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Ploughshares Spring 2016 Guest-Edited by Alan Shapiro and Tom Sleigh: Volume 42, No. 1
The Spring 2016 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Two out of each year's three issues are guest-edited by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles, with the Winter issue staff-edited.
Acclaimed poets Tom Sleigh and Alan Shapiro guest-edit this poetry and prose issue of Ploughshares. In a heartfelt introduction the two dedicate the issue to Mark Strand, Philip Levine, C.K. Williams, and Seamus Heaney, writing, “We wanted to bring them back--if only in these pages.” Featuring work from the aforementioned poets alongside their students, peers, and also variety of emerging voices, the stories and poems in these pages reassure us that great writers and teachers never really leave us.
Read new poetry from Sharon Olds, Mary Karr, and Robert Pinksy, and new prose from Katherine Damm, Taylor Koekkek, and Soraya Palmer. The Spring 2016 issue also includes a Look2 essay on the fiction of Joshua Cohen, and a profile of our Alice Hoffman winner, Ramona Asubel. The cover art is by Mark Strand.
Acclaimed poets Tom Sleigh and Alan Shapiro guest-edit this poetry and prose issue of Ploughshares. In a heartfelt introduction the two dedicate the issue to Mark Strand, Philip Levine, C.K. Williams, and Seamus Heaney, writing, “We wanted to bring them back--if only in these pages.” Featuring work from the aforementioned poets alongside their students, peers, and also variety of emerging voices, the stories and poems in these pages reassure us that great writers and teachers never really leave us.
Read new poetry from Sharon Olds, Mary Karr, and Robert Pinksy, and new prose from Katherine Damm, Taylor Koekkek, and Soraya Palmer. The Spring 2016 issue also includes a Look2 essay on the fiction of Joshua Cohen, and a profile of our Alice Hoffman winner, Ramona Asubel. The cover art is by Mark Strand.
278 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 14, 2016
3 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
About the author
Seamus Heaney
382 books1,096 followersWorks of Irish poet Seamus Justin Heaney reflect landscape, culture, and political crises of his homeland and include the collections
Wintering Out
(1972) and
Field Work
(1979) as well as a translation of
Beowulf
(1999). He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995.
This writer and lecturer won this prize "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."
Heaney on Wikipedia.
This writer and lecturer won this prize "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."
Heaney on Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 27, 2017
Really liked the pieces by Taylor Koekkoek and Christopher Kennedy.
May 12, 2016
When I started reading the Spring 2016 edition of Ploughshares I thought it would be a quick read before I sunk my teeth into Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton - a book I've promised myself I would finish prior to seeing Hamilton on Broadway June 10. Typically Ploughshares is something I can devour in a couple days - five at most. But apparently that was not to be this time around.
Ploughshares has given me so many delightful editions over the past three years of my romance, subscription. It was bound to fall short sooner or later. I can't really explain why I couldn't get excited about this edition. Both guest editors, Alan Shapiro and Tom Sleigh are great poets, and their ideas about poetry - as noted in the profiles of the editors at the end of the edition (one of my actual favorite parts of the edition) - jive a lot with mine.
The issue of Ploughshares is dedicated to four poets, Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013), Philip Levine (1928 - 2015), Mark Strand (1934 - 2014), and C.K. Williams (1936 - 2015). Perhaps the fact that I don't know any of these men started me at a particular disadvantage. Shapiro and Sleigh note in their introduction that the poems chosen for this edition were a "lament for the makers . . . praise of the highest kind, an affirmation of enduring value." Shapiro and Sleigh write that in each poem they were looking for a "simultaneous reckoning with life and language, innovation and tradition." Seen from this perspective, they were successful, because the poems, and the limited short fiction included, all touch on the sense of the abnormal within the normal. It makes the reading slow going and thoughtful, but not necessarily something I connected with.
That said, there were, as always, poems and stories I absolutely adored:
Catherine Barnett - Lyric and Narrative Time at Cafe Loup
I absolutely loved this poem's exploration of time. Time as a relative concept, time as a tangible object. "Time is one part of the body that never gets washed." Is going to be a line that sticks with me for a long time.
