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The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Contents

ARTICLES 

Observations on Hemingway, Suggestiveness, and the Modern Short Story 

Preface to Solos, Duets, Trios, and Choruses (Membrane/Future) 

Cynicism in Robert Stone's A Hall of Mirrors 

Literary Continuity in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street  

John Gardner's Dialogue with the Book of Job  

The Death of Professor Golovin  

POEMS 

The Storyteller 

This Winter  

Winter Inventory 

Expectations 

Parts and Service 

At Midnight, the Angel of Death Fills the 

Trees  

Other Septembers 

Love: The Basics 

On the Screened Porch 

Wheatspill 

On Vacation in Vermont 

Eve Day 

Through a Still October Air 

Beneath Midwest Sky 

Morton Arboretum 

REVIEWS 

John Wheatcroft; The Mother of All Loves  

Marty Roth; Foul and Fair Play 

Steven Weisenburger; Fables of Subversion 

Nancy D. Hargrove; The Journey Toward Ariel 

Abstract

ROBERT PAUL LAMB revealingly explores the short story writer's use of compression and exact word choice through examples drawn mainly from Ernest Hemingway. Author of articles on Melville, Whitman, Hemingway, and the film Citizen Kane, and a forthcoming essay on James G. Birney and southern abolitionism, Lamb is Assistant Professor of English at Purdue University. He is currently completing a book-length study of "Hemingway and the Short Story."

RICHARD KOSTELANETZ discusses his innovations in poetic form and content and provides three examples of his work. Widely acclaimed for his explorations in new ways to convey written language, Kostelanetz lives independently (which, he says, translates to being unemployed) and writes independently in New York City. Among his recent publications are Woodworks: Poems Selected and New, A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes, and On Innovative Performances, where he served as the author, and edited works on Merce Cunningham and John Cage: Writer.

BALOIAN lives in Half Moon Bay, California, which is famous for pumpkins and mermaids. Between poems, he teaches high school. His poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

LISA BESKIN, Amherst, Massachusetts, has published poems recently in New York Quarterly, Gulf Coast, The Chiron Review, and other journals.

CRAIG CHALLENDER has published poems recently in Southern Poetry Review, Calliope, and Cincinnati Poetry Review. His first collection of poems, Familiar Things, will be out in 1995 from Linwood Publishers. His poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. He lives in Farmville, Virginia.

ROBERT FUNGE, San Carlos, California, has recent poems in The Literary Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Hiram Poetry Journal, and Wisconsin Review. He recently received South Dakota Poetry Review's poetry award. His book of poems, The Lie the Lamb Knows, was published by Spoon River Poetry Press. His poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

EDWARD HAWORTH-HOEPPNER's poems have appeared in Nimrod, Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner, and other journals. He lives in Rochester, Michigan.

GEORGE KALAMARAS, South Bend, Indiana, has published two chapbooks of poems, Heart Without End (Leaping Mountain Press, 1986), and Beneath the Breath (Tilton House, 1988). His poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Caliban, Sulfur, and other journals.

LYN LIFSHIN has edited four collections of women's literature and has published her own work in numerous magazines, including Yankee, American Scholar, Christian Science Monitor, MS, Rolling Stone, and many others. Her recent poetry collections include Marilyn Monroe Poems, Not Made of Glass, and The Doctor Poems. A documentary film has been made about her, and she has received numerous awards, including state arts grants and writing colony scholarships. Event Horizon Press will soon publish her book, The Holocaust Poems. Her poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. She lives in Vienna, Virginia.

KATHLEEN LYNCH, Pleasanton, California, has published poems in several literary magazines, including CutBank, Chariton Review, and Poetry Northwest. She is also a fiction writer and an artist.

HILLARY LYON has published poems in Poem, Seattle Review, and Poetry Motel. Her poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. The major focus of her recent career is Spencer Andrew, born September 19, 1994. She lives in Lake Worth, Florida. RON MCFARLAND's most recent book, The Haunting Familiarity of Things, was published in 1994 by Singular Speech Press. He lives in Moscow, Idaho.

JOHN MCKERNAN, Barboursville, West Virginia, has published two collections of poems, Walking Along the Missouri River and Erasing the Blackboard. For a hobby, he grows exotic apple trees.

MARTIN OTT has published a chapbook of poems, Misery Loves (Red Dancefloor Press, 1994). He has published poetry, fiction, or essays in numerous journals, including Poet, Poetry Motel, and Potato Eyes. He lives in San Francisco, California.

