Issue 144
Summer & Fall 2013
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Next time you see us, things won’t be the same. Our next issue, due to launch in January 2014, will feature an entirely redesigned website that we absolutely cannot wait to share with you. But enough about the future. Let's talk about the present.
Issue 144, our largest online issue to date, is filled with content from emerging and established writers alike. In this issue you’ll find new poems from Marianne Boruch, Kate Braverman, and Stephen Dunn, and potent doses of Americana from Brian Oliu, Annick Smith, and Ron Carlson. We are proud to feature essays from Nicole Walker and Jewell Washington, who celebrates her first major journal publication, and excerpts from forthcoming novels by Juan Martinez and Katharine Beutner. This issue also features another fine series of haunting video essays and cinepoems curated by John Bresland.
A sincere thank you must be given to our dedicated staff of creative writing graduate students and faculty. Issue after issue, they enthusiastically donate their time, energy, and expertise to the journal. They do this not for salaries and perks, but for a passion of the written word and a true appreciation of the TriQuarterly tradition.
When TQ abandoned print to exist exclusively online, we were written off by some in the literary community who suggested “the party was over.” We are happy to report that the party is not over. The poems, stories, and essays (and now video essays and cinepoems) published in TriQuarterly continue to resonate with readers around the world. And, given worldwide electronic access, we can honestly boast our largest readership in the history of the journal. With a complete website redesign on the horizon, the party is just getting started. It goes without saying that digital literature is here to stay. But for those who remain skeptical, I implore you to consider the Internet as a way to access some of the brightest voices in contemporary writing. Great literature is not only a physical thing; it is not something that needs to be shelved like bowling trophies or souvenirs from that family trip to Dollywood. Literature remains the art of all written work, regardless of how or where those writings are experienced.
Since 1964—because of the passion and dedication put forth by past editors Charles Newman, Elliott Anderson, Reginald Gibbons, and Susan Hahn—TriQuarterly has been instrumental in defining the landscape of American literature and beyond. As a result, back issues of the print edition are becoming increasingly rare. Efforts are already underway to digitize our vast archives in order to revive and maintain the rich, ever-important history of TriQuarterly.
As always, thanks for reading, and we welcome feedback at triquarterly@northwestern.edu
Cheers,
Matt Carmichael
Managing Editor: Matt Carmichael
Assistant Managing Editor: Dan Schuld
Faculty Advisors: Alice George, Susan Harris
Literary Editor: S.L. Wisenberg
Film Editor: John Bresland
Director of Planning: Reginald Gibbons
Media Architect: Harlan Wallach
Technical Advisors: Alex Miner, Rodolfo Vieira, Nick Gertonson
Copy Editor: Ruth Goring
Graduate Fellow: Benjamin Schacht
Undergraduate Intern: Erik Tormoen
Book Review Editors: Amber Peckham, Matt Wood
Fiction Editors: Carrie Muehle, Dan Schuld, Ankur Thakkar, Stephanie Tran
Nonfiction Editor: Michelle Cabral
Poetry Editor: C. Russell Price
Staff: Ignatius Aloysius, Rebecca Bald, James Temple Berg, Patrick Bernhard, Jen Companik, Tyler Day, Aaron DeLee, Vincent Francone, Dane Hamann, Ish Harris-Wolff, Noelle Havens, Beth Herbert, Alex Higley, Sarah Hollenbeck, Nath Jones, Jen Lawrence, Patrick LeDuc, Mercedes Lucero, Troy Parks, Lydia Pudzianowski, Lana Rakhman, Nate Renie, Mark Rentfro, Paula Root, Tara Scannell, Maureen Searcy, Caitlin Sellnow, Michi Smith, Virginia Smith, Travis Steele, Megan Marie Sullivan, Myra Thompson, Karen Zemanick, Ben Zimmerman
Image from When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl
Skinny Fat
A skinny person once fat
is still prey to the fat that waits out
every run, every breathless
try again, or a bike
Ronnie's Hallucinations
Ronnie’s hallucinations
started running together:
a pair of blinking
lizard heads in his box
In This Scene, My Copilot and I Crash the Moonbuggy
In this scene, my copilot
and I crash the moonbuggy
into the Cretaceous Period.
Call for Video Essays and Cinepoems
Recently TriQuarterly began to feature the video essay, an emerging form Marilyn Freeman described as “the mixed-breed love child of poetry, creative nonfiction, art house indies, documentary, and experimental media art.” At its core the video essay is, like its print counterpart, an attempt to figure something out.
April
CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE
My coproducer for the project, Nicki Newburger, went out to find interesting people that we might make a short film about in South Memphis. I wanted to work in the area near the Stax Music Academy in hopes that we could involve its students musically with the production.
Soup Opera
CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE
Often the temptation when working with animation is the too-faithful illustration of a text. As with film, there’s the tradition of storyboarding, which tends to nail down visual possibilities before they are fully explored, treats the text as primary, and can hardly help being linear.
When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl
CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE
“When Walt Whitman was a little girl, she’d never let the ordinariness of things box her in.”
This is the first line of M. C. Biegner’s poem, and it knocked me flat. A manifesto for art-making, this. An irresistibly intriguing beginning, followed by a simple statement about how to imagine one’s way out of corners. It opened a lot of doors for me.
The Last Place She Stood
“I feel like someone’s put a torch to me,” Lu sighs, from the floor, as if there’s something appealing about that notion. I lie down on the cool, scarred hardwood next to her but don’t touch, my toes an inch from her ankle, stretching into her and away at the same time.