Katherine Damm - The Middlegame
This short story also explored time. Time as a concept of what happens when our mind wanders. It starts out with the question of whether you can have two thoughts at once. In the story, the narrator is playing a chess game while simultaneously thinking of her family life, and our own attention wanders with hers back and forth from the game. It's a really brilliant way of showing narrative control and the passage of time without observation.
Kirby Gann - The Obscening of Engine Kreuter
I appreciate any story that uses a made up word in its title. This was a really fun story about a rock-n-roll guy finally selling out after eeking by.
Mary Karr - Psalm for Riding a Plane
This poem delved into the experience of flying in a plane and the sort of ridiculousness of the concept of being inside a contraption that then lifts into the air and flies us somewhere.
Michael Ryan - Three Days Flu No Shower
Some of the rhyming in this poem just really made me happy. And it painted such a grungy picture I could really smell and feel. "Between the showroom and the shop, he leans his push broom and he stops. Beef Barley soup as it plops out of the can into a thin tin pot."
Jason Sommer - Grudge
Also a poem I really liked because of the way the rhyming worked, but also because of the concept of having the last word in a late night argument.
Helen Schulman - In a Better Place
This story, about a woman who sees her supposedly dead father while on vacation in Normandy, France was entertaining and an interesting play on the concept of saying someone who has passed on is "in a better place." Her dead father certainly was, galavanting at outside cafe's with a young new companion.
Other poems I really enjoyed:
Christopher Merrill - The Red Umbrella
Honor Moore - Night Cafe
Katie Peterson - Note to Self
Paisley Rekdal - Astyanax
Maurice Riordan - Fleet
David Wojahn - Two Minute Film of the Last Tasmanian Tiger
I did enjoy the end of this edition more than the first half. The majority of the stories and poems I really liked came toward the end, but overall my own appreciation of the poems was uneven and this edition was not my favorite.
Ploughshares has given me so many delightful editions over the past three years of my romance, subscription. It was bound to fall short sooner or later. I can't really explain why I couldn't get excited about this edition. Both guest editors, Alan Shapiro and Tom Sleigh are great poets, and their ideas about poetry - as noted in the profiles of the editors at the end of the edition (one of my actual favorite parts of the edition) - jive a lot with mine.
The issue of Ploughshares is dedicated to four poets, Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013), Philip Levine (1928 - 2015), Mark Strand (1934 - 2014), and C.K. Williams (1936 - 2015). Perhaps the fact that I don't know any of these men started me at a particular disadvantage. Shapiro and Sleigh note in their introduction that the poems chosen for this edition were a "lament for the makers . . . praise of the highest kind, an affirmation of enduring value." Shapiro and Sleigh write that in each poem they were looking for a "simultaneous reckoning with life and language, innovation and tradition." Seen from this perspective, they were successful, because the poems, and the limited short fiction included, all touch on the sense of the abnormal within the normal. It makes the reading slow going and thoughtful, but not necessarily something I connected with.
That said, there were, as always, poems and stories I absolutely adored:
Catherine Barnett - Lyric and Narrative Time at Cafe Loup
I absolutely loved this poem's exploration of time. Time as a relative concept, time as a tangible object. "Time is one part of the body that never gets washed." Is going to be a line that sticks with me for a long time.
Katherine Damm - The Middlegame
This short story also explored time. Time as a concept of what happens when our mind wanders. It starts out with the question of whether you can have two thoughts at once. In the story, the narrator is playing a chess game while simultaneously thinking of her family life, and our own attention wanders with hers back and forth from the game. It's a really brilliant way of showing narrative control and the passage of time without observation.
Kirby Gann - The Obscening of Engine Kreuter
I appreciate any story that uses a made up word in its title. This was a really fun story about a rock-n-roll guy finally selling out after eeking by.
Mary Karr - Psalm for Riding a Plane
This poem delved into the experience of flying in a plane and the sort of ridiculousness of the concept of being inside a contraption that then lifts into the air and flies us somewhere.
