THE SCO FIELD O KAY BOYLE LOVE ISSUE 1.2 FALL 2015 THE SCOFIELD HENRY PEACH ROBINSON THE SCO FIELD 1.2 “If love is an element, like weather or wind, then it must go unchallenged.” She Never Told Me Her Love KAY BOYLE, YEAR BEFORE LAST “In Kay Boyle’s long journey, a few themes remain constant: a belief in the absolute essentiality of love — whether on a personal or a global scale, an awareness of the many obstacles to its attainment, and a tragic sense of loss when love fails and the gulfs between human beings stand unbridged.” SANDRA SPANIER, KAY BOYLE: ARTIST AND ACTIVIST KAY BOYLE LOVE “I think your thesis about my work is deeply right: that all human misery can be seen as the failure of love.” DIGITAL IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MET KAY BOYLE IN A LETTER TO SANDRA SPANIER OASC PROGRAM WWW.METMUSEUM.ORG ISSUE 1.2 FALL 2015 PAGE 2 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Scofield Thayer Pg. 2 Kay Boyle Pg. 29 Sculpture by Gaston Lachaise Photograph by Al Ravenna She Never Told Me Her Love Pg. 2 Love (13 Disambiguations) Pg. 30 Photograph by Henry Peach Robinson Essay by Porochista Khakpour Table of Contents Pg. 3 Feral Family Pg. 35 Painting by Kirsty Whiten The Absolute Essentiality of Love Pg. 7 Letter from the Editor by Tyler Malone Cuts of Meat: You Too Can Have a Body Like Pg. 36 Mine Kay Boyle Selected Bibliography Pg. 10 Review by Isabella Tangherlini List of Works by Kay Boyle Billets-Doux Pt. 1 Pg. 38 “Introduction: Place Names” from Kay Boyle: Pg. 11 Love Letter Excerpts from Various Authors Author of Herself Biography Excerpt by Joan Mellen The Couple Pg. 40 Painting by Horton Humble Kay Boyle Ports of Entry Pg. 17 Flame-Heart Pg. 41 Recommended Reading by Various Authors Poetry by Claude McKay A Selection from Year Before Last Pg. 21 Uniting Aesthetic and Political Revolution in Pg. 42 Novel Excerpt by Kay Boyle Love: A Conversation with Sandra Spanier Interview by Bethany Ober Mannon Writing Is About Belief: Pg. 24 A Conversation with Shawn Wong The Visiting Writer Pg. 50 KAY BOYLE LOVE Interview by Conor Higgins Fiction by Matthew Vollmer Bright Star Pg. 29 Threat (Wild Garlic) Pg. 61 Poetry by David Markson Painting by Kirsty Whiten ISSUE 1.2 FALL 2015 PAGE 3 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Sonnet 116 Pg. 62 The Garden Pg. 81 Poetry by William Shakespeare Poetry by Lola Ridge Baronne de Domecy Pg. 62 Reclining Nude Pg. 81 Painting by Odilon Redon Painting by Amedeo Modigliani A Selection from Monday Night Pg. 63 “Kay Boyle and the Affect of Human Rights” Pg. 82 Novel Excerpt by Kay Boyle from Cosmopolitan Minds Critical Excerpt by Alexa Weik von Mossner To Joseph Franckenstein, 20 November 1940 Pg. 69 Letter by Kay Boyle Love and a Question Pg. 89 Poetry by Robert Frost A Lover’s Quarrel Pg. 70 Photography by John Stevenson Never Two Without Three: Pg. 90 A Conversation with Paul Holdengräber Plagued by the Nightingale: Notes from a Pg. 71 Interview by Tyler Malone Reader’s Diary Commentary by Tristan Foster The Sofa Pg. 97 Painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Ode to a Nightingale Pg. 77 Poetry by John Keats A Selection from Phaedrus Pg. 98 Dialogue Excerpt by Plato Cover Pg. 78 Painting by Kirsty Whiten Peacockery Pg. 108 Painting by Kirsty Whiten Love Songs Pg. 79 Essay by Brian Newman KAY BOYLE LOVE Three Poems Pg. 109 Poetry by Jericho Brown Ill-Matched Lovers Pg. 80 Painting by Quentin Massys ISSUE 1.2 FALL 2015 PAGE 4 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros Pg. 110 The Dream of the Shepherd Pg. 129 Painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau Painting by Ferdinand Hodler “The Emotional Thing”: Kay Boyle’s Death of Pg. 111 Eight Possible Essays on Kay Boyle’s Pg. 130 a Man Monday Night Essay by Dorian Stuber Essay by Scott Cheshire Readying Pg. 115 Flatfoot Fronting Pg. 136 Painting by Kirsty Whiten Painting by Kirsty Whiten At Night Pg. 116 Second Row Pg. 137 Poetry by Ian Von Franckenstein Essay by Chelsea Hodson Great Thinkers on Love Pg. 117 Bow & Eros Pg. 139 Quotations from Various Great Thinkers Essay by Dustin Illingworth Mammalian Pastoral Pg. 119 Moonlight Night Pg. 141 Painting by Kirsty Whiten Poetry by Du Fu Nourishment for Real Moral Inquiry: Pg. 120 The Limits of Mythology in Kay Boyle’s The Pg. 142 The Book of Aron Underground Woman Review by Matthew Thomas Essay by Richard Fletcher A Selection from De Profundis Pg. 122 The Good-Morrow Pg. 146 Letter Excerpt from Oscar Wilde Poetry by John Donne The Writer and the Spy Pg. 125 Auntie-Matter: Notes on a Trip to the Bay Pg. 147 KAY BOYLE LOVE Biographical Sketch by Laura Spence-Ash Area to Visit My Aunt Nancy Travelogue by Tyler Malone ISSUE 1.2 FALL 2015 PAGE 5 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS I Have No Life But This Pg. 158 