A few months ago, near the end of the summer, we stood chatting over the fence, far in the back by the old shed with the paint peeling from the door, a hoe in your hand, trowel in mine. You talked about your only brother, I, my only daughter. Your brother talked constantly you said. I said my daughter couldn’t talk at all. You said…
Echocardiography
I lifted my three-year-old daughter, Willa onto my shoulders, and then we continued up the hill to take in the view of the Georgia pines and perhaps spot a deer, or the great-horned owl that had swooped skyward there a few days before. I was enthused by the leisurely morning, but soon my chest tightened, my heart beating far too fast. Something’s wrong, I said…
Like a Poet in a Candy Shop
As I make the transition away from Portland Review and toward my thesis work for the MFA program, I’m thinking about how I got to Portland and why I’m grateful to be here. It’s wild to think that I’m here today due to some strange combination of hearsay about Portland, the whims of a particular FedEx employee, and the kindness of my faculty in not…
The Wrath of God
A reprint of The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake was released in 2002 with an additional afterward by House of Sand and Fog author Andre Dubus III, who claims Pancake as a great influence. Additionally, the University of Tennessee Press put out A Room Forever: The Life, Work, Letters Of Breece D’J Pancake, by Thomas E. Douglas in 2004.
Betrothal of the Virgins
This artwork appears in our Fall 2013 issue (Vol. 60.1)