Michael Ryan - Three Days Flu No Shower
Some of the rhyming in this poem just really made me happy. And it painted such a grungy picture I could really smell and feel. "Between the showroom and the shop, he leans his push broom and he stops. Beef Barley soup as it plops out of the can into a thin tin pot."
Jason Sommer - Grudge
Also a poem I really liked because of the way the rhyming worked, but also because of the concept of having the last word in a late night argument.
Helen Schulman - In a Better Place
This story, about a woman who sees her supposedly dead father while on vacation in Normandy, France was entertaining and an interesting play on the concept of saying someone who has passed on is "in a better place." Her dead father certainly was, galavanting at outside cafe's with a young new companion.
Other poems I really enjoyed:
Christopher Merrill - The Red Umbrella
Honor Moore - Night Cafe
Katie Peterson - Note to Self
Paisley Rekdal - Astyanax
Maurice Riordan - Fleet
David Wojahn - Two Minute Film of the Last Tasmanian Tiger
I did enjoy the end of this edition more than the first half. The majority of the stories and poems I really liked came toward the end, but overall my own appreciation of the poems was uneven and this edition was not my favorite.
October 24, 2016
The more I read Ploughshares, the less I'm into this kind of "high brow" literature. I mean, I went to school for writing, so I'm not one to talk about "prestige." But my goodness, some of it is too much for me.
That being said, there are a few standout pieces in this collection:
It starts out fabulously with Katherine Damm's The Middlegame. One sibling in the hospital, the other visiting to play chess. It's presented day by day, like these things are when someone close to you is terminally ill. It's about time and patience and contemplating whether we've made the right choices—whether that's in chess or life, well...
Taylor Koekkoek, Emergency Maneuvers
A father who doesn't know how to be a parent in the absence of his spouse. A reconnection of family, a desperate attempt to bond with his sons. I'm a sucker for family stories, all right?
Gabrielle Valvorsessi, Dry Season at the End of the Empire
Tarfia Faizullah, Self Portrait as a Mango
Living as a minority, trying desperately to push through stereotypes.
Christopher Kennedy, Historical
The beginning of time, the birth of history.
Nathan McClain, To Have Light
Light in the darkest of times, or of fleeting moments: Broken down on the side of the road. The Garden of Eden. A beautiful woman in passing.
Emilia Phillips, Static, Frequency
David Wojahn, Two-Minute Film of the Last Tasmanian Tiger
If you can read this and not want to view said two-minute film, we have to have a talk.
Benjamin. His name was Benjamin.
That being said, there are a few standout pieces in this collection:
It starts out fabulously with Katherine Damm's The Middlegame. One sibling in the hospital, the other visiting to play chess. It's presented day by day, like these things are when someone close to you is terminally ill. It's about time and patience and contemplating whether we've made the right choices—whether that's in chess or life, well...
Taylor Koekkoek, Emergency Maneuvers
A father who doesn't know how to be a parent in the absence of his spouse. A reconnection of family, a desperate attempt to bond with his sons. I'm a sucker for family stories, all right?
Gabrielle Valvorsessi, Dry Season at the End of the Empire
Field and fields of almonds for us to dip our hands into
and take. Everything growing somewhere. Everything ours.
Tarfia Faizullah, Self Portrait as a Mango
Living as a minority, trying desperately to push through stereotypes.
I say, Suck on a mango, bitch, since that's all you think I eat anyway
Christopher Kennedy, Historical
The beginning of time, the birth of history.
an oarless boat on a perfectly still body of endless water, as when you speak to me in the fifty languages of nowhere.
Nathan McClain, To Have Light
Light in the darkest of times, or of fleeting moments: Broken down on the side of the road. The Garden of Eden. A beautiful woman in passing.
Emilia Phillips, Static, Frequency
Memories aren't mercy, even if they rescue you into innocence. I wish it wasn't easy
for the body to think I've suffered because I sweat in front of a gym TV
David Wojahn, Two-Minute Film of the Last Tasmanian Tiger
If you can read this and not want to view said two-minute film, we have to have a talk.
Benjamin. His name was Benjamin.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews