August 30, 2023
Luminous Gender Vessel Introduction
Dear Melissa, Hello from our little yellow house in Old East Durham. A rainy day in what will be a series of rainy days in what will be a very […]
August 28, 2023
2023 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers Introduction
The Kenyon Review’s annual Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers was judged this year by acclaimed poet Ruth Awad. From more than fifteen hundred entries, Awad selected a winner […]
June 16, 2023
Terrance Hayes Introduces Bernard Ferguson
Bernard Ferguson is a recent NEA winner, an accomplished essayist, and among the most gifted graduate students I have encountered. I thought of Ferguson’s poems for this Kenyon Review issue […]
June 16, 2023
Brian Teare Introduces fahima ife
I first read fahima ife’s brilliant debut, Maroon Choreography, shortly after reading visual artist Torkwase Dyson’s essay “Black Interiority: Notes on Architecture, Infrastructure, Environmental Justice, and Abstract Drawing.” Maroon Choreographyimmediately […]
June 15, 2023
Joanna Klink Introduces Charlie Decker
Charlie Decker was raised in Oklahoma in an evangelical house. “And one of the running beliefs,” he writes, which is intended as a comfort, I think, was that God was […]
June 14, 2023
Arthur Sze Introduces Jennifer Elise Foerster
I’ve included a poem in the form of a letter to an ancient Chinese poet, Tao Qian (365–427 CE), and I have added a translation of a poem by contemporary […]
June 14, 2023
Victoria Chang Introduces Jordan Nakamura
Jordan Nakamura’s poems are often rich and lush in imagery and in the movements of an intellectual mind, often rife with tension. In “Lychee Harvest,” the poem’s imagery is simultaneously […]
June 14, 2023
Introduction to Nature’s Nature
The Kenyon Review · Nature’s Nature Introduction Joanna Klink’s poem “Processional” opens with a vivid provisional, perhaps also a prayer: “If there is a world, let me be in it.” […]
April 4, 2023
Introduction to a Translation Folio Guest Edited by Jennifer Croft, Jeremy Tiang, and Anton Hur
In the planning of this special feature on translations, the three of us asked ourselves what kind of translations we wanted to see more of in the world, and many […]
January 31, 2023
Introduction to Bridges: A Fiction Folio Guest Edited by Laura van den Berg and Paul Yoon
For the Winter 2023 issue, we invited award-winning writers Laura van den Berg and Paul Yoon to guest edit a folio of fiction. Yoon and van den Berg are married […]
January 31, 2023
2022 Nonfiction Contest Introduction
The Kenyon Review’s annual nonfiction contest was judged by Maggie Nelson, acclaimed author of books including Bluets, The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, The Argonauts, and most recently, On Freedom: […]
November 1, 2018
Introduction: Getting and Spending
“Money is a kind of poetry.” This is one of Wallace Stevens’s zingers in “Adagia.” Stevens dealt with money in his daily business at Hartford Indemnity, and I imagine he […]