Oberlin College Press

FIELD #83 (Fall 2010)

Contents

Richard Wilbur: A Symposium
Bruce Weigl		"The Beautiful Changes": Losing Back to Wonder
Annie Finch		Richard Wilbur's Accent: On Wading "The Beautiful Changes"
Steve Friebert and Stuart Friebert		"First Snow in Alsace": Heaven and Hell in the Poise Between "Inhabit" and "Know"
DeSales Harrison		"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World": A Difficult Balance
David Young		"Beasts": Warped in Window-Glass
Beckian Fritz Goldberg		"Icarium Mare": The Sanctuary of Sense
Carole Simmons Oles		"This Pleasing Anxious Being": Mayflies in Amber
Stephen Tapscott		My Heart Was on the Serpents' Side: Richard Wilbur's Translations
*****
Jon Loomis		Conspiracy Theory
Natalie Shapero		Implausible Travel Plans A Cup, the Amount of Blood in a Human Heart
David Dodd Lee		The Bone Sculptures The Past
Kuno Raeber translated by Stuart Friebert		Splashes Still Life The Trunk The Plate
Deborah Flanagan		Translation of Scent
John Gallaher		The Bridge at Rest The First Chance I Get I'm Out of Here
Adam Giannelli		Incurable Cloud
Megan Snyder-Camp		Revision Confession
Kimiko Hahn		A Dream of Parsnips A Dream of a Pillow
Amit Majmudar		Control+Alt+Delete Ghazal
Sandra McPherson		As We Understand Them (I) As We Understand Them (II)
Dennis Schmitz		On the Mississippi at Night
Mark Irwin		Open House Horizon
Ray Amorosi		Island When We
Elizabeth Breese		Self-Portrait at Glendalough Calamity the Way I Think It
Nathan Parker		The Lord of the Forest
Rick Bursky		Cardiology
Timothy O'Keefe		Broken Sonnet: Our Own Rumpelstiltskin Why I'm Not Photogenic Another Legend to Tuck Us In
Elton Glaser		Low Wranglings, High Resolution
Jack Kristiansen		Eleven A.M.
Brian Laidlaw		Bedroll Spatial Politic of the Rapture
David Wagoner		My Mother's Nightmare
Mary Ann Samyn		A Painted Sun Shark Shark Shark, or Whatever It Is That You Want Next The Good with the Bad
Eric Torgersen		Translator's Notes on "A Few Notes from the Elbholz"
Nicolas Born translated by Eric Torgersen		A Few Notes from the Elbholz

CONSPIRACY THEORY

It starts with a flash, and then snow--
dither of sparrows, winter clenching its teeth.
One day you're out walking: your shoes

sink into the pavement, the white van
pulls up to the curb. Of course
they deny the whole thing, whoever they are

in their joke-shop masks: one like Reagan,
one like Felix the Cat. You worry too much,
they tell you, adjusting your chains. It's bad

for your health. You nod, keep your mouth shut.
The snow smells like smoke. The sparrows
rustle their leathery wings.

--Jon Loomis

THE BRIDGE AT REST

The bridge is dreaming again.

In favor of the present moment,
the bridge is dreaming
or we're dreaming of a bridge.

Cables in great arcs.

This is where I sit
with the convergence. How full
the everything else, where the traffic moves through
certain days,

rows above rows
and circling sky.

The bridge is dreaming of people
in great arcs.

I read it in the newspapers.

One calls it "leaping"
and one calls it "jumping." One calls it "to pour,"
and one calls it "to fill."

And it's two worlds.
The direction called Getting There,
where they waited and waited.

So that now
your body is most things
over the city,
in favor of the present moment.

And what are we going to say then?

--John Gallaher

AS WE UNDERSTAND THEM (II)

Does the sacred stand,
Front hooves on the fence
As a goat does--smelling your salt, tasting your oil,
Bleating to the attention of your hand?

The awakening that was
Cannot compare
With all the instants
Time can herd into its whole.

Is the manger preserved?
A boy at the country fair
In the lamb fields
Watched them shear
Year after year.
And still feels he's a boy.

After his death
The fair opens its gates,
New children, sucklings,
Clean straw.

There are songs of the pigs,
A chorus of sheep: Let us record
Sacred music.

--Sandra McPherson