The middle-aged man in the room looked up from the book he was reading. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
I am here to take the resit exam sir. Pablo Paul. MIS0202. 0202. Oh. Yes. Resit. For the World Literature course.
Yes sir. Is this the right room? Number 77. Yes. Ah, yes. You’re three minutes late.
Sorry sir. I don’t know this building very well. The rooms don’t follow a sequence.
Yes. Not familiar with this building. I can, yes, see that from your attendance record. Yes. MIS0202. Only three classes last semester. Yes. Those too were probably proxy presences from helpful friends.
I am sorry sir. I wasn’t very well. Can we start the test?
In the bay, as always, I think about plunging into the water. Far out in the surf are porpoises, but no fish are biting. The path curved around the island and we looked into it: eyes into eyes, and holly branches improbably stretching upward where the sky is grey. Later, I had questions for you— like where were you looking when I was on the edge of the water. Why are we always standing next to each other, but not facing each other? Which part of the island is more stable. Which part bows to salt spray. When will the solid land become a series of smaller islands? In the sunken forest, the trees were pruned by saltwater. I feel very far away from my own body.…
Erik Fuhrer is the author of several books of poetry, including last year’s Not Human Enough for the Census (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), which is officially described as “an ode to apocalypse as anthem for the environment [that] sees nature as a protagonist fighting to change humanity by exposing its absurdity. This collection finds both beauty in decay and hope in our mistakes.” His upcoming book, in which I take myself hostage, will be published by Spuyten Duyvil Press later this year.
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum chats with Fuhrer about his latest collections, his inspirations, and plans for 2021.
Lois Ruskai Melina is the author of The Grammar of Untold Stories, which reviewer Rene Denfeld (longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction) described as follows: “Each essay acts as the surface of water, inviting us to explore deeper. Family, children, infertility, and loss are just some of the issues explored in this brilliant book.” After receiving a PhD in Leadership Studies, Melina taught in universities, and her research focused on social movements and leadership. She lives in Oregon with her husband, where she enjoys rowing and women’s soccer; also, she has a grown son and a grown daughter, as well as two grandchildren.
The title essay, “The Grammar of Untold Stories,” was a Notable Essay in Best American Essays, 2018 and a finalist for the North American Review’s Torch Prize and the New Letters Prize for Nonfiction.…
We were up in my grandmother’s big oak trees, the ones in front with the moss hanging down like witches’ hair. A Tarzan movie had come on the Early Show and me and my Cousin Johnny Wray were up there hanging on limbs with our shirts off making muscles. Johnny Wray could sound just like Tarzan when he called the elephants. That was the coolest thing that Tarzan did.
The problem with playing with Johnny Wray was that he always had to be the cool dude. When we played Gunsmoke, I had to be Chester, when we played Wild Wild West, he was always Jim West and I had to be Artemus Gordon. The worst was when we played Roy Rogers. I had to be Pat. …
There is a healthy amount of feral and even demonic in your average three-year-old, for only in gleeful destruction and chaos do you learn that you are a distinct person, separate from your mother’s tits and expectations. For your body to be still mostly mush but your brain learning to speak an entire nonsense language that we just made up for ourselves, just for fun, the supernatural must be involved.
I think most nurseries must have ghosts, soothing babes as they wake up at witching hour, singing them lullabies from beyond the veil. Being shoved out into this horrible, horrible world without their permission—the dead are sympathetic.
Our preschool is in one of the many historic churches of Philadelphia. Light shines through stained glass onto potty accidents, pews emptied, Magna Tiles brought in.…
Bright jade jack pines strike against sky, surround the lake in full, a catch to keep the magic in. Whiskey Jacks perch, invisible. Their whistles and chirrups bounce between branches, stir the air as a paddle stirs water, ripples peeling from the blade with every dip.
Paddle until dark, circle until your arms burn and shoulders ache, until the lake trout stop their trick flips and the sky opens. Night turns it transparent, fades the sky in slow gradient, bright blue soaking into black like wet spill into rag. It lets the light through, magnetic pinpoints of flood that sew lake and sky close, the gap between pressed thin, every prick and sparkle reflected, carried on the ripples of your blood stream, spinning with the cells, a golden match, stars so thick they could be water. …