DIXIE PARTRIDGE, Richland, Washington, has published two books of poems, Deer in the Haystacks (Ahsahta Press, 1984), and Watermark (Saturday Press, 1991), which received the 1990 Eileen W. Barnes Award. Her poems or essays have appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, Indiana Review, Ploughshares, and numerous other journals. The anthology, Circle of Women (Viking-Penguin, 1994), also included several of her poems.

KEN WALDMAN, Seattle, has recent work in South Dakota Review, High Plains Literary Review, and Tar River Poetry. He divides his time between Alaska and Washington.

GAIL WHITE's poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Spoon River Quarterly, Negative Capability, and other journals. Her chapbook, The Way We Come Home, was published by Sparrow Press. She lives in Sycamore, Illinois. Her work has appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

MICHAEL TAGER shows how author Robert Stone links cynicism with piety and patriotism in the central character of A Hall of Mirrors, a topic which came recently to public consciousness in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Assistant Professor of Political Science at Marietta College in Ohio, Tager has published articles on Joan Didion, Primo Levi, and Sam Shepard, among others, in other academic journals.

THOMAS MATCHIE examines the parallels in Sandra Cisneros's study of Esperanza with Mark Twain's Huck Finn and J.D. Salinger's Holden Caufield and the unique aspects of her culture. Author of articles on such Midwest writers as Tom McGrath and Louise Erdrich and Professor of English at North Dakota State University, Matchie also served for ten years in the North Dakota House of Representatives and Senate.

SALLY VENTURA discusses the ways John Gardner draws inspiration from the Book of Job in developing his novel, The Sunlight Dialogues. Currently devoting a year away from teaching secondary students to write a novel and be with her children, Ventura is here publishing her first article.

ROBERT WEXELBLATT encourages those who would be teachers to be mindful of their audience and their purposes, not least of which is to prod the often immature minds of young people to understand themselves and the texts they encounter in the classroom. Professor of Humanities at Boston University's College of General Studies, Wexelblatt has in the last half-decade published three collections of stories and essays--Life in the Temperate Zone, Professors at Play, and The Decline of Our Neighborhood--in addition to articles in many journals, including Midwest Quarterly. He has also been the recipient of seven writing prizes and the Metcalf Prize for Excellence in Teaching, both qualities on exhibit in the present essay.

CHARLES CAGLE is an award-winning creative writer and Professor of English at Pittsburg State University. He teaches his art both on and off the PSU campus.

KATHY DE GRAVE, Associate Professor of English at Pittsburg State University, directs the Writing Across the Curriculum Program. She is author of Swindler, Spy, Rebel and Company Woman, both forthcoming in 1995.

DANIEL GREEN is an Assistant Professor of English at Pittsburg State University. REBECCA N. VINEY holds three degrees from Pittsburg State University. She is co-author of "For the Beauty of the Earth: A Hartshornean Ecological Aesthetic" in Proceedings of the Institute for Liberal Studies (1993).

Two resignations from the Board of Editors, by Gary L. McGrath and Gene E. Vollen, the latter retiring after service as a member of the Board since 1976 and as chair of the Music Department, along with the passing of Theodore M. Sperry noted in the last issue, have resulted in three additions to the Board.

DOUG CARMICHAEL, of the Biology Department at Pittsburg State, is a writer of poetry, fiction, political essays, newspaper articles, book reviews, and scientific research papers; a reader in his field of science (molecular evolution), as well as history, fiction, poetry, and political commentary; and, a lover of language, one who regards the communication of thought as the greatest human challenge.

MAEVE CUMMINGS is a Professor of Management Information Systems at this institution. She describes MIS as an interdisciplinary field which studies the delivery, presentation, use and effects of information within organizations, drawing from such fields as computer science, mathematics, economics, social and behavioral sciences, as well as the established business disciplines. She is particularly interested in Global Information Systems and the extent to which the perception of information and its dissemination are impacted by social and intellectual history and by cultural norms and traditions.

MARSHALL R. TURLEY has in one way or another been involved in music all his life. As a teacher of music, in finding ways to have students achieve success in their perfom1ances, he needed to know how learners learn. His doctoral studies fostered an interest in aesthetics and a philosophical approach to the concepts of understanding and music and how they relate to each other. His current diversions include sports, science fiction, mathematics, piano playing, choral ensembles, puzzles, and gardening.

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