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The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Contents

ARTICLES 

Subversion of The Prelude In Jacob's Room, or the Woolf Who Cried Wordsworth 

'What's Western' about Morris's The Field of Vision," My Students Ask 

Moodie, My Dad, Allen Ginsberg, and Me: Reflections on Wichita and 'Wichita Vortex Sutra" 

When a Walk is a Poem: Winter Morning Walks, A Chronicle of Survival, by Ted Kooser 

Similar Phenomena, Different Experiments? A Study of Thomas Hardy's Literary Influence on Theodore Dreiser 

POEMS 

The Monster Comtemplates Space 

Shakespeare Called the Moon a Moist Star 

Deeper Than An Ear 

Mostly Light 

Laying Siege to Summer 

The Fugitive Eve 

Hieroglyphics on the Tum-Stone 

How It Always Is 

Titles 

Overlooking Cold Spring Harbor 

In an Elizabethan Garden 

Chopin in North Dakota 

Blue Heron 

Native Language 

REVIEWS 

Louise Erdrich; Original Fire: Selected and New Poems 

Jack Lule; Daily News, Eternal Stories: The Mythological Role of Journalism 

Abstract

SHARON R. YANG argues that Virginia Woolf explicitly challenged the male-oriented worldview of the previous era's revolutionary vision. "By superseding The Prelude's literary figuration of Wordsworth, the 'young man, who is to lead the great poetic revolution of his age,' Virginia Woolf asserts herself as a leader of the revolution of her own age." Further, "the new truths she urges her readers to search out are neither easy to obtain nor to face." Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Languages and Literature at Worcester State College in Massachusetts, Yang teaches courses in British literature, mythology, women's studies, and film. She has published articles on Shakespeare's comedies, the Jungian underpinnings of Fritz Lang's Secret Beyond the Door, and the influences of Hamlet on The X-Files, and is currently working on a book-length study of "Female Guides and Guardians in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century British Pastoral Drama."

A. CARL BREDAHL begins with the Western hero where his students begin, with the lonely figure battling the odds. Coping with human situations, with responsibilities where others are concerned, seems difficult for such characters. "Packaging (hoarding) western writing under the label 'western' makes it safe, negates the challenge, removes it from our lives." Indeed, "such hoarding isolates," while Wright Morris looks to "grouping or marshalling of energies preparatory to acting," with "each individual within his stories as a centering of force which either negatives or contributes" to outward movement. Professor of American Literature at the University of Florida, Bredahl has a special interest in western American writing and the work of contemporary Native Americans. In addition to two Fulbright Awards, he has written numerous articles on topics ranging from Charles Brockden Brown to Tom Wolfe and has books on Melville and Hemingway as well as New Ground: Western American Narrative and the Literary Canon (University of North Carolina Press, 1989).

GARY SCHARNHORST recounts an example of cultural myopia in Wichita, Kansas, during the 1960s when the powers that then were acted to shut down a local establishment given to hosting readings of poetry. Scharnhorst' s father played a role in the repression that only the son regretted. Allen Ginsberg came to Wichita and brought it the sort of lasting infamy a poet of Ginsberg's power could command. Professor of English at the University of New Mexico, editor of American Literary Realism, and editor in alternating years of American Literary Scholarship: An Annual, Scharnhorst has a commendably long list of projects to be found at Amazon.com.

BRYAN D. DIETRICH's first book, Krypton Nights, was recently published by Zoo Press. His poetry has appeared in Paris Review, The Nation, Yale Review, Prairie Schooner, Missouri Review, Nimrod, and numerous other journals. His awards include the 2001 Paris Review Poetry Prize, the "Discovery"/The Nation Award, a Writers-at-Work Fellowship, and the Eve of St. Agnes Prize. He lives in Wichita, Kansas.

TESS FARNHAM, St. Louis, Missouri, is an adjunct instructor of English at Southwestern Illinois College where she also edits the student literary journal. In 1997 she was a fellow in the Bucknell University Seminar for Younger Poets. This is her first publication outside the creative writing program at Washington University, where she received her M. F. A. in 2000.

SHAWN FAWSON has published poetry in Sou'wester, Spoon River Poetry Review, Bitter Oleander, and other journals. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

JEREMY FINKELMAN's poems have also appeared in The American Poetry Review and Boulevard. He lives in Denver, Pennsylvania.

ALLEN C. FISCHER has published poems in American Literary Review, Indiana Review, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. A former director of marketing for a nationwide corporation, Fischer now splits his time between Saugerties and Brooklyn, New York.

AMY FLEURY's poetry and fiction have appeared in North American Review, 21st, Prairie Schooner, and other journals. She has received fellowships from the Kansas Arts Commission and the MacDowell Colony. Her book, Beautiful Trouble, won the 2003 Crab Orchard First Award and will be published by Southern Illinois University Press in October, 2004. She lives in Topeka, Kansas.

JAMES GRABILL's book of poems, An Indigo Scent after the Rain, was published by Lynx House in 2003. His poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, New Letters, Colorado Review, Willow Springs, and many other journals. Grabill lives in Portland, Oregon. His poems have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

ROBERT GREGORY, Lexington, Kentucky, has published three books of poems, Inferences (Poltroon, 1987), Boy Picked Up By The Wind (Bluestem, 1992), and Change, The Skinny Man (Lynx House, 2003), and one chapbook, Clouds & Green Police (Mudlark #17, 2001). His poems have appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, Willow Springs, Many Mountains Moving, and other journals.

WILLIAM KLOEFKORN is Professor Emeritus of English at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. His most recent collections of poetry are Sergeant Patrick Gass, Chief Carpenter: On the Trail with Lewis & Clark and Sunrise, Dayglow, Sunset, Moon. His memoir, Restoring the Burnt Child, was published in 2003 by the University of Nebraska Press. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

VIVIAN MALLOY, Huntington, New York, has published poems recently in Poet Lore and The Underwood Review. Now newly retired, Malloy once worked as a college teacher and then a public relations writer.

ELISABETH MURAWSKI has published one book, Moon and Mercury, and one chapbook, Troubled by an Angel. Her poems have appeared in Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Grand River, crazyhorse, and other journals. A native of Chicago, she now lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

THOM TAMMARO is the author of two collections of poems, When the Italians Came to My Home Town and Minnesota Suite. He has edited several anthologies, including Inheriting the Land: Contemporary Voices from the Midwest (1993) and Imagining Home: Writing from the Midwest (1995), both from the University of Minnesota Press. His poems have also appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly. He lives in Moorhead, Minnesota.

DIANE THIEL has published two books of poetry, Echolocations (2000) and Writing Your Rhythm (2001) and has a book of creative non-fiction and another book of poems forthcoming in 2004. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, and Best American Poetry 1999, and are reprinted in numerous anthologies. She was a Fulbright Scholar for 2001-2002. She is on the faculty at the University of New Mexico and lives in Placitas.

HELEN WALLACE has published poetry in Tampa Review, Kalliope, The Literary Review, and other journals. She has received an Academy of American Poets Award and a Tennessee Williams Poetry Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers Conference. She teaches writing workshops at Eckerd College and lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

MARY K. STILLWELL tracks poet Ted Kooser's life experiences with his "walk" poems, revealing the small journeys that make up the substance of existence. "Kooser's Walks is a diary of the everyday, revealing a populated landscape, one with its share of human artifacts . . . . " "As surely as the stacked stones collected along an ancient quarry road . . . Kooser has reported his journey with such precision . . . [that when] we take the trip to our own personal quarry, we can carry the poet's map of survival as both our inspiration and our guide." A doctoral student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Stillwell has published two scholarly articles on poetry and poems in many journals, along with a book of poems, Moving to Malibu (Sandhills Press).

JIE LU uses two novels, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles and Theodore Dreiser's Jennie Gerhardt, to "probe the question of how these two works could be so near to each other yet so distinctively depicted, and how one author of one society is influenced by the other and at the same time keeps his own artistic originality and particular thematic insight." As she demonstrates, Dreiser reflected Hardy but had his own purposes and emotional commitment to his characters' situations. Jie Lu is a doctoral student in the Department of English at Kent State University, where she is a teaching fellow. This is her second published article.

DENISE LOW chairs the English Department at Haskell Indian Nations University. Her New and Selected Poems: 1970-1999 was published by Penthe Press. Her poetry and reviews have appeared previously in The Midwest Quarterly.

ARTHUR SCHERR is Assistant Professor of History at Kingsborough Community College, one of the twenty colleges of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn. His field of specialization is the history of American journalism, on which he has published several articles and a book, I Married Me A Wife: Male Attitudes Toward Women in the American Museum, 1787-1792 (Lexington Books, 1999). He has previously contributed articles and reviews to The Midwest Quarterly.

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