ND Review Cover 98_2/QXP 2/14/03 1:44 AM Page 1 Fiction Poetry Criticism Richard Elman Christopher Merrill Marci Sulak Willis Barnstone Is it Ken Smith Romana Huk Martha Gies Robert Leitz Michael Martone Linda Scheller art? William Logan Is it art? Is it politics? R.D. Skillings Robert Archambeau George Looney James Weil Libby Bernardin Peter Michelson Is it Mark Brazaitas Jerry Harp Joe Francis Doerr Yasumasa Morimura Jere Odell Laurie Hogin politics? A New Kind of Literary Magazine SUMMER 1998 Each issue of theNotre Dame Reviewcontinues in its on-line companion, theND reVIEW (http://www.nd.edu/~ndr/review.htm). There you’ll find interviews, critique and commentary on authors and artists showcased within the pages of the magazine you’re now holding. In NUMBER 6 some cases, additional selections of fiction, poetry or art are presented. In others, you’ll be able to hear poets reading from their own work. You’ll also be able to exchange ideas with other 02> SUMMER 1998 readers, even many of the authors themselves. Come take part in a vibrant literary community! Ht: 0.816", Wd: 1.4872", $8 U.S. Mag: 80% BWR: 1 $9.50 CANADA 0874470 880 31 NOTRE DAME REVIEW IS IT ART? . IS IT POLITICS? Yasumasa Morimura, Potrait (Futago), 1988, color photograph, 82.75 X 118". Courtesy of Luhring Augustine 175 P O E T R Y P R O S E CONTENTS Richard Elman 1 70 Winged Petroleum William O'Rourke Mars The Poverty of 4 (art) Rutubeuf Laurie Hogan (poetry) 72 October Song Richard Elman (prose) Montenegro 6 Martha Gies (prose) 80 The Sunlight on Christopher Merrill March Snow Visiting Terzin 35 (poetry) Valessko Robert Lietz (poetry) 82 Fragments from Marcela Sulak the Blue Guide Only a Paper Moon in 38 (prose) Argentina Michael Martone Demons 84 Path of the Padres (poetry) Harvest Willis Barnstone (poetry) An Interview With 40 Linda Scheller Ken Smith 88 After the War Romana Huk (poetry) & Joe Francis Doerr William Logan The Telephone is in 64 90 Mercy the Key of C (prose) Noises Off R. D. Skillings A Dream of Disaster 114 Mother (Judith I) The Geography of Clouds Six Brides (poetry) (art) Ken Smith Yasumasa Morimura 173 NOTRE DAME REVIEW Victory Over the Sun 116 REVIEWS (poetry) Robert Archambeau 145 The Falling Hour Faith Isn't in the Hands 118 by David Wojahn (poetry) Joe Francis Doerr George Looney 152 Our Lady of Europe Arlington 120 by Jeremy Hooker (poetry) Jere Odell Libby Bernadin 156 The Ground that Founding Fathers 122 Love Seeks (poetry) by Paul Matthews James L. Weil Katie Lehman The Day They Maced 123 & Tom O'Connor Our Lady 160 Breakfast in Babylon (prose) Emer Martin Peter Michelson 161 The Hunger Moon Two Countries 139 Suzanne Matson On the Roof of 162 Dra–– the Hotel Pasaje Stacey Levine (poetry) The Celibacy Club Mark Brazaitis Janice Eidus A Man Who Was 144 163 Editors Select Afraid Of Languages (poetry) 165 Contributors' Notes Jerry Harp 174 NOTRE DAME REVIEW NOTRE DAME REVIEW NUMBER 6 Editor Valerie Sayers Senior Editor Steve Tomasula Poetry Editor John Matthias Fiction Editor William O'Rourke Managing Editor Editorial Assistants Amy Wray Kelley Beeson Sarah Bowman Editorial Board Kathleen Canavan Sonia Gernes Amy Christopher Jere Odell R. Thomas Coyne James Walton Amy DeBetta Henry Weinfield Joseph Doerr Kevin Johnson Katie Lehman Tom O'Connor Rod Phasouk Charles Walton Jr. The Notre Dame Review is published semi-annually. Subscriptions: $15(individuals) or $20 (institutions) per year. Single Copy price: $8. Distributed by Bernard DeBoer, Inc., Nutley, New Jersey, International Periodical Distributors, Solana Beach, California and Anderson News, Madison, Alabama. We welcome manuscripts, which are read from September through April. Please include a SASE for return. Please send all subscription and editorial correspondence to: Notre Dame Review, The Creative Writing Program, Department of English, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556. Notre Dame Review copyright 1998 by the University of Notre Dame ISSN: 1082-1864 Is It Art? Is It Politics? ISBN 1-892492-05-9 Cover Art: Allegorie de la Stabilité, (detail) oil on canvas, 1994, by Laurie Hogan. Photo of Richard Elman: Pedro Meyer. Cover Design: Patrick Ryan 172 RICHARD ELMAN 1934 - 1997 Richard Elman was one of the contributors to the inaugural issue of the Notre Dame Review and one of its most loyal friends. He was also a steadfast political writer and, during the second half of the twentieth century, that was not an easy thing to be. He dared to be unfashionable. And being unfashionable, not tacking with the cultural winds, has turned out to be a major political statement in the eighties and nineties. He was partisan without being a partisan: he was no one’s apparatchik. More directly, his ground breaking reports from Nicaragua (collected in Cocktails at Somoza’s and fictionalized in Disco Frito) made both warring sides there unhappy. During the mid-seventies, Richard amassed a large manuscript describing contemporary American literary figures’ (especially its Brahmins’) involvements with the CIA and, though never published in full, its talked-about existence did not make him popular. 