Act II Scene II from Romeo & Juliet Pg. 179 Poetry by Emily Dickinson Play Excerpt by William Shakespeare Briefer Mentions from the Pages of The Dial: Pg. 159 A Selection from the Obergefell v. Hodges Pg. 184 Mr. Antiphilos, Satyr & An Outline of Wells Ruling Reviews by Kay Boyle (Unsigned) Opinion of the Court by Justice Anthony Kennedy Lola Ridge Takes an Assistant Pg. 160 On Our Nightstand Pg. 185 Biographical Sketch by Terese Svoboda Recommended Reading by Various Authors Boylesque Pg. 165 Swimming Nan Pg. 188 Recommended Reading by Various Authors Cocktail Recipe & Photography by Abraham Nunez Monody to the Sound of Zithers Pg. 167 Panel of Dead Authors Pg. 189 Poetry by Kay Boyle Comic by Charlie Meyard There’s No Plot to Life: A Conversation with Pg. 168 Billets-Doux Pt. 2 Pg. 190 Kelley Baker Love Letter Excerpts from Various Authors Interview by Mary Duffy Yellowed Archives Pg. 192 Comic by Dustin Illingworth K.B. Pg. 174 Poetry by Jonathan Morton “The Politics of Love” from The Faith of Pg. 193 the Faithless If Written, It Must Be True: Remembering Pg. 175 Philosophy Excerpt by Simon Critchley Kay Boyle Remembrance by Woody Haut KAY BOYLE LOVE Masthead & Dramatis Personae Pg. 195 Portraiture by Scott Brandos Love Song Pg. 178 Poetry by Evelyn Scott ISSUE 1.2 FALL 2015 PAGE 6 THE SCOFIELD TYLER MALONE TYLER MALONE it’s tough though doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, of course. James Baldwin knew, “Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” Yes, writers have had a lot to say on the topic, but The Absolute they’re not the only ones for whom love looms large, and thus, they’re not the only ones who say enlightening things on love. Actress Katharine Hepburn said, “Love Essentiality of Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to For a person of my generation, it’s hard to say it get—only with what you are expecting to give—which and not sing it; it’s hard to say it and not imagine Chris is everything.” The giving aspect of love seems crucial. Kattan and Will Farrell bobbing their heads in unison. French mystic Marguerite Porete found violence in the But I find myself often asking dance artist Haddaway’s giving and in the acceptance. To her, love involves some timeless question, “What is love?” self-destruction. She wrote, “One must crush oneself, There are few questions more important and few hacking and hewing away at oneself to widen the place in words that poets, novelists, and philosophers have spent which love will want to be.” more time trying to define. In a letter to her lover Henry Simon Critchley, in his book The Faith of the Miller, writer Anaïs Nin answered the question plainly: Faithless—an excerpt of which concludes our issue— “What is love but the acceptance of the other, whatever takes Porete’s views of love as a touchstone for his he is.” Acceptance is certainly a big part of love, but ruminations on the subject. He sees love as an act of isn’t there more to it than mere acceptance? Acceptance spiritual daring and an act of impoverishment, where, as is just the tolerating of that which is other, that which Porete describes, you empty yourself, making space for is not alike. Philosopher Theodor Adorno went a bit love to enter. Porete is not the only thinker foundational further, saying: “Love is the power to see similarity to his argument, for Søren Kierkegaard plays a major role in the dissimilar.” He moves beyond mere acceptance as well. It’s worth noting that Kierkegaard wrote in his of difference and sees love in a way as undermining journals: “It is really remarkable that while all the other difference. Love here becomes a sort of connective tissue. attributes ascribed to God are adjectives, ‘Love’ alone is a “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy substantive, and it would scarcely occur to one to make to a friend,” preached Martin Luther King, Jr. the mistake of saying: ‘God is lovely.’ Thus, language Yet for a writer like Charles Bukowski, the itself has given expression to the substantial element that KAY BOYLE LOVE connective tissue of love is illusory. He wrote, “Love is a is found in this attribute.” fog that burns with the first daylight of reality.” Ernest While we won’t exactly attempt a definition of the Hemingway, who had four wives and who-knows-how- strange phenomenon of love, we at The Scofield have many lovers, knew this all too well: “If two people love chosen it as our theme for our second issue and hope that each other there can be no happy end to it.” Just because through the various definitions and descriptions of the ISSUE 1.2 FALL 2015 PAGE 7 THE SCOFIELD TYLER MALONE TYLER MALONE emotion that enliven these pages, a clearer picture of an Boyle, who is certainly more well-known for her novels, opaque sensation will be brought to the fore.