CONTENTS FICTION FEATURE At the Turn • Steven Earl Hobbs 44 Pattern of Life • Mark Powell 56 Joy’s Trick: Nine Paragraphs on Faith and Poetry Christian Wiman 8 INTERVIEW Conversing with the Symphony of the Dead”: POETRY An Interview with Paul Mariani by Dianne Bilyak 70 Lauds • Martha Serpas 13 VISUAL ART Sonnets • Anthony Opal 14 Spofford Lake Notebook • Nate Klug 20 Cover: “The Minke and the Stag” Stella Maria Baer Passport Redux • Jackson Taylor 25 8 “Compression 1” by Jon Seals After • Steven Toussaint 31 13 “Because the light knits the dark, I count on this life” Asli Ozcivelek 16 “Untitled” by Angus McCullough Poems from Nuestras Pequeñas Rosas 31 “Crown Roast” by Tom Cocotos curated by Spencer Reece 32 20 “The Bear in the Canoe” Stella Maria Baer 31 “Greatly Abridged” by Alex Tatusian Taking Account • Mullenix Rose • Communion • Returning Bryan Patrick Miller 37 32-33 Watercolors by Nuestras Pequeñas Rosas residents 43 “Untitled” by Kayla Antiel God Particles 44 Mixed media diorama” by Anonymous A response to Bryan Patrick Miller’s poems by R.A. Villaneuva 37 56 “Vaya con Heuvos” by Rachel Fainter Mary Jo Bang & Andrew Hudgins answer Dostoevsky’s Accursed Questions 40 tober 2012. For more information about er-Ending (1991), and the forthcoming A CONTRIBUTORS Dianne’s work, please visit her web- Clown at Midnight (June 2013). Hudgins LETTERS site: www.inthewayback.com. is also the author of a new memoir, The Kayla Antiel (Plosz) received her MFA in Joker (2013), which chronicles Hudgins’ painting from Minneapolis College of Art and Tom Cocotos is a collage artist. He’s life as a teller of jokes. Head Editor: Design in Minneapolis, MN in 2012. She recently exhibited at The Art Director’s Club NY, The Boca Raton Museum of Nate Klug’s poetry has appeared in Abigail Dunn currently works and resides in New Haven, Art, The Leslie Lohman Gallery in Soho Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Poetry, Poet- CT with her husband. You can see more of NY, Miami Basel Pulse, Miami Basel ry Northwest, Sea Ranch, Threepenny Co-founding Editor: her work at www.kaylaplosz.com. Just Mad, and has one-person exhibi- Review, Yale Review, Zoland, and other Kai Hoffman-Krull Stella Maria Baer was born in Santa Cruz, tions coming up ath the Piegatto Gallery journals. A chapbook, Consent, is out California and grew up in New Mexico, Wyo- in Guatemala City and the Hollywood from Pressed Wafer, and Rude Woods, Editorial Board ming, and Massachusetts. She studied Phi- Center for Culture and Art. You can view his versions of Virgil’s Eclogues is forth- Christina Baik losophy at Dartmouth College and Religion more of his work at his online home, coming from The Song Cave. Charles Gillespie and Art at Yale Divinity School. She lives in www.cocotos.com. Kai Hoffman-Krull New Haven, Connecticut with her husband Paul Mariani is the author of seven Susanna Mayer Seth and a hedgehog named Hegel. Visit Rachel Fainter graduated from Savan- poetry collections, including Deaths Ryan Napier www.stellamariabaer.com to see more of nah College of Art and Design in 2008 & Transfigurations (2005), The Great Kathryn Pocalyko her work. with a Masters in Painting. In 2009 she Wheel (1996), and, most recently, Ep- received a scholarship to attend Skow- itaphs for the Journey (2012). He has hegan School of Painting and Sculp- published several books of prose, in- Advisory Board: Mary Jo Bang is the author of six collec- tions of poems, including Louise in Love, ture. She is a New York-based artist cluding the biographies, William Carlos Nate Antiel, The Bride of E, and Elegy, which was who explores the unreliable and mercu- Williams: A New World Naked (1981), Jordan Burke, awarded the National Book Critics Circle. rial nature of memory and its relation- which was short-listed for an American Lauren Smith, She’s been the recipient of a Guggenheim ship to representation in image-making, book award, and Gerard Manley Hop- Stacie Vos Fellowship and a Hodder Fellowship from focusing on ideas of verbal overshad- kins: A Life (2008). Mariani has also Princeton University. She teaches in the owing and Gertrude Stein’s continuous been honored with fellowships from the Faculty Advisor: creative writing program at Washington Uni- present. Guggenheim Foundation, the National Peter Hawkins versity in St. Louis. Her translation of Dan- Endowment for the Arts, and the Nation- te’s Inferno, with illustrations by Henrik Dre- Steven Earl Hobbs writes fiction and al Endowment for the Humanities. scher, was published by Graywolf in 2012. teaches writing and literature at the Col- Very special thanks to: lege of New Rochelle, School of New Angus McCullough was born in and Resources. He also serves on the com- raised in New York, NY. Looking for Martin Jean, Director of Yale Dianne Bilyak, an alum of Yale Divinity