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The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Contents

ARTICLES 

"To Step Lightly, Lightly, All the Way Through Your Ruins": James Wright's Ohio Poems 

"A Revolution in Locality": Astronomical Tropes in Emily Dickinson's Poetry  

Binary Opposition and Sexual Power in Paradise Lost 

Judith Hutter's Stunted Growth in James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer  

Gender and Language in Sons and Lovers  

Searching for the Fairy Child: A Psychoanalytic Study of Babbitt 

POEMS 

First-Comers 

Wife Beater's Song  

The Electrician 

Pastoral  

Amber 

Catching an Alluvial Wave  

Wren 

At the Edge of Summer  

Faith is a Circus Act 

A Place of Importance  

Karen Appel's Eyes 

Beth's Sunset 

The Days When Nothing Happens  

Howdy Checks Out  

Letter to My Children 

Picture This 

REVIEWS 

Barry Sanders; A Is for Ox: The Collapse of Literacy and the Rise of Violence in an Electronic Age 

Richard Kenney; The Invention of the Zero 

Kathleen DeGrave; Company Woman 

Kathleen DeGrave; Swindler, Spy, Rebel: The Confidence Woman in Nineteenth-Century America 

Abstract

WILLIAM V. DAVIS evokes James Wright's use of place, both geographic location and personal space, in poems set in the Ohio of his birth and early life. Author of criticism (in books such as Understanding Robert Bly, Critical Essays on Robert Bly, and Miraculous Simplicity: Essays on R. S. Thomas) and poetry (for example, One Way to Reconstruct the Scene, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, The Dark Hours, winner of the Calliope Press Chapbook Prize, published with his full middle name, Virgil), including both criticism and poems in the Midwest Quarterly, Davis is Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Baylor University.

JAMES R. GUTHRIE argues that science, and particularly astronomy, gave Emily Dickinson a language in which to describe the world she perceived in such a unique way. Guthrie teaches in the English Department at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He has published articles about Dickinson in the Emerson Society Quarterly, the Emily Dickinson Bulletin, and the Modern Language Association's Approaches to Teaching Emily Dickinson's Poetry.

GREG SMITH contends that far from misogyny, John Milton constructed complex figures in both Adam and Eve and attempted to deal with the failure of male-female binary opposites to define or control human sexuality, especially in Eve's initial triumph over Adam's supposed authority. Smith is a graduate student in Literature at Western Michigan University, and this essay is his first academic publication.

POLLY BRODY, Newtown, Connecticut, published poems recently in Potato Eyes, Poetpourri, Spoon River Poetry Review, and in an anthology, Earth Day 25 (Connecticut Department of Environmental Policy). Her work has also appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

JIM DANIELS' most recent books include M-80 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), and Niagara Falls (Adastra Press, 1994). He also edited the anthology, Letters to America: Contemporary Poetry on Race (Wayne State University Press, 1995). He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and directs the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University.

STEVEN ELLIS, State College, Pennsylvania, is electronic text librarian at Pennsylvania State University and a regular poetry reviewer for Library Journal.

CAROL GOODMAN published poems recently in New York Quarterly, RagMag, and The Long Islander. She lives on Long Island.

NICKIE GUNSTROM, Reno, Nevada, recently published poems in Jeopardy, California State Poetry Society Quarterly, and Mad Poets Review. Her work has also appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

FLEDA BROWN JACKSON's second book, Do Not Peel the Birches (Purdue University Press, 1993), was selected by Gerald Stern to receive the Verna Emery Prize. In 1994, Yarrow published a chapbook of her poems, The Earliest Home. Her work has also appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. She lives in Chesapeake City, Maryland.

JOEL LONG published poems in Prairie Schooner, Sonora Review, and Mid-American Review. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

WALTER MCDONALD's poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.

JO McDOUGALL has a book of poems forthcoming in 1996 from the University of Arkansas Press. Her poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. She lives in Pittsburg, Kansas.