1 NOTRE DAME REVIEW In the early eighties, Richard gave acerbic, insightful commentary on NPR’s All Things Considered. That gig ended when he launched a hilarious dissection of the people who were voraciously collecting South African Krugerrands. It apparently offended too many NPR listeners and producers. NPR was attempting to prove itself politically correct to the Reagan-era Congress, which meant taking on more conservative commentators, then in ascendancy. Richard was out of step, again, with the times: the greed decade was galloping by him. Reverence for the rich was effectively reasserting control. And Richard, happily, lacked that in spades: one of my earliest memories of him was when I was a student at Columbia in 1969 and we were part of a luncheon group honoring George T. Delacorte, a donor to the school (I was there since my financial aid bore Delacorte’s name). Richard was the first to leave. “May your millions increase,” he said to the dapper Delacorte upon exiting and George did not receive it as a compliment. Anyone who eschews fashion in the late twentieth century, who writes what he believes, not what others believe, is always in danger of falling victim to our culture’s most potent weapon, neglect. But Richard was tireless. He wouldn’t let the bastards get him down (hard to do these days, since they are so good at what they do). When he was struck with cancer it was a shock; he was not in the mood to die. That was the last thing on his mind. And the suddenness of its onset and the rapidity of its progress was astounding. And he went through those days with the courage that had accompanied him throughout his life. He still wished to write and was still sending out work. His last novel yet published (which he finished up and saw through production here at Notre Dame, while he was the visiting Abrams Chair in Jewish Studies during 1990-91), Tar Beach, was an act of literary resurrection, a hymn involving all the themes of his earlier work, but leached of rancor and made radiant. Now three books are to emerge in succession, alas, posthumously, beginning with a literary memoir, Namedropping, this summer from SUNY Press, followed by two novels, Love Handles and The Music Master’s Diary, from Sun & Moon. Even as the disease and treatments took their toll 2 RICHARD ELMAN Richard wanted to be active, to have his mind focused. He wrote me in late fall, “If you know of somebody for whom I can review. .” Even that most thankless of journeyman tasks meant life to him, the chance to be who he was, honest, direct, generous in the service of literature. He closed that note with a quote from Karl Marx, prompted by my concern at the grim prognosis of his illness, “The invitation to abandon illusions concerning a situation is an invitation to abandon a situation that has need of illusions.” Richard knew which illusions to have and which not to have. And it is with great humbleness that we dedicate this issue to his memory. ––William O'Rourke 3 NOTRE DAME REVIEW THE POVERTY OF RUTUBEUF Richard Elman A translation of a petition to King Phillipe II from the 13th century French My indigence is so abundant I lack everything I want and call myself abundantly poor. In the name of God, I beg you, Sire, give me such means to live as you in charity can give. Others who helped me with good deeds in crediting me toward all my needs no longer have much faith to let me thrive so poorly in their debt. For your part, toward thy remote throne, all my poor hopes repose alone. The high cost of living, and my tie to family who won’t be beaten down and die flattens my purse and leaves me broke. I meet people who cleverly joke when refusing me, not inclined to give me succor; they only want to guard their lucre. Death, for his part, has done all to wound me, Sire, as you may recall, (on two occasions parted from good conditions); and then there was that far off expedition to Tunis, savage barren desert lands, with all those cursed infidel bands. 4 RICHARD ELMAN Good King, if it comes to me you’ve stepped down, all my world will lack a crown, and I shall abdicate also. Nobody’s hand reaches out. I’m finished.