mittee for the Prison Writing Program at meaning in the human environment as ISM, Melissa Maier and and Yale ISM, had her first book of po- PEN American Center. He lives in Man- an observer, performer and designer. Albert Agbayani. ems, Against the Turning, published in 2011. She has been nominated for a Pushcart hattan. Prize and excerpts of her interviews with Bryan Patrick Miller has published poets about writing and spirituality are on Andrew Hudgins is the author of sev- essays and poems in the New York the Poetry Society of America’s website. Her eral poetry collections, including Saints Times Magazine, International Herald play, Cradle to Gravy, was selected to be and Strangers (1986), which was a Tribune, Seattle Magazine, and Poet- part of the United Solo Festival in NYC Oc- finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, The Nev- ry International. He also edited Leo 4 5 Tolstoy’s How Much Land Does a Man of the students’ poems to benefit the age, and Southwest Review and in The Coast, Virginia Quarterly Review, Need, translated by Boris Dralyuk OLR home. Reece’s debut collection Art of the Sonnet and the Library of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, DI- (2010). He was a Writer-in-Residence of poetry, The Clerk’s Tale (2004), was America’s American Religious Poems. AGRAM, Bellevue Literary Review, at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and a chosen for the Bakeless Poetry Prize She teaches in the University of Hous- and elsewhere. He is a founding editor Geduld Master Fellow at New York Uni- by Louise Glück and adapted into a ton’s Creative Writing Program and of Tongue: A Journal of Writing versity, where he also taught poetry to short film by director James Franco. He serves as a hospital chaplain. undergraduates. Miller was a finalist for is also the author of the collection The Christian Wiman’s most recent book is the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship in 2011. Road to Emmaus (2014) Jackson Taylor is the author of the My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Mod- novel The Blue Orchard, and he directs ern Believer. In the fall of 2013 he will Anthony Opal lives near Chicago and Joszef Ramos is in 9th grade and is the newly launched Writer’s Foundry join the faculty of the Yale Institute of edits The Economy. His work has ap- currently a scholarship student in Spen- MFA at St. Joseph’s College in Brook- Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School. peared in Poetry, Boston Review, Tri- cer Reece’s poetry class at Our Little lyn. He’s also directs the Prison Writing Quarterly, and elsewhere. To read more, Roses in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Program at P.E.N., where he co-edited visit www.anthonyopal.com/ and co-wrote the program’s Handbook Leyli Carolina Figueroa Rodríguez for Writers in Prison. He also advises Asli Ozcivelek is a Brooklyn based is in 9th grade and currently resides at the Anne Frank Center’s Prison Diary industrial design student. She is current- Our Little Roses, a home for girls in San Project, teaches creative writing at the ly in her second year in the Master of Pedro Sula, Honduras. Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in lower Industrial Design program at Pratt Insti- Manhattan, and was one of the found- tute, NY. She is originally from Ankara, Jon Seal’s studio practice is organized ers of the MFA program at The New Turkey. Prior to starting her masters, around identity as it relates to memory, School. Previously Taylor was a floater she studied Graphic Design at Bilkent loss, and redemption. He works in both at The New York Times at the Culture, University (Ankara, Turkey). large and small formats, using painting, Week in Review, Arts and Leisure, Na- drawing and mixed media to articu- tional and Metro desks. Mark Powell is the author of three late his images. His work mines fading novels—Blood Kin, Prodigals (winner memories in an effort to better under- Alex Tatusian works with people. He of the Peter Taylor Prize for the Nov- stand how those memories shape his runs BF Bifocals with several friends el), and The Dark Corner—and has identity. For seven years he was chair has received a degree from an accred- received fellowships from the National of the visual art department at a college ited institution. Presently Alex works out Endowment for the Arts, the Bread- preparatory school in Clearwater, FL. In of New York City, primarily as a graphic loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Col- 2012 he received an MFA in painting designer and project manager in the legeville Center for Ecumenical Re- from Savannah College of Design and arts. He emphasizes collaboration and search. He is a graduate of Yale Divinity has been admitted into the MARc (Re- working with available materials.