VIRGINIA SLACHMAN, Cincinnati, Ohio, is former poetry editor of Aspen Anthology. Her chapbook, The Lance and Rita Poems, was published in 1994.

DAVID TUCKER lives and writes in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

RON WALLACE's fifth collection of poems, Time's Fancy (University of Pittsburgh Press) was published in 1994. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

DON WELCH, Kearney, Nebraska, published poems recently in Prairie Schooner and Georgia Review. His most recent book of poems is The Words Which Marry Me to You (University of Nebraska Press at Kearney). His poems have also appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

KRISTINA WRIGHT has published poems recently in Cold Mountain Review and Xine Magazine. She lives in Salisbury, North Carolina, and is an assistant poetry editor for Southern Poetry Review.

CELESTINE W. LIU examines the trials and judgments facing a frontier woman, and women in general, in James Fenimore Cooper's-America. Currently a graduate student at New York University pursuing a doctorate in English Romantic Literature and Shakespeare, Liu here publishes her first work of scholarship, though she has poetry printed in The Formalist and The Lyric.

EARL G. INGERSOLL's "new psychoanalytic criticism" applied to D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers reveals much about the early struggles of the key figures as they emerge into lives of their own. Ingersoll is Professor of English and Honors Director at the State University of New York College at Brockport. In addition to many articles on 19th- and 20- century writers, he has written Science and Technology in British Literature Since 1880 and has edited Doris Lessing's interviews for publication.

KENNETH R. MOREFIELD portrays the hero of Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt as an example of psychological progression from repressed representative of a society Lewis scathingly satires to a relatively healthy, functioning adult. Morefield teaches Rhetoric and Composition at Northern Illinois University where he received his M.A. in English Literature. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation, a study of twentieth-century Christian novelists.

DAVID D. COOPER is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University, where he teaches undergraduate course in the Department of American Thought and Language and graduate seminars in the American Studies Program. This widely published scholar's essay, "The Changing Seasons of Liberal Learning," appeared in the Winter 1996 issue of MWQ.

RICHARD HOLINGER teaches writing at Marmion Academy in Aurora, Illinois. His Ph.D. is from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he is currently working on "Chicago Sampler," a collection of short stories.

JO McDOUGALL is a poet who teaches writing and literature courses at Pittsburg State University. At the request of the Inauguration Committee, she read "A Place of Importance," a poem written to commemorate the recent inauguration of Dr. John Darling as the seventh President of Pittsburg State. It can be found among the poems included in this issue.

ELIZABETH MASONI teaches in the Department of English at Emporia State University and has done so for sixteen years. She claims the teaching of composition as her first love. Since 1988 she has been editor or co-editor of The Best of ESU, an annual publication of the best essays written by ESU undergraduates.

ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE THIRD ANNUAL VICTOR J. EMMETT, JR., MEMORIAL PRIZE

On behalf of the family of the late Professor Victor J. Emmett, Jr., the faculty of the English Department and the editors of The Midwest Quarterly are happy to announce the winner of the third Emmett Memorial Prize:

Harold P. Simonson, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Washington, for his essay, "The Dangers of Teaching Literature," which appeared in the Winter 1996 issue of The Midwest Quarterly.

Dr. Simonson will receive an honorarium provided by an endowment set up by the Emmett family and will be invited to Pittsburg State University to deliver the Emmett Memorial Lecture during the fall semester, 1996.

ANNOUNCING THE ANNUAL VICTOR J. EMMETT, Jr., MEMORIAL PRIZE AND LECTURE

The editors of The Midwest Quarterly invite submission of articles on any aspect of Victorian and Modem British literature, literary analysis, or the teaching of literature, to be considered for the annual Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Prize. The winning article will be published in The Midwest Quarterly, and the author will receive an honorarium and will be invited to Pittsburg State University to deliver the annual Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Lecture. The late Victor J. Emmett, Jr., was for many years Professor of English at Pittsburg State University and this journal's Editor- in-Chief.

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