kenyon Review, Winter 1950, Vol. XII, No. 1.

Winter in the Park

Lagoons are shrunk and walkable as concrete,
The little islands accessible now
That in June were a green secret the sunburnt lovers
Bumped with their rented prow.

Trees empty and fibrous, as if their roots were in air
By the sidewalks burled with ice
Where concessions huddle boarded, nothing to sell.
Oh how it was shady and nice

In easy July, in the ice-cream days, the lazy
Lying in sunhot grass we two;
The creak and bobble of crowing, the dusty scuff
And stare in the barbarous zoo

Anywhere Could Be Somewhere

I might have come from the high country, or maybe the low country, I don’t recall which. I might have come from the city, but what city in what country is beyond me. I might have come from the outskirts of a city from which others have come or maybe a city from which only I have come. Who’s to know? Who’s to decide if it rained or the sun was out? Who’s to remember? They say things are happening at the border, but which border is anyone’s guess. They mention a hotel where it doesn’t matter if you’ve forgotten your suitcase; there’ll be another one waiting, big enough, and just for you.

Click here to read another poem by Mark Strand.

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.

December 8, 2011 —
Jake Adam York

I am sitting in the doctor’s office in my hometown, looking, half-heartedly through demographic stacks of fashion mags, gun mags, men’s health mags, gossip rags, and the like, wishing I’d remembered to bring a book. There wasn’t a literary magazine in sight. It’s not surprising, but a shame, since this is one of the scenarios in which a literary magazine is ideal.