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

Read

Fall 2024 • Vol. XLVI No. 4 • Poetry |

The Past Tense

Holding hands
before your hands grow cold

and I stuff them in my coat pockets
you say, Wasn’t it beautiful?

even though the sun has not finished setting,
even though we are right here right now

looking right at it
on this ocean bluff where

—I hear myself think—
we loved to go.

Already have an account? Log in

Join KR for even more to read.

Sign up for a free account and read any five pieces a month.
Sign Up and Read for Free



Or become a subscriber today and get complete, immediate access to our digital archives at every subscription level.
Photo of Jacques J. Rancourt

Jacques J. Rancourt is the author of Brocken Spectre (Alice James Books, 2021); Novena (Pleiades Press, 2017), winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize; and a chapbook, In the Time of PrEP (Chad Walsh Chapbook Series, Beloit Poetry Journal, 2018). He has held poetry fellowships and residencies from Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. Raised in Maine, he lives in San Francisco.

Read More

Clearing Lines

By Rodrigo Toscano

The Kenyon Review · “Clearing Lines” by Rodrigo Toscano Already have an account? Log in Join KR for even more to read. Sign up for a free account and read […]

Upcoming
Workshops

Subscribe

Your free registration with The Kenyon Review includes access to exclusive content, early access to program registration, and more.

Donate

With your support, we’ll continue 
to cultivate talent and publish extraordinary literature from diverse voices around the world.