May 2015

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

On August 15, 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 2016. Applications will be accepted through September 15, 2015. Learn more about applying for a fellowship.

Shasta Grant Wins 2015 KR Short Fiction Contest!

Shasta Grant, of Indianapolis, Indiana, has won the eighth annual Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest. Grant’s story, “Most Likely To,” was selected by judge Ann Patchett from more than 490 entries, and will be published in the Jan/Feb 2016 issue of the Kenyon Review. Grant will also receive a scholarship to attend the 2015 KR Writers Workshop. Congratulations! Read more about the results of the KR Short Fiction Contest.

Why I Chose It: Nature’s Nature

BY DAVID BAKER, POETRY EDITOR

I’m writing here not about my editorial choice of a single poem but rather a gathering of poems, in fact thirty-five poems by twenty-one poets, all collected to consider the nature of nature poetry. I am especially pleased to announce here that this will be a regular commitment in KR, an annual presentation of new poetry about the natural world. So, why choose to do this? Read the rest of David Baker’s “Why We Chose It.”

May/Jun issue now out, featuring ecopoetry!

The May/Jun 2015 issue of the Kenyon Review features a special section on ecopoetry introduced by Poetry Editor David Baker and presenting thirty-five dazzling new poems by twenty-one poets. Also in this issue find exciting new fiction from Amy Gustine and Elizabeth Denton as well as nonfiction by Elaine Bleakney and Garret Keizer. Grab a print copy today! Or check out our Kindle Edition! Subscribe and get a full KR issue for only $0.99 a month. Or purchase single issues for only $3.99. Subscribe or order the new issue today!

The Poetics of Science: Call for Submissions

How does science inspire the literary imagination? Can science writing be literary? The Kenyon Review is seeking poetry, fiction, essays, and drama that respond to issues in science, ecology, or the environment for a special issue to be published in September 2016. Feeling inspired? KR is now accepting submissions for this special issue. Read more about the call for submissions here.

New in KR Podcasts

This month, Associate Editor Natalie Shapero chats with author Kent Nelson, winner of the prestigious 2014 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, about unorthodox ways to finance writing your novel, the perils of adapting fiction for the screen, and more! Download the podcast.

Prometheus (From a Story by Kafka)

BY CIRCE MAIA

Translated from Spanish by Jesse Lee Kercheval

There are other possibilities for Prometheus
that the Greeks did not see:
forgetfulness, fatigue.
Through the centuries the treason was forgotten.
The gods forgot. The eagles forgot.

Finish reading this poem on KROnline.

The Meeting at Telgte: An Excerpt from the Novel

BY GÜNTER GRASS

Günter Grass, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, died on April 13th. An excerpt from his novel The Meeting at Telgte appeared in the Spring 1981 issue of The Kenyon Review.

The five geese were already lined up on one spit and the three suckling pigs on the second, while the sheep stuffed with sausages was turning on the third. The long table from the taproom had been moved up to the bushes bordering the outer arm of the Ems, so that it remained untouched by the smoke from the fires that were flaring in the middle of the courtyard.

Continue reading this story.

A Reading from AWP

BY CAITLIN HORROCKS

May 4, 2015

Ed. Note: Fiction Editor Caitlin Horrocks wrote the following story for the “New Voices at the Kenyon Review” panel presented at AWP last month. The story is composed entirely of lines from published or soon-to-be-published KR pieces.

Even before she said anything, I knew she wasn’t my actual mother.[1] She had her bags out the door by morning, monumental in the sun.[2] I was more dead than alive, she explained. They had no choice but to send me home.[3] Her mouth fit like a clasp, and was as small as the rest of her.[4] Her fake blue contacts held and twisted light like gemstones.[5] Who is to say we must see all of a woman to acknowledge her as whole? Who is to say we should look away? [6] Read the rest of the story and a list of quoted contributors.

A Micro-Conversation with Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield’s poem “My Pronoun” appears in the Mar/Apr 2015 issue of the Kenyon Review

What was your original impetus for writing “My Pronoun”? Did you begin with a line or phrase? With the title? With the poem’s overarching animating idea?

My poems almost always begin with words and a music, half-thought, half-heard. These first phrases are kite-strings. If they have any meaning at all, something wanting to come into attention will be giving them lift and arc. At first, there is only the string and its tug. Then, as the poem unfolds, the kite’s shape and colors begin to come into view.
Read the rest of the interview.

MAY 2015
CONTENTS
KR Fellowships
SFC Winner
Why We Chose It
May/June 2015
The Poetics of Science
KR Podcast
From KROnline
From the Archive
From the Blog
KR Conversations

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