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The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Contents

ARTICLES

Soundings and Alarums: The Beginnings of Short Fiction in America

Tom Sawyer, Sturdy Centenarian

The Contrapuntal Complexity of Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark

The Primitive World of Vardis Fisher: The Idaho Novels

The Teacher as Outsider in the Works of William Inge

Fifty Years, Mrs. Carter: The Poetry of John Woods

NOTES

The Main Street Era

Lord Chesterfield Meets Yankee Doodle: Royall Tyler's The Contrast

POETRY

The Descent

Grace Rodzinsky' s First Cocktail Party

Joe, What'd You Do in the War?

The Boar

Morning by the Interstate

In a Country Cemetery in Iowa

Drinking Wine with a Map of Montana

Hunting Indian Relics in Iowa

Treehouse

The Weapon

A Toast for the End of Winter

Fireflies

The Autogyro Poem

The Boy Who Drank All His Milk

Abstract

IN THIS JULY, 1976 ISSUE of The Midwest Quarterly, we celebrate the Bicentennial of the American Revolution by devoting our space entirely to American literature.

EUGENE CURRENT-GARCIA, who traces the beginnings of American short fiction in our early magazines, teaches at Auburn University, where he edits the Southern Humanities Review. He is the author of the volume on O. Henry for the Twayne series and has co-edited four anthologies of short fiction. Many of his published articles deal with American fiction.

ROBERT L. COARD, who shows us Tom Sawyer in new perspectives, teaches at Saint Cloud State University. He has published numerous articles on Mark Twain and Sinclair Lewis, two of them in The Midwest Quarterly.

ROBERT ROULSTON, who explores the use of musical form in Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark, teaches English at Murray State University in Kentucky.

JOHN R. MILTON, who calls our attention to some neglected novels by Vardis Fisher, teaches at the University of South Dakota, where he edits The South Dakota Review. He has published books and numerous articles on western fiction and western history, including conversations with several western novelists.

MARILYN MITCHELL, who writes about teachers in the works of William Inge, is an alumna of KSCP who teaches at Wayne State University. She appeared recently in Southwest Review.

PHILLIP DACEY teaches at Southwest Minnesota State College. His work was recently represented in Heartland II: Poets of the Midwest (Northern Illinois University Press), edited by Lucien Stryk.

DAVE ETTER lives in St. Charles, Illinois. His poems have appeared in a number of magazines including The Midwest Quarterly and have been anthologized.

STUART FRIEBERT directs the creative writing program at Oberlin. His chapbook, Stories My Father Can Tell, appeared last year from Pocketpal Press.

BEN HOWARD teaches at Alfred University in Alfred, New York.

CHRISTOPHER HOWELL is editor of the Lynx House Press in Amherst, Massachussetts.

TED KOOSER will publish a new book with Pentagram Press later this year. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

GIBBONS RUARK teaches at the University of Delaware. While on sabbatical last year in Italy, he completed a new book of poems.

THOM TAMMARO is completing a doctorate at Ball State University. His poems have appeared in a number of magazines, including The Midwest Quarterly.

WARREN WOESSNER works as a chemist in Madison, Wisconsin, where he edits Abraxas. His most recent collection of poems, Landing, was published by Ithica House.

JOHN WOODS teaches at Western Michigan University. Last year he was Distinguished Poet in Residence at Purdue. His sixth book of poems, Striking The Earth, is available from the Indiana University Press.

DAVE SMITH, who surveys the poetry of John Woods, will be the new Director of Creative Writing at the University of Utah this fall. His poems appear frequently in The New Yorker. His third collection is Cumberland Station (Southern Illinois University Press). RAYMOND FLORY, who notes some characteristics of the Main Street era, teaches at McPherson College.

ROBERTA F. S. BORKAT, whose observations on Royall Tyler's The Contrast bring us back to the eastern seaboard and the early years of the republic, where we began this issue, teaches at San Diego State University. She has published articles on eighteenth-century literature and, in The Midwest Quarterly, on Robert Frost.

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