Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Edited with the assistance of over 200 distinguished contributing editors--including Andre Dubus, Joyce Carol Oates, Rosellen Brown, Rick Bass, Carolyn Kizer, Edward Hoagland, Rita Dove, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sandra Tsing Loh, and Sharon Olds--this volume celebrates over 60 stories, essays, and poems from dozens of little magazines and small presses. It seems that the more commercial publishers consolidate into a few companies, the more small presses capture and encourage what is truly lasting and important in our literary culture. Each edition of The Pushcart Prize has increased from strength to strength as the small presses expand in influence and energy. The reviews and features for last year's edition confirmed this strength. "A generous and stimulatingly eclectic selection of fiction, poetry and essays--the biggest anthology in the 21-year history of the Pushcart Press," said Publishers Weekly in a starred review. "The largest and most adventurous volume so far," commented Booklist. "The Pushcart Prize has become a literary institution . . . perhaps the single best measure of the state of affairs in American literature today," noted the New York Times. Books in this series have been named "a Notable Book of the year" several times by the New York Times Book Review; winner of the Publishers Weekly Carey-Thomas Award.
Table of Contents
Courting a monk /Katherine Min --Demonology /Rick Moody --Elegy ending in the sound of a skipping rope /Larry Lewis --Beauty treatment /Stacey Richter --Ode to meaning /Robert Pinsky --Grounded /Claire Davis --Balloon /Mary Ruefle --Preacher /Steve Yarbrough --Stonehenge /Albert Goldbarth --Women dreaming of Jerusalem /Rachel Kadish --Atomic bride /Thomas Sayers Ellis --Give the millionaire a drink /Mike Newirth --What the water knows /Sam Hamill --Jessica, the hound & the casket trade /Thomas Lynch --Living with stripes /Kay Ryan --Oxygen /Ron Carlson --Blacklegs /Brigit Kelly --Not the plaster casters /Janice Eidus --What the animals teach us /Chard deNiord --New York days, 1958-1964 /Charles Simic --Karma Lollipop /Albert Saijo --Out of the woods /Josip Novakovich --Missing it /Dan Brown --Twelve plagues /Gerald Shapiro --Matinee idylls /Molly Bendall --We have time /Paul L. Allman --Door /Dana Levin --Knowing your place /Sylvia Watanabe --Executive suite /Michael Heffernan --Carp /Jessica Roeder --No turn on red /Richard Jackson --Kiss /Pamela Painter --Troubadour /David St. John --For the relief of unbearable urges /Nathan Englander --Davy Cricket /David Hayward --Umbilicus /James Alan McPherson --That half is almost gone /Marilyn Chin --Forest /Andrea Barrett --Fragments from the burnt notebooks of O. Fleming /Frank Polite --Civilization /Tom§as Filer --Oysters and other workers /Turner Cassity --Wings /Kristin King --For the young men who died of AIDS /Julia Vinograd --Rhyming action /Charles Baxter --Lipstick tree /Kiana Davenport --Souls /Dannie Abse --Dentaphilia /Julia Slavin --L.A. dream #2 /Maureen Seaton --Native daughter /Lee Smith --Breathing lessons /Rane Arroyo --Two accidents : reflections on chance and creativity /Lewis Hyde --On the failure named Bosnia /P.H. Liotta --Famous torn and restored lit cigarette trick /Elizabeth Gilbert --Invierno /Junot Diaz --Sparrow /Reginald Gibbons --Return of the Boyceville flash /Gordon Weaver --Old Woodrat's sticky house /Gary Snyder --Jamming traffic /Rita Ariyoshi --Van Leeuwenhoek : 1675 /Linda Bierds --Appropriation of cultures /Percival Everett --Some information about 23 years of existence /Jeff Clark --Secret names of whores /Donald Rawley --Body parts (1968) /Bin Ramke --Killer whales /Susan Daitch --El Perif§erico, or sleep /Joshua Clover --Zenobia /Gina Berriault --Man who wouldn't plant willow trees /A.E. Stallings --At least thirteen ways of looking at look /Gordon Lish --Nude detective, a complaint /Dorothy Barresi --Gooseberry marsh /Gretchen Legler --Vous etes plus beaux que vous ne pensiez /Kenneth Koch --Jaget /Anne Carson --Scar Vegas /Tom Paine --Coat /Flannery O